The Show
In Joss Whedon's most recent weekly series Dollhouse, unwitting participants go beyond "undercover" to actually become other people, their own personalities stripped away and routinely replaced by the ideal amalgams of traits for each job. It's all possible thanks to sophisticated and highly illegal technology, and therefore the services of The Dollhouse are only available to extremely rich folk who can afford to pay for whatever they need, be it a rescue, some wetwork, or even the perfect date.
The show follows Echo (Eliza Dushku), one of the dolls, but there's a whole house full of these perfect, frequently reused blank canvases, and in true Total Recall fashion, old memories intrude upon the new, conflicts arise, and lots of fights break out. Adding another dimension is the FBI agent (Battlestar Galactica's Tahmoh Penikett) looking to blow this whole thing wide open. All 13 mind-bending episodes are here, including the unaired season finale, "Epitaph One," a dark future-coda fantasy set in Los Angeles 2019, about the aftermath of the underlying Dollhouse technology evolving out of control, leading to the end of the world as we know it. Makes you wonder what's going to happen in Season Two.
The Picture
The 1.78:1 image is dependably clean and stable, with exquisite foreground detail. The noise is sometimes deliberate to help distinguish flashbacks, sometimes not. Out-of-focus backgrounds do however tend to have that crushed, artificial look, and stock footage is not always well-matched. Owing to its excessively shadowy nature, the finale, "Epitaph One" is also excessively noisy, with mushy blacks, perhaps not quite finished to full broadcast standards, further indication of how good the other twelve episodes look.
The Sound
The well-crafted DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is an ideal complement, showing off a dynamic multichannel mix full of revving engines and other effects, the wide spread of a variety of music--in the soundtrack and within the scene--in addition to the more abstract experience of being inside Echo's head as all of her memories wash away in a mighty rush. Ample bass is employed throughout as well.
The Extras
The season begins with a commentary on the first episode by creator/writer/director Joss Whedon and star/producer Eliza Dushku, and Joss returns on Episode Six. Writers Jed Whedon (Joss' younger brother) and Maurissa Tancharoen lay down the comments for the final episode. A significantly different version of the pilot is included, entitled simply "Echo," along with a half-hour of deleted scenes spanning the season.
"Making Dollhouse" (21 minutes) is much more up-close and in-depth than most featurettes, "Coming Home" (seven minutes) details the reuniting of much of Whedon's old crew from hits past hits, "Finding Echo" (five minutes) explains what Eliza Dushku was looking for in her next series, and Joss gives a guided tour of the set in "Designing the Perfect Dollhouse" (six minutes). Last up is the somewhat fluffy "A Private Engagement" (six minutes) wherein cast and crew answer questions like, "Would they want this technology to be real?" and "What would you do with it?" Meh. Everything here is in high-definition.
Final Thoughts
The complex Dollhouse works on the weekly adventure level as well as a broader season-wide mystery, and beyond. Eliza Dushku owns the fascinating, demanding role of Echo, and her many guises are waiting to be discovered in this above-average Blu-ray.
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