Television: Dollhouse Ep. 1.8: Needs

Hey to all dolls and handlers...

Ok so I know I've been lacking in the Dollhouse recaps. I blame work. Evil, retail work that causes me to be leaving my job at the time Dollhouse airs. And thus falling a couple of episodes behind. I know! For shame!

But here we are, the Sunday after the airing of Needs, another kick-ass episode from the house of Whedon.

What an awesome mislead in the promo for the episode and the way that it started, leading the audience to believe Sierra, Victor, November (as we find out is Mellie's "doll" name) and Echo have suddenly woken up with their real personalities... only no memories. We find out before the opening credits that DeWitt planned this all!

Seeing the "true" Victor made me really fall in love with the character. He's funny, he's strong, from the last episode we've had a glimpse into his memories of being in the military so we know he's got his certain strategic way of thinking... and we learn how much he cares for Sierra, even if he doesn't remember everything about their relationship. It's an interesting touch on love being deeper than memory or experience. Oh Joss, you and your deeper levels.

Was it just me or did Sierra's accent come and go? The actress is Australian, so the accent is her natural speech, but it seems like it came and went a lot this episode. It was strange and I'm not sure if it was necessarily purposeful.

So Sierra goes and confronts her demons, the man who raped her in her true life, and we find out November/Mellie had a daughter who passed away. Echo/Caroline gets to have her moment as savior which was kind of moving... though I'm not sure that I like Caroline. She's over-zealous activist girl, and it gets a little grating. It's not the acting, it's just the character herself. And Victor gets the girl. Which was kind of the lamest of all of them.

And so with closure, now they stop glitching? It sounds interesting but knowing Joss, not without it's problems.

I'm still DYING to see Alpha, or at least have him a part of an episode if not SEEN and I'm hoping next week's episode to sniff out the inside spy will have more about what Alpha is doing.

In not so great news, Dollhouse's ratings are steadily dropping. There's rumors of it getting cancelled. It better not be another Firefly case, where I buy the DVDs but it's painful for me to watch because I get progressively angrier with each episode that it didn't get to develop further.

Well, until next time... another week, another imprint.