Amy Acker Movie:

		List Price: $69.99		Label: Twentieth Century Fox Salesrank: 2709 Released: July 28, 2009
		Our Price: $32.99
		Used Price: $31.16
		MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated) Media: Blu-ray

Editorial Review:
From Joss Whedon comes a new groundbreaking show starring Eliza Dushku as Echo, an operative in an underground organization that provides hired personas for various missions.

Disc 1: 230 Minutes

• Forced Trailers: Wolverine, Joss Whedon Properties Trailer, I Love You Beth Cooper, Nobel Son, Wrong Turn 3, The Keeper
• Ghost
• Episode Commentary with Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku
• The Target
• Stage Fright
• Gray Hour
• True Believer

• Man on the Street
• Episode Commentary by Joss Whedon
• Echoes
• Needs
• A Spy in the House
• Haunted

• Briar Rose
• Omega
• Epitaph One
• Episode Commentary by Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen
• Original Unaired Pilot - "Echo"
• Commentary w/ Cast & Crew
• Deleted Scenes
• Making Dollhouse
• Coming Back Home
• Finding Echo
• Designing the Perfect Dollhouse
• A Private Engagement

Description of Dollhouse: Season One [Blu-ray]:

Stills from Dollhouse: Season One (Click for larger image)

Dollhouse: Season One [Blu-ray] Reviews:
Man, I realy love this show.
2009-11-10 - Great expectations are at the source of great disappointment, so I, as any other Joss Whedon fan, approached the show with great care, trying not to expect to much. Despite all my initial caution, after seeing the first season, I'm hooked and totally absorbed and crossing my fingers That fox executives won't go all "firefly" on this show and cancel it before it has the chance to be as great as it can potentially be.

The first episodes suffered heavily from the network interference, and in my opinion, can be skipped entirely.
Further on I'll tell you exactly what to skip an what not. Not to worry, No spoilers.

PLOT WISE - this is the story of an underground operation called "The dollhouse", which uses super cutting edge technology to erase their recruits minds. On that vacancy of a personality, memories, and free will , they can download or "Imprint" any personality and special skills needed for a certain assignment, sending their agents into their designated mission truly feeling and believing that they are the fictional person who was created for that specific situation.
Sometime those missions take a very professional way - an active is send to deal with a hostage situation, or to infiltrate a closed cult, but more often the actives are used as players in clients fantasies - rich people who are willing to pay for the perfect illusion.
At the end of each assignment, the actives are returned to the dollhouse where every memory of their experience is wiped, leaving them empty vessels, robbed of self consciousness and will, waiting to be filled with another persona on the next engagement.
The lead character is Echo, played by Eliza Dushko, an active who shows signs of self awareness even at her sleepy deactivated mode between assignments. Bits and fragments of her past experiences come back to her, making her try to free herself from her still unseen cerebral bondage. There are also those who operate the dollhouse and a tenacious FBI agent (played by the extremely cute Tahmoh Penikket from battlestar galactica) obsessed with finding the dollhouse and bringing it down.

The first few episodes, (five, to be exact) aren't really that good, but rather a lengthy exposition to the overall concept and the characters.
Those first episodes are a "stand alone" episodes, telling a single story about Echo's assignments, and not contributing anything to the long arc story which is actually introduced only on episode 6.
After that the story gets fascinating - twists after twist, we find out things are not as they seem, people are not what they think they are or what WE think they are, as we find out that everyone has a hidden agenda, plus it even gets funny.

WHICH EPISODES TO SKIP :
1st episode is rather a bore - the second is far better and could be used as an introduction to the show - I suggest you start there. The 3rd episode "Stage Fright" and the 5th "true believer" are simply horrible and may discourage one from continuing watching the show. so either skip them, or watch them fighting a gag reflex, bearing in mind that the 6th Episode "man on the street" is actually GREAT.
From there on you will find it very very captivating and evolving from episode to episode.

BONUS MATERIAL
The 4th disc is bonus material and includes the full Episode "Epitaph 1" which was not broadcasted on fox, so now you can finally see it.
You also have it with commentaries by the writers.
It also includes some "behind the scenes" and deleted scenes which I didn't find very interesting.

As of now, 9/11/09 the show is still scheduled for 13 episodes on fox, though things seems to be very rocky as the show went on a break until december.
all our prayers are with you, joss.
On the bright side - as you can read yourself on the Fox website, President Kevin Reilly joked that the campaign to save Dollhouse began before they even started to shoot, so I guess they are aware of the strong fan base the show has, and maybe they will give it some more space to evolve.


