The Dark Furie

The show focuses primarily on "Echo" (played by Eliza Dushku - best known as Faith from Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel), one of the most requested dolls. Each episode she goes on an assignment, programmed with a new personality and must face different challenges, finally getting wiped back to her docile state at the end of each engagement. As the show goes on she starts to remember different parts of her past, sometimes retaining tiny parts od the personality she just took on, other times recalling her own history. As she acts on these impulses she increasingly becomes a danger to herself and a key player in the power struggles going on at the Dollhouse.

Dollhouse
There are several Dollhouses in cities around the world that reprogram people, but the show focuses on the Los Angeles Dollhouse. They are tied to the highest levels of government and law enforcement in each country making it almost impossible to investigate them. As the Dollhouse is underground and sounds like a science fiction concept most people consider it to be an urban legend. Due to Echo's incresing evolution in her docile state, as well as the evolution of other key dolls, and other events the Los Angeles house is having problems. They're under investigation by a lone FBI agent (played by Tahmoh Penikett - best known as Helo in Battlestar Galactica) who got stuck with the job as punishment but pursues it doggedly with help from an unknown informant. Someone inside is acting as a traitor to the house and, finally, they have a rogue doll on the loose who managed to kill a hell of a lot of people on his way out, sparing only Echo.

The Show
The show has a hell of a lot of potential in it's storylines due to the basic premise of programmable people alone. Each show can feature a whole new set-up with new characters (all played by the same actors), settings and genres. One week could be a twist on a slasher movie, the next could be a murder mystery and the next a comedy. The premise has left a lot of room for the writers to experiment with stand alone episodes, while the threads of the mythology (a rogue doll, traitors inside the Dollhouse, the dolls starting to hold onto their memories) allow a deeper show that leaves you wanting to find out what happens next. The greatest achievement of the show has to be the character design and acting. The dolls are characters that you come to care about. When they're held at gunpoint or in any other kind of danger you don't care that they've probably been programmed with the skills to get them out of that situation, you're worried for the childlike doll that they are between missions. To take characters that are basically perfect killing machines and make you worry about them like children is a master stroke in television as far as I'm concerned.

The show is scripted and produced almost exclusively by a team of people who've worked together on one or more of Joss Whedon's other cult shows before and it shows. The team obviously know each other well and like working together which is reflected in how easily the show exudes quality. That's really about as far as I can go into Dollhouse without revealing too many of the secrets of the show. Hopefully I've intrigued you to get as interested in it as I am and buy the DVD, ensuring we all have more of this quality programme to come in the future.