Dollhouse: Killer Dolls

The Dollhouse accidentally unleashes a serial killer on this latest episode, which really failed to hold my interest. I don’t think the show is long for this world, especially with the abysmal ratings this season has garnered thus far. I think a real problem for me is Firefly. If I had never seen and loved that show or the follow-up film Serenity, and if I didn’t associate them with Joss Whedon, I might go easier on Dollhouse. But the cold, cerebral Dollhouse forever pales in comparison to the passionate, exciting, evolving, enjoyable Firefly. That’s it really.

As we open this week, a serial killer has abducted four women and drugged them with an animal paralyzing agent. He has essentially turned them into human mannequins and enjoys posing them. But then he gets slammed by a car and goes into a coma in the hospital. His well-connected uncle ships him over to the Dollhouse and arranges to have his mind imprinted into Victor in order to find out where the kidnapped women are.

Echo, meanwhile, is basically sent out on an engagement as a prostitute. She becomes Kiki, a college student of a medieval literature professor who is hoping to…tutor her in the ways of…need I go on? Ballard, as her handler, is supposed to accompany her on this mission, but Boyd comes and takes his place, much to Ballard’s relief. Why? Because Adelle wants Ballard, with his FBI training, to profile Victor (as the serial killer). He’s all too happy to do this instead of babysitting Echo on a loser, creepy mission.

The problem is that Echo is mainly sidelined for the entire episode. She has nothing to do with the main plot thread of the episode. She is the B storyline. Why the hell would you ever have the protagonist of your show be a minor character? Not a good choice writers.

Of course you know everything is going to get gummed up. Serial killer Victor escapes the Dollhouse and goes out on an L.A. rampage. And for some reason I can’t remember, the Dollhouse people can’t track him. So Adelle tells Topher to come up with some way to remote wipe Victor, as being the moralist that she is, she doesn’t want to have serial killer victims on her conscience.

So we see Topher scrambling around, making computer nerd comments and looking frazzled, saying it can’t be done. But of course, it can be done, and we know he will find some way to make it happen. What he comes up with is turning off the biorhythm thingamajig that monitors the vitals of all the Actives so that he can then flatline Victor. Or something like that. But when he does that, he transplants Victor’s serial killer personality into Echo’s, and then that messes up her romantic prostitution outing with her professor. You can imagine what goes from there.

Nothing builds in this episode. Ballard doesn’t get closer to taking down the Dollhouse, and Echo doesn’t remember anything about her past. This entire episode is expendable, a waste. I’m really not into this show at all anymore. I’ll be interested to see Summer Glau come aboard in a few weeks, but then again, I’ll probably just be looking at her and pretending I’m watching Firefly instead of this mess of a show.

Season 2, Episode 3: Belle Chose (originally aired October 9, 2009)

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Fridays at 9/8C on Fox

Photographs courtesy of Fox and IMDbPro