I hope you'll enjoy this show as much as I did, and I really really hope that master whedon will be given a chance to show what he can do and to grant us another fascinating, adventurous fun TV show.

This Dollhouse is not for kids...
2009-09-30 - The first season of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse is awesome on blu-ray and the added 13th episode (not aired) adds another dimension to an already interesting show. The lovely and talented Eliza Dushku caries the show along in style. With its sexual story lines and violent content this is not a kid's show, but as an adult who is also a Joss Whedon fan (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Serenity) I love the whole concept of this series.

Fast-paced, entertaining
2009-09-21 - The premise behind the series is a big stretch, even if you enjoy science fiction. However, if you're willing to accept it, this is a very well crafted series with great acting and a fast pace. Quite enjoyable.

Begins slow... ends great!
2009-09-14 - Dollhouse is a good show with potential to be a great show. This is a shift in style for Joss Whedon from the more joke heavy fun of Sunnydale and the black. To a slightly more serious tone, just slightly. Whedon's touch is still clearly present in the show. The show is divided in two halves for me and one is significantly better then the other. The first half of the season is more episodic with individual storys for each episode. Those episodes are the weakest, it's not til the second half of the season the mythology of the show really kicks into high gear and the final episodes are as good as any Joss Whedon show.

An uneven first season that has promise
2009-09-14 - A good portion of my friends belong to what I affectionately call "The Cult of Whedon." I do not belong to this cult, but my friends are continually trying to make me drink the Koolaid. They were successful with the entertaining Dr. Horrible, so I figured I'd give Dollhouse a try since it seemed to be the least campy and most interesting thing he's created so far. Before I begin, and as a warning to those who are on the fence, this season takes a bit to get into.

In the first episode, we're introduced to our main characters and the general gist of how the show will run. We quickly meet Echo, a woman who has signed on to be a "doll," a blank person who can be imprinted with a variety of personas and skills (think The Matrix crossed with Alias). Each episode is constructed in an episodic fashion, meaning that you can theoretically skip and episode or two and still understand the story. There's always a central situation that involves one or more dolls being imprinted with a personality to satisfy their clients' needs. These can be anything from a sexual tryst to excitement and danger. Obviously, there's a fine line here; is the Dollhouse a brothel? Are the dolls basically prostitutes? Unfortunately, this dichotomy isn't really examined much more than an afterthought here or there.

My biggest complaint with the series so far is that, for most of the thirteen episodes, I felt that there wasn't really much of a meta-plot (that is, plot outside of each episode's individual thread that has no relevance on any other episode). Everyone kept telling me to wait until the halfway point and some people pointed out a specific episode, "Man on the Street," in which some new information comes to light. I'll admit, it was a good episode and I thought a turning point...but then things kind of went stagnant again. Sure, some episodes did a good job of filling in the backstory or adding another thin layer to the story, but I felt that Dollhouse was struggling to locate its niche. Was it going to be another Law & Order-type show, with the focus being on the individual cases (or, in this case, clients)? Or was it going to be working toward an overall mythos?

Episode 11, "Briar Rose," is probably the best aired episode, even though I found it both terrific and terrible. The too-on-the-nose-it-hurts Briar Rose metaphor was almost painful for me to handle, in an eye-rolling fashion. I hadn't seen such poorly utilized metaphors since a beginning college writing seminar. This was couter-balanced by a great story in which something pressing finally happens...unfortunately, the great setup fell apart in the "final" episode of the season.

That said, the true final episode of the season is a complete game-changer. "Epitaph One" is absolutely fantastic; it's ironic that the season's best wasn't even aired. This episode would have completely sunk its teeth in me and made me excited for the series to continue. This is the type of thing that Fox needs to air. To discuss this episode would invoke major spoilers. However, it is absolutely fantastic (worth the price of admission alone) and the direction I'd want the show to take. Honestly, everything before it felt like a retread of Alias in a way. Hot woman dresses up as different people ach episode, working for a shadowy corporation that's more than it seems. This is the basic synopsis of both series...

Until Epitaph One.

So maybe I haven't swallowed the Koolaid, yet. But it is swishing in my mouth. I'm hopeful that Season Two helps Dollhouse discover its potential. It could be a great show.