Reay Jespersen

Echo (Eliza Dushku) is a woman who has agreed to go into a covert ops program in order to make up for - or perhaps get out of jail time for - a mysterious something she’d done previously. We don’t know how much she’s told about the program, but what we soon discover is that it involves people having their memories and personalities wiped clean in order to pave the way for later programming. If a client of the program’s company front needs any kind of professional catered to his particular situation, the company can program one of their agents to fit the bill perfectly.

In this series opener, a millionaire’s daughter is kidnapped for randsom. The millionaire approaches the company, needing a negotiator to ensure the transaction goes off problem-free. Echo is called upon, and programmed with the designed personality and history of someone who would be ideal for this kind of job. Echo shows up at the millionaire’s house and immediately takes control of the situation, clearly unaware that she’s anything except who her memories and abilities say she is. It’s only when the millionaire brings her programmed “expertise” into question that things begin to go wrong: Echo has a couple of flashbacks to seeing another woman in pain, being prepped in the Dollhouse’s programming room.
Meanwhile, we find out that there’s a cop who’s determined that the mythical Dollhouse is a real thing and is getting raked over the coals by his superiors for having gone to dangerous and case-threatening extremes in order to prove it. He’s told to back off and agrees to do so, but only before continuing on the investigation as he had regardless.
When Echo and the millionaire show up to make the exchange of money for the young girl, the problems increase: Echo recognizes one of the kidnappers and starts to come unravelled. It turns out that the personality which was tailor-made for her happens to include the personality of one of the childhood victims of the same kidnapper, who it’s revealed is also a pedophile.
As the covert ops team reels from the blow of this faux pas combined with the client almost being killed during the exchange-gone-wrong, Echo and her former cop handler (Harry Lennix) push forward to help resolve the situation as quickly as possible.
When all is dealt with, Echo is wiped clean again and is put to bed with the other mindless/personality-free agents.
At the very end we get a small taste of things to come, however: the company has become aware of a problem with Alpha, who we find in an apparent residence where he has killed the occupants and is watching a college video of the woman Echo once was as he puts a picture of her in an envelope.

As big a splash as the show had every right to make - Joss Whedon has a number of pop and cult TV shows to his credit - there were unfortunately a number of problems with this premiere of Dollhouse. First and foremost is the fact that the main character, played by Dushku, is effectively a non-person. The only personality she has, save the hinted-at troubled woman off the top, is programmed into her. And when she’s not programmed, she’s a hollow being who drifts dream-like around the Dollhouse, along with all the other agents. That the audience can’t connect with the main character of a new show was an odd choice to make.
Secondly, there were a number of minutes near the top of the show which had Echo and some mysterious guy racing around town on motorcycles; apparently part of his birthday celebration, where he and Echo then danced with friends before he confesses he seems to be falling for her. He gives her a small gold heart on a necklace shortly before she leaves the party. The mystery man, for his part, seemed to be understanding, telling a friend of his that the time was up and she had to leave. But does he know who or what she is? We’ve no idea. All we do know is that this seems to a program she’s playing out, as it then gets wiped out and isn’t referred to again.
And finally, while we get to see a glimpse of Alpha - someone who will apparently be a villain (or at least foil) for the company or Echo personally - it felt like too little a hint to go on. That absolutely everything about this person has to be revealed in pending episodes feels an unnecessary amount of detail to have to wait for. Who is he? Why does he seem to have gone rogue from the company? Why is he focused on Echo? Why does he apparently not mind killing people in the pursuit of that focus? A bit more information to go on would’ve gone far in helping build the foundation of this world. Perhaps the company could’ve mentioned his name earlier, or had a brief discussion in passing about Alpha’s mis-programmed obsession with Echo and how he’s still at large or causing problems for them, or hints that he and Echo had a past together which he’s started remembering and which he wants her to remember as well. Something - anything - rather than just a mysterious someone doing a mysterious something for some reason (with respect to a character the audience thus far can’t connect with) would’ve helped.

I’ll catch the next show or two to see where it takes us. But without any must-see moments to be had or character/story arcs, and unless we get some insight and something to care about and tune in to follow in pretty short order, I’ll take a pass on the series.