Dollhouse Watch: Pleased to Meet Me

I really hope this show comes back. This is one of only 3 shows I watch.

Couldn't agree more. When this show started dealing with the ethics of the idea, it got really interesting. And I agree about the Topher thing too. You still had to feel bad for the punk when he realized that Whiskey hated him because of what he'd done, not because of her programming. The self-loathing Topher was going through and Echo's gesture of kindness were one of the episode's best moments.
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@James P. - Big questions to me are why Ballard agreed to work for the Dollhouse in exchange for November's (Mellie's) freedom instead of Echo's (Caroline)? Or why a self-aware Echo would choose to go back to the Dollhouse? (I can't imagine Boyd or Ballard being willing able to force her back.) I saw some chatter that there were some scenes cut with Sierra and November playing bounty hunter at the power plant with Ballard and Boyd. Do you think there were scenes shot that had to be cut for time that would have gotten into this or is Whedon just crossing his fingers that he'll get to explain it next year? Or maybe this mysterious last episode with Felcia Day that Fox isn't running would have dealt with this?
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Do the right thing here, Fox! You owe Whedon (and us) one after Firefly!

I was merely whelmed by this specific episode. Part of it was the apparent last minute editing Kemper suggested - where did Sierra & November run off to? Why did Ballard switch jobs? How did Alpha give Boyd the slip? And part of it was, again, the limited charms of Miss Dushku - Omega is, surprise, Faith. Color me shocked.
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But most of my problem was the un-finale-ness of the episode. Unlike your average Buffy or Angel finale, there was very little from this episode that suggested a major change in direction, or plot, for the show next year (aside from Ballard switching employers, again). Echo's still in the Dollhouse, with odd amounts of past-lives leaking through, the Dollhouse management is the same, Alpha is still lurking, Boyd's motives are still unexplained, etc. Where's the change?
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And I still don't know about Topher. I just can't accept that Whedon would make the wisecracker the target of hate on the show. Given that we can now be sure that Ballard's informant isn't Alpha (he doesn't care about stopping Rossum's larger goals, just getting his Echo out), he/she is still out there. Add that "Saunders" is given too much computer training, and an innate hatred of Topher, and I lean towards this scenario:
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Topher, scarred by the Alpha incident and/or frightened by Rossum's larger goals, and too craven to do anything about it himself, decides to program a subconscious rebellion subpersonality in Saunders 2.0. Saunders is the one who (unknowingly) reprograms the dolls to transfer information to Ballard (possibly by poisoning the root personalities used in the imprints?). Topher adds a level of misdirection by programming Saunders to hate Topher - so that any nagging suspicions Whiskey has that something is wrong with Topher are covered by the programming in Saunders.

Once it was revealed that the first thing Alpha did was kill his original self I thought "Hot damn, this is really interesting stuff." It makes perfect sense in an insane way, and I really hope they get to develop on that. FSM forbid you have to think while watching TV.
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Topher remains my favorite character, but not in a likable way... I like him because he is so twisted and layered, but I'm not under the assumption that he's in any way a good guy.
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And yes, please more Amy Acker and Deachen Lachmen(?), I think both are fantastic.

[...] 11, 2009 Autor triangel Üks lugu Dollhouse’st. See tuletab mulle meelde, et mul on viimane osa nägemata, kuna mul ei õnnestu [...]

I gave my impressions and thoughts about the show at length on my blog (www.tim-byrd.com), and won't take up space in your comments to cover all the same ground, but I will say I thought Joss missed a great dramatic opportunity that would have worked powerfully to end this season whether it goes to another season or not: Alpha should have destroyed Caroline's personality for good.

IMO, having Alpha emerge as nothing more than a sociopath was disappointing, not for it's effect on the episode, but for its implications on the series going forward (if it goes forward). Nothing he did shows him as being a credible threat to the Dollhouse, or the larger group behind the Dollhouses. He's just a criminally insane guy trying to fulfill his own personal urges.
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This show has been at it's best when it deals with the big picture implications of the technology and the shadowy people who have it. If the second season doesn't start to address that, I'm not sure I see much of a reason to even continue the series. As others have suggested, this show could benefit greatly from a set number of episodes so they can explore those themes in depth and eliminate/reduce the procedural elements, which really drag the show down.

One more nitpicky thing. So Alpha carved up Whiskey and they loaded her as the doctor since she couldn't go out on Doll duty anymore. But why couldn't they just have downloaded someone as the world's greatest plastic surgeon to fix her face? And do the same thing for Victor?

I read the unedited script and Ballard witnesses Alpha trying to activate the sleeper agent component of November to get her to go after Sierra. Boyd interfers but I imagine that Ballard did not want to see Mellie be a killer ever again. Also, their story is finished unlike (in his mind) his and Caroline's story.

Part of the reason I think Alpha needed to be a pure sociopath is that they seem to be heading toward the angle that who you are instinctively never truly goes away. Alpha's obsession with Echo went the way a sociopaths would. Echo's reaction to becoming Omega is the way that Caroline would have reacted. I think that the reason the Dollhouse has been stuck on the whole "It's only a composite event" is due to the fact that to not think that way admits that they are not truly wiping people.

We are making the journey with the Dollhouse, not with Echo so we are truly seeing things the way they see them so we may not always get the pieces but get the pieces the way the Dollhouse staff interprets them

Tom, it looked like Echo was being set up as the mole with the theme developed in "Briar Rose" -- the sleeping beauty saving herself by creating a prince to come wake her -- topped off with her greeting Alpha as "my prince."

But that line turns out to have been spoken by an old Whiskey imprint, which points to Whiskey as the originator: she must have triggered Alpha's initial attack on her to get herself taken out of Active duty, and then used her new position to feed information to Ballard.

Joss would never make Topher, a misogynist creep in the Warren mold, into the hero who saves all the damsels in distress. The assorted self-styled "white knight" characters (Boyd, Ballard, even Dominic at times) all end up toeing the company line when push comes to shove, and any ultimate liberation is going to be due to events put in motion by one of the female characters (or, more likely, several of them working in concert).

[...] Dollhouse Watch: Pleased to Meet Me Spoilers for the season[?] finale of Dollhouse coming up after the jump: [...] [...]

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