Dollhouse S1.E2 The Target: 
After a somewhat disappointing first episode (episode and ratings wise), I have to say that I was right last week when I said fans needed to be patient with the show. One week later, it appears that patience has already paid off since last night’s episode was a large step up from the pilot. While the show doesn’t compare with the rest of Whedon’s work yet, it is definently heading in the right direction.
What I really liked about this week’s episode is that we got quite a bit of back story. I am a fan of well developed storylines and good character development so it is good to start finding out about some of these characters pasts. While there is still plenty yet to learn, things are headed in the right direction. Joss Whedon is amazing at character development and back stories so I am going to assume that both will be further explored in the future.
The character of Alpha (the serial killer active) is very interesting in my opinion. Obviously Alpha has some connection with Echo since he pretty much killed everyone except her. Personally I think he is the person helping out Agent Ballard. I am assuming that he went through the same thing Echo appears to be going through (starting to figure out what is exactly going on). I wonder if Echo will go a similar route when she finds out more about the Dollhouse.
Other than the back story, this week’s “assignment” was also more interesting than last week’s. It’s good to see Matt Keeslar again especially after The Middleman (probably the most underrated show of last year) was recently canceled. Obviously his character this week was much different than his role as the Middleman. Even though it is disturbing that a man would hunt other human beings, Matt did a great job in the role in my opinion.
Being able to hire an active for a human hunting target does raise a couple questions though. Someone inside the Dollhouse must be a mole in order to allow the killer’s proposal to get through the system. Even though the leaders of the Dollhouse are pretty soulless, I don’t think they would rent out their actives as human targets (at the very least not to lose a future income stream). Even though I am assuming they didn’t knowingly set Echo up as a human target, the organization is pretty messed up. They are willing to put their actives lives in danger just for a nominal additional fee. I guess you don’t have much of a conscious when you reprogram people’s brains to do your bidding.
Finally this has nothing to do with the episode itself, but did anyone else notice the awesome hulu commercial during the show? I personally am a fan of Hulu and I am really liking their current advertising campaign of aliens trying to take over the world through Hulu. The first featured Alec Baldwin and this week’s featured Elisha Dushku. Hopefully these ads continue since I would like to see what other NBC Universal characters/actors are “aliens”.
While Dollhouse is not perfect, this week’s episode was a huge step in the right direction. I think this show will continue to improve and will be a pretty good show by the end of the season. It’s too bad that unless something surprising happens, Dollhouse’s shot at another season are pretty slim.
Your Take: What did you think of Dollhouse’s second episode? Do you think Dollhouse can continue to develop into a good show? Do you think Echo will go down the same route as Alpha? Is there any chance that Dollhouse could possibly get a second season?
Photo Credit: ©2009 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Isabella Vosmikova/FOX
