Dollhouse: Stage Fright
March 1, 2009 by Cameron Cubbison
Filed under Television
Never let your guard down. Never let her out of your sight. Never fall in love. Oh wait, never mind. That’s the tagline for The Bodyguard, not the third episode of Dollhouse. If you’ve seen both though, you’ll understand why I got confused. This latest installment of Dollhouse is really The Bodyguard 2.0, except instead of a really enjoyable star vehicle with Kevin Costner in full-on awesome Steve McQueen mode, you get Eliza Dushku. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a lot of fun to watch and she has a good energy about her, but this whole episode really does feel like a cheap retread.
Even the crazy stalker guy who is after the pop singer that Echo is assigned to protect looks exactly like the crazy stalker guy after Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard. And that’s really saying something, because the guy in the movie was so off-looking and creepy. They must be related, maybe the Dollhouse stalker is The Bodyguard stalker guy’s son. I almost wet myself they looked so much alike. And on a completely unrelated note, the guy that plays the obnoxious pop star’s manager is the same actor who played the thug at the South African consulate in the hilarious scene in Lethal Weapon 2 where Danny Glover, with Joe Pesci’s help, pretends he wants to emigrate to South Africa.
But yeah, so just to be absolutely clear, in this episode, Echo’s “engagement” is to protect a pop star diva from an obsessive fan who wants to kill her. She is to do this by getting hired as a backup singer so she can stay close to the pop star, try to gain her trust and learn who is after her. Everything plays out exactly as you would expect. Pop Star throws hissy fit. Pop Star warms to Echo. Pop Star changes her mind. Echo tries to save her. Pop Star fires Echo. You get the idea. It’s a watchable story and perfectly entertaining, but nothing more. There is a little bit of action, but nothing spectacular. And of course, I still just don’t really buy the central concept of the show. The amount of effort it would take and money to conduct such an organization seems to outweigh the benefits that these programmed operatives can offer. And the show really needs to start giving viewers a sense of where these operatives come from, and how and why they got involved in such a nefarious enterprise.
The subplot with Agent Ballard trying to track down the Dollhouse grows a little more interesting, and there is a puzzling twist with his informant. We also get some nice moments with Langton, Echo’s handler. But there doesn’t really seem to be a connective progression between the episodes. There is no sense that the show is headed somewhere with any sense of propulsion. Dushku continues to impress in the role; she is a tv star that deserves her own show. Dollhouse is growing on me slowly, but I don’t think it has emerged as everything it should be. But I will keep watching and people looking for a little bit of popcorn entertainment could do worse.
Season 1, Episode 3: Stage Fright (originally aired February 27, 2009)
For more on Dollhouse, click here.
Fridays at 9/8C on Fox
