Top Five Imprints: Echo (Dollhouse)

Despite her main-character status, Echo isn’t my favorite of the Dolls.  In part, it’s just hard to match up to actors like the chameleonic Enver Gjokaj, but I think it’s also partly plot.  The ongoing story of Echo’s evolution interests me more than her week-to-week engagements, and I definitely like the character better when the show gives me forward momentum on her plot.  Still, there are some definite imprints to like here.  These are my favorites.  (Some spoilers.)

Taffy

I mentioned this imprint when I reviewed my Sierra Top Five, Eliza Dushku’s version is cool as well.  I like the way she’s somehow cavalier and all business, at the same time.  Her blithe, flirty demeanor initially makes some of her team members (she’s a safe cracker) doubt her abilities.  When it’s time to put up or shut up, though, she works her mad skills with unrufflable aplomb.

Rebecca Mynor

Echo’s first outing as Rebecca, the deceased wife of a client reenacting a memory he didn’t get a chance to make, is brief but memorable.  I enjoy it because a) the client clearly wants his wife as she was, with no alterations, and b) it shows how an imprint can veer from the intended fantasy.  When they’re interrupted by Dollhouse-related complications, Rebecca jumps to the conclusion that it’s due to dirty dealings in the client’s sudden wealth.  Specifically, she’s convinced that it’s “porn money” and spends the rest of the engagement bickering with him about it.  Hee!

Alice

This one’s a bit of a cheat, since it’s more about Echo’s development than the imprint.  Alice is 100% fantasy, a naïve (dumb?) “good girl” for the client to corrupt.  She has no agency, real self, or capabilities; she’s just a plaything for a gross rich boy.  However, over her episode, spurred on by some trigger memories and an experimental drug, she becomes capable and autonomous.  There’s a hint of Echo within her, struggling against her limited design. 

Susan

Another brief one.  First, props to Topher for the idea – a pro bono engagement to mentor a troubled child with an idea of her own best possible future.  Susan is a different sort of imprint for Echo, and really, for the show.  She feels well-realized, insightful and empathetic, with the weight of someone who’s crawled back from incredible hardship.  Just a great job all around.

Terry Karens

Echo’s short stint as deranged, woman-abducting serial killer Terry Karens (suffice to say, the whole thing comes about through a colossal mistake) is a good one.  Dushku captures Terry’s manner, simultaneously repressed and unhinged, well, and the entire scenario is really creative.  I love that, despite the wild impossibility, the women Terry has abducted realize that, somehow, Echo is Terry and compartmentalize the whys so they can deal with the immediate threat.

Top Five Imprints: Sierra (Dollhouse)

In sussing out my top five imprints for Sierra, I realized how few of her imprints have actual names.  While we see Sierra get imprinted about as often as Victor, the show only tends to show brief glimpses – coming back from a romantic engagement, for example, or doing some work in-house.  I don’t think I’d ever really noticed that before.  It means that Dichen Lachman still makes a good impact, even with characters we barely see.

Audra

This is Sierra’s first major imprinted role.  There mainly as back-up in case Echo needs it (I’m guessing she has some subliminal parameters that kick in with fight skills if things go south?), Sierra is delightfully fun as Audra, the “number one fan” of the pop star Echo is protecting.  Audra is sweet, bubbly, and pitch-perfect as a nervous super-fan meeting her idol.

Taffy

When Echo’s safecracker imprint is disrupted mid-engagement, the Dollhouse tries to bring it home by giving Sierra the same imprint and having her talk Echo through the heist over the phone (I know, right?)  It’s the first time we see two people playing the same character, and Lachman carries it off well.  Her Taffy is bursting with confidence and cool under pressure, and she’s not above letting things get down to the wire while she waits for her payout to arrive.

Topher’s Friend

I love this character, the unnamed geeky friend Topher creates to hang out with him on his birthday.  To be honest, I’m not quite sure if this imprint is specifically designed to be a woman, or if Topher uses the same imprint every year and just sticks it into whatever Active he can get.  Lachman’s vibe in the role isn’t definitively female; I’ll just say “they.”  Anyway, I love this whole side plot, with Topher and his friend playing video games/laser tag and listing all their favorite Classic Sci-Fi Errors, and I also like that they’re not designed in such a way that Topher always wins.  If anything, they have the edge.  I like that Topher did that.

Naughty Posh Woman

Brief but very fun.  We only get a minute or two of this imprint, what looks to be a British society lady from the 1950s.  We learn that she’s “not comfortable with Orientals” (good thing she doesn’t have a mirror,) and she has very clear ideas about how she should be punished when she’s been bad.

Noir Woman

Another glimpse from a romantic engagement, sort of – that’s what she’s designed for, but the client actually has ulterior motives.  I get a kick out of this imprint, which is straight out of a noir satire.  The line “I’ve been done wrong ten ways to Sunday and it’s Tuesday” tells you pretty much everything you need to know.  So short, but so good!

Top Five Imprints: Victor (Dollhouse)

Half the fun of Dollhouse is scrutinizing the performances by the actors playing the Dolls, and as Victor, Enver Gjokaj is tremendous.  He quickly became one of my biggest incentives to watch, and ever since, I get excited when I notice his name in the credits for a film or a show.  Of the many characters he brought quite specifically to life on Dollhouse, these are my favorites.

Anton Lubov

We first meet Victor as Lubov, a low-level mobster meant to throw Paul off the Dollhouse scent.  Lubov thinks he’s harder, more suave, and more important than he really is, and he’s a lot of fun as Paul’s unwilling informant.  Plus, I love imprints discussing the Dollhouse without knowing they’re Actives – nice dramatic irony (retroactively here, since it’s after Lubov describes the Dollhouse as an “alligators in the sewers” conspiracy theory that we learn he’s a Doll.)

Agent Tom Voran

This imprint isn’t as flashy as many of Gjokaj’s roles – there’s no accent, and it’s not a dead-on impression of a castmate – but I like it.  Tom is 100% sleek NSA efficiency, buttoned-up and highly tactical.  After jittery Lubov and innocent Doll-state Victor, Tom’s low-key, self-assured authority is a big change.  Plus, we get tons of interaction with Dominic, who barely bothers to hide his contempt for Actives and visibly rankles when he finds he’s been outranked by a Doll.

Drew Chilton

This is a small role in a middling episode, but I’m sort of stunned by it.  Though the part itself isn’t much – an intelligent horse-breeder – Gjokaj’s physicality is the major take-away here.  Despite having the exact same 20-something body that he does with every other imprint, you’d swear Chilton’s in his 40s, at least.  His measured walk and careful, deliberating thoughtfulness suggest someone much older, and I have no idea how he does it, but his body seems more gone-to-seed.  It’s not, clearly, but it feels like it is, just from his posture and his gait.  So impressive.

Topher Brink

No-brainer here.  When I first saw the slow pan up to Victor as Topher in “The Left Hand,” the voice was so perfect that I was convinced I was watching Fran Kranz in a flashback.  The writing is maybe a bit more forced-jokey than it usually is for Topher, but Gjokaj has the Dollhouse programmer down flat.  The voice, the energy, the easy distractedness, the anxiety, the probing intellect – it’s all there, to the letter.  One of the best things the series ever did, no question.

Dr. Golson

Another small role I like.  As the in-house psychologist with a strong Jewish vibe and Freudian views on sex, it’s broadly drawn, but Gjokaj does it well.  I like his drive-by assessment of Sierra and his on-the-nose lecture to Adele; though he’s been imprinted to examine Echo, he shifts to “diagnosing” Adele’s issue with her, like he just can’t help himself from psychoanalyzing.