EPISODE REVIEW: Dollhouse: “Stop Loss” (Season 2, Episode 9)

Man oh man oh man oh man oh man! Remember back when we were in our early twenties, and we all watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, and we liked it even though we were all aware that it was kind of a disappointing show that really wasn’t all that good? Remember how we’d schlog through five or six boring or openly lame episodes in a row to get to a good one? Remember how excited we’d get at watching an episode that we would rave about simply because it was better than mediocre? Remember how happy we’d be when they pulled a format-breaking episode simply because it wasn’t immediate from the first scene how it would end? Remember how bored we were by the show in its final four or five seasons when they finally figured out the formula, and refused to ever diverge from it again? Remember how we convinced ourselves we loved the show because - hey - it was Star Trek, after all!

We were chumps. We totally were.

With this episode, Dollhouse officially becomes not only the best TV series currently in production, but it also becomes the best SF show running, better even than Lost, and I do not say that lightly. I know, I know, I know, I’m as surprised as you are that the crappy little show I lambasted a year ago has turned into this thing of disturbing and opulent beauty, but there it is, there it is. Watershed shows don’t come along often in SF - they’re really not allowed to, since watersheds mean a change in the way things are done, and the people who crank out cookie-cutter entertainment like Trek (And to a lesser extent, Stargate and Dr. Who) make 2.3 metric buttloads of money off of ‘em every year, and they don’t *like* change. It scares them. It threatens their profits. It risks turning on the lights in the room and showing how fundamentally lame their product is. It changes the rules, and brother, believe you me, people with a steady cash cow don’t like you to change the rules.

Which is why it’s so very impressive when a show like Dollhouse comes along and delights in not only raising the bar for the genre as a whole, but likewise revels in changing its own rules as well.

PLAY BY PLAY

Victor’s contract to the Dollhouse is up. The night before, Adel has him programmed as Roger, her suave imaginary millionaire playboy beau, but Roger refuses to roger her, as it were. He loves someone he can’t quite remember. DeWitt gets cruel with him, but of course he doesn’t comprehend what she’s talking about. He only knows he loves someone - not sure who - but it’s definitely not her.

The next morning he’s signed out of the ‘house. Boyd explains his post-contract maintenance plan, and Victor attempts to fit back into life. He doesn’t do so well, it’s one of those “Gain the whole world and lose your soul” situations, where he has a big, wealthy, theoretically glamorous life free from want, but no one to share it with, and a big empty hole in his heart in the shape of Sierra, a woman he doesn’t even remember. “Gain the whole world and lose your soul, have it given back