Dollhouse
and Science Fiction Films of the 1980s
In the November 2008 Fast
Forward Weekly article “Why
you should be watching Dollhouse,” Kyle Francis briefly
compares the Joss Whedon series to some of the seminal sci-fi motion
pictures of the 1980s. While recognizing that contemporary television
show creation is experiencing a renaissance similar to what the film
industry experienced in the 1970s, Francis argues that Dollhouse
is more a product of the decade that followed than anything else.
“The
’80s gave us Blade Runner, The Road Warrior,
Aliens, The Terminator and