OK, I’m a junkie, I have to admit it. Strange fiction attracts me, so, strange science fiction on TV draws me in too. I like this series about the Stargate Universe, or Eureka, or Flash Forward… but also a bizarre Fox series called The Dollhouse.
The Dollhouse is supposed to be some super secret private lab where they have developed this neural technology to erase a person’s personality and memories (saving it on a chip for later imprinting). They then wipe the memories from the person, then later imprint the person with a pre-programmed memory, skill-set, and mission. The missions are, pretty much, open to the demands of their cliental.
Presumably, each ‘doll’ has voluntarily agreed to a five year contract where, for some undisclosed amount of money, they will let the Dollhouse use them at their will… they may become assassins, prostitutes, mothers, wives (it is mostly women, but with a handful of men too) and ideally, they won’t remember a thing. In the mean time, they get to live in a pretty idyllic world… wood paneling, yoga classes over koi ponds, group showers…
Between each assignment, their memories are wiped clean. When their contract is up, then they are re-imprinted with their original memory and personality and so they may go on their way, none the worse… but, of course, in fiction, there are always wrinkles.
One ‘Doll’, named Echo (think Alpha, Bravo… Delta, Echo…November… Zeta), played by Eliza Dushku, begins to remember her past lives… and starts to maintain an identity across all of these ‘treatments’, and so she becomes the ‘ghost in the machine’ (sorry, you’re going to have to google Anime on that one).
It doesn’t hurt that Eliza is pretty hot, or that she can (supposedly) be programed to be your slut, or kick your ass in a fight; this is FOX programming at its finest!
But what I find interesting about the show, is that it is an allegory to our own lives. The dolls in the show have no idea who they really are. And yet, they have flashes of other lives, other personalities. They learn that they are perhaps not the person that they thought they were, and they long to know more.
So, I find myself rooting for the dolls to become self-aware, to know who they really are (and hopefully be OK with their contractual obligations).
Urban Sannyasin 