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Dollhouse on Fox

Joss Whedon’s much-hyped and roundly-panned new series Dollhouse (Fox, Fridays at 10:00 p.m.), presents a very disconcerting premise.  Individuals (known as “Dolls” or “Actives”) are hired by wealthy clients to have their memories wiped clean and imprinted with personalities and skills according to the clients’ wishes and desires.  Basically, it’s high-tech prostitution for the series’ lead, a young woman named Echo.  The February 20^th episode showcased a psychopath’s fantasy weekend brimming with enough sex and violence to make the episode the Worst TV Show of the Week.

When Richard Connell arranges for an “engagement,” the Dollhouse’s unsuspecting madam ensures him that “everything you want, everything you need, [Echo] will be – honestly and completely.”  Unbeknownst to her, it’s Richard’s honesty that should be questioned. 

The “engagement” begins adventurously, with Richard and Echo careening down frothy, churning rapids.  After rock-climbing, they have sex in a tent.  Echo lies on top of a breathless Richard.  They are presumably naked inside a sleeping bag, post coitus.

RICHARD:  “Is there anything you're not good at?” 

ECHO:  “I think that little thing I did with my tongue could use some work.” 

RICHARD:  “You really are the perfect woman.”

Echo is ready for another round of sexual intercourse, but Richard tells her that it’s time to go. 

RICHARD: “There's just enough daylight left to make it back to the main road.  Might even flag a ride outta here before I catch up…You need to stop talking now and start running.  I'll give you a five-minute head start.”  Richard picks up a bow and arrow.  “And then I'm coming after you."

Richard spends the rest of the episode sadistically hunting Echo for sport.  She finds a cabin and drinks water from a canteen – but the water turns out to be poisoned.  In Echo’s delusional state, she hallucinates and uncovers some of her repressed memories.

While Echo runs through the forest, her past trauma haunts her.  She remembers a massacre at the Dollhouse perpetrated by an Active that went berserk, leaving her the sole survivor.  During another flashback, she remembers being surrounded by dead Actives in a shower.  They are all naked and have heinous cuts all over their bodies, as a silhouetted Active stands over her with blood dripping from his knife. 

Eventually, Richard catches up to Echo for the final showdown.  She tackles him and starts punching him in the face.  He knocks her over and attempts to strangle her.  Echo grabs a nearby arrow and stabs him in the neck with it.  He soon bleeds to death.

Once Echo has returned to the Dollhouse, her memories of the recent “engagement” are erased…and she is ready for the next client to rent her body. 

Fans of Whedon’s past shows – Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly – lauded him for strong female characters and rich allegories in his plots.  This show, however, is exploitative and empty.  It indulges sick sexual fantasies and glamorizes identity slavery.  The far-fetched concept claims to offer something new and dynamic to television; but in truth, Whedon follows the same tired formula of sex and violence that pollutes the rest of the broadcast airwaves.  For this reason. Dollhouse has been named Worst TV Show of the Week.