Instead of focussing on larger issues, the writers have ignored them. They could have clients pay huge amounts to remain alive after death by having their memories imprinted on Dolls and not just the short term whodunit they did in one episode. To me it would be more believable that people would pay huge amounts of money to keep a relative alive, especially if they were given a young body, than just to have a high priced prostitute. I consider pimps evil so the people who run the Dollhouse I consider the lowest type of scum. Add to that their Dolls have killed quite a few innocent people due solely to their actions and not for a greater cause but solely for greed.

It’s fairly obvious there’s a separation between the office and the Dollhouse, and the office is something you can take clients to.

As far as making it a clone of La Femme Nikita, that’s how it started, and that’s not what’s going to happen because La Femme Nikita’s already been made. At the heart of Dollhouse is an exploration of the implications of a mind programming technology. The Dollhouse itself is a MacGuffin, which is probably why the characters who run it aren’t anything like as evil as Dollhouse’s detractors want them to be.

Well, Carol you might be right and you might be wrong. If word of mouth spreads from Comic-Con that season 2’s premiere episode is good or great, then people might actually tune in just based on the publicity factor coming out of Comic-Con. If the publicity coming out of this years Comic-Con is that the episode stinks, well then the shows ratings will sink even further. But, if word of mouth is positive, Dollhouse might get the back 9 order and maybe a 3rd season.

There have been shows that improved a lot after their first season in my opinion, Star Trek: TNG being one of them. But in that case from what I read that was due to removing Gene Roddenberry’s influence on the show at the end of its 2nd season from the rest of the series, allowing the show to really shine.

Heroes and Lost both had disastrous 2nd seasons that drove away viewers and were written very differently from their 1st season. They also both brought on a bunch of newbie characters that the viewers didn’t care about. I don’t get why when a series is successful the writers in its 2nd season start messing with the formula and changing the things that viewers liked about it. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

In a series such as Dollhouse which had major problems with it and isn’t successful – not with its bad ratings, then it’s 2nd season needs to be very different from its first season. I just don’t have much confidence that Joss Whedon is able and is willing to dramatically change the series and retool it.

And it’s also much harder to get back viewers who have tuned out than keep those who are watching regularly. In its 2nd season, Dollhouse has to somehow either get new viewers to watch it or get viewers who tuned out to tune back in. TSCC in its 2nd season just had to hold the interest of those who had watched the 1st season, which should have been relatively easy in comparison and they failed miserably.

As far as the character of Alpha goes which seems to be a pivotal part of Dollhouse, Alan Tudyk is starring in the remake of V: The Series. It’ll be airing on ABC and has been picked up for 6 episodes so I don’t see him returning to Dollhouse since that airs on a different network. I don’t know where that leaves Dollhouse but in the finale it seemed like the entire focus of the show would now revolve around chasing down Alpha. And if the actor who played Alpha isn’t available, I have no clue what they’ll do.

Also, Carol is right that they’ve never explained where they get the enormous variety of personality scans that allow them to imprint so many niche skills – even a PAIR of niche personalities like the bounty hunters Dichen and Miracle played in the finale who obviously knew each other.

It only takes a few lines of dialog to cover up plot holes like that. Writers who don’t do it are being sloppy.

It IS true that ninety percent of the audience won’t notice those holes, but still as a professional one should cover them.

Dollhouse DOES have a LOT of problems even if I cut it more slack than I did TSCC. If I do cut it more slack, I’m not sure I do, actually – well, after the horrible TSCC finale I guess I do cut Dollhouse more slack.

And since Alpha is supposed to be a psychopathic murderer, by protecting the Dollhouse, everyone who is murdered after that by Alpha is on him since he could have stopped him at that time. If the Dollhouse was busted a nationwide manhunt could have possibly captured Alpha, the public could have been put on alert. Instead, Ballard goes along with letting a psychopath murderer go his merry way and continue killing.

