Top 5(or 6) Dollhouse Episodes

Dollhouse was the last breath of greatness of a truly monumental decade of television, and it carried over into 2010 with three outstanding episodes that concluded once and for all a flawed if mostly great series. This writer could think of no other network, or even cable series which engaged (and at best brilliantly so) the sc-fi concepts that even mainstream cinema had gone through in the past 15 years in the form of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Cell, The Matrix and Existenz. Dollhouse was just as socially relevant as BSG, and as vivid a portrait of a surrogate family's coming together as any of Whedon's other works. While it may have initially received critical flack, I personally believe that it was even greater then Firefly, which if you'd believe the writings of every writer and blogger was a flawless series which didn't fall face flat on it's western concept for time to time as much as Dollhouse failed in it's early run to make the personality a week aspect entertaining. It was a powerful look into the underlying truths of human character regardless of how many times the tech enhanced, destroyed, or even attempted illuminate them. And at it's most moving Dollhouse showed human beings struggling to do the right thing, to define themselves against a world where class, money and subsequently power were put over human decency, morality and that ever present pandora's box that this technology opened up.



The Public Eye/The Left Hand - This magnificent paranoid thriller is a beautifully constructed work that further develops the idea of the all powerful corporation Rossum in a chillingly precedent light, and it's filled with so many wild tonal changes in it's 80 minutes running time you have to give it credit even when it feels overstuffed. For example it has the great Summer Glau convincing ranging from cold blooded psychopath to smitten science nerd at the alter of Topher (and he responds in kind with a hilarious reference to the The Fury) and at the center it's got a compelling performance from Alexis Denisof, much missed under Whedon after his great work in Angel Season 5. Denisof plays the ideal left leaning democrat whose own sense of identity becomes murky by episode's end, showing that even the possibility of free will carries with it the potential for evil.

The Attic - The Attic was referenced throughout much of season 1 and 2, it was an ever present threat for both active and handler, a handy tool for the Rossum corporation's failures in science and in business when murder was just a little too counter productive. Of course we never really knew what the Attic was until this extraordinary episode. The Attic belongs in that great tradition of sub conscious explorations that Joss Whedon provided us with in Restless, and numerous other dream sequences in his various series. It's a poetic, thrilling, often surreal work and served as a devastating follow up to the series richly woven mythology relating to 2019, where society as a result of massive corporate greed has fallen into chaos. It's got Dominic back this time guiding Echo through the mental mainframes of Rossum, and Sierra and Victor engaging in their own meta battles/horrors. But like Epitaph One before it, The Attic ends on a powerful sense of hope for moral decency in a world that values power more then the sanctity of human life.

A Spy in the House of Love - The first truly great Dollhouse episode after excellent outings on Man in the Street and Needs, used it's non linear narrative beautifully not only to give the viewer a greater idea of the people inside the Dollhouse but to build up the mythology in ways that still resonates in episode like The Attic. Here characters like Dominic and Adelle are humanized, with their various motivations becoming both tragic and compelling under this episodes light. November's reveal to Ballard was both heartbreaking and chilling for it's impact on him and his willingness to take advantage of it. And again we witness Echo forming something of a identity, becoming self aware in the face of a threat to her existence. Of course to top it all off we have Sierra in kick ass "Alias" mode running manic through the halls of the NSA.

Belonging - Belonging was one of 2009's ballsiest episodes especially in a second season that had already set out it's cards on the table about it's thematic goals. Specifically the devaluation and exploitation of human life by the corporate powers that be. How many shows take their main characters and make them accomplices to what amounts to rape, and then in the most horrific way possible has them face the bloody consequences of said actions. It was largely a tragedy where Dichen Lachman's Sierra was exploited by forces both familiar and largely unseen (chillingly embodied by Vincent Ventresca and the great Keith Carradine). But it was the character of Topher who most moved, and unnerved. We witness his conscience come out fully, as he realizes to his horror his part in Sierra's fate, and clueless to it's long term ramifications allows free will to take it's course. On another note Belonging in a moving chapter in the Sierra/Victor love narrative, on that again shows human resilience to science and capitalism. It's a nice dose of light, in what amounts to one of the darkest episodes on television...if not for...

Epitaph One - The game changer that those of us who love this show have talked about ever since it was realized on DVD. A 42 minute glimpse into our collective future, and how the characters of the Dollhouse responded. The first great thing about this episode is that it makes the viewer care about a group of characters we barely know (and in some cases characters we never thought we could even care about). It's the urgency with which Whedon and company have drawn 2019 that we understand immediately their bitterness, exhaustion and fear. It's a world fully formed, occupied by characters long devoid of real hope, and yet they enter the beating heart where it all began and learn how those responsible, even the worst among them, recognized the horror of what they were a part of and tried to do something about it. Each flashback is a testimonial that speaks to this time and place, drawing a vivid portrait of how science was used for among other things, corporate greed, human malice, apathy, the obsession for the physical to the determent of the spiritual. It did it with as much immediacy as series such as BSG and Lost have mustered. Beyond this bleak vision lies Whedon's belief in human resiliency against insurmountable forces, where the likes of Buffy Summers, Angel and Mal Reynolds battled to half victory's and in some instances sure defeats. So such is it here where we know for certain that the battle may be lost, yet humanity still lives for a new day.