For me at least, I need to have some characters on a show that are rootworthy and Dollhouse really doesn’t have many at all. I don’t get why Whedon didn’t fashion it somewhat like La Femme Nikita. If he had and the dolls were used to fight terrorists or protect humanity in some way and if they had been murderers who would have been executed but were given a second chance, then to me it would have made the show more palatable. Instead, most of the dolls are used essentially as prostitutes for money so that their clients could amuse themselves. It wasn’t like a spy sleeping with the enemy to get vital information for their country, but just prostitution. Even the head of the local Dollhouse, DeWitt, uses them herself as hookers.

One huge area that the writers totally neglected was about the technology that stored people’s memories, how it worked and how they acquired these different personalities. Did people voluntarily give up their personalities for money or did they steal them from them when they were dying?

The most glaring bit of bad writing though for me is that it seems the clients all have no trouble finding where the dollhouse is or at least contacting it but the cops clueless about it.

Second point: Ballard was sent out to get rid of the FBI. How did he do it? That explains much of his motivation. He told them the truth. What did they do? They turned around and left thinking it was a prank. They don’t trust him, they don’t believe in the dollhouse. He has no chance of getting help from the system. He has to bring dollhouse down from the inside. The smiling proves my point. He did get rid of them, but he did it with the truth. It was a win-win situation for him. If the FBI believed him and raided the building: He wins! If they turn their back on him, the dollhouse people think he got them to leave while he learns just who is on his side (just himself and whomever is in the dollhouse sending him messages).

I saw that whole episode as Ballard temporarily working with the Dollhouse for two very good reasons: Caroline was kidnapped by Alpha (and it was his fault!) and feeling guilt over November and seeing an opportunity to set that right. I also think Ballard may feel a little differently about the Dollhouse having been inside it and having met the people who run it.

I’m confuzzled that it’s all considered bad writing or some kind of out-of-character thing by Ballard. It all made sense to me.

But, hey, I don’t think anybody can be convinced of each other’s point here, so nevermind. If it didn’t do it for you, it didn’t. Nothing wrong about that.

I’d go onto say that it would be out of character for Topher to implant himself in Whiskey but given Topher has no consistent character I can’t, he changes from week to week depending on how he’s needed to advance the plot – another page ripped from the Heroes playbook for the record.

And I also love the way people are trying to twist Ballard’s motivations – ‘he told the FBI’ is BS and you know it. That was set up and played out as a way for him to get rid of the FBI squad so he could go and hunt down Echo, right down to him smiling up at the security camera after the FBI left. That was him helping to cover up for the Dollhouse, the same Dollhouse he spent the entire season trying to expose and bring down.

You can’t define an entire character by one mission and then have him go completely against that mission repeatedly with no explanation, its just bad lazy writing. Like I’ve said a good three times now, the characters are so paper thin that the means for complex motivations don’t exist. Everyone has been so simple (and ever changing) that trying to play off some kind of double play ending doesn’t work.

But whatever, you seem to be determined to discredit the show’s writing at any cost, so you’ll find something to pick about no matter how good the explanations given to you are. You’ll even ignore what you’ve previously said yourself, as I pointed out above.

Also, Nick C is spot on: Ballard saw that bringing down the Dollhouse won’t be easy. So he figures a good way would be to learn as much as possible about it – and there ain’t no better way to do so than being on the inside. As a plus, he also gets to fulfill his fantasy – he gets to protect his precious Caroline on a regular basis.

Which perfectly explains why he helped to hide the Dollhouse, clean up their mess, return Echo to them and then agree to work for them how? His entire motivation throughout this season has been on bringing down the Dollhouse and saving Echo, at no point during this season did they set up any reasoning behind why when he was presented with countless chances to do all of that during the finale he didn’t.

Like I’ve repeatedly said the writing has been so paper thin and poor during Dollhouse that there simply isn’t a character base there for complex character motivations.

And Gusar you completely missed the point I was ridiculing, it wasn’t about why he wanted or expected Saunders to hate him but the idea that fans have from the line ‘you gave me computer skills’ decided that Topher implanted his own personality into Saunders. Of course you’re also ignoring Saunders saying that she didn’t hate Topher whilst making this leap but whatever works for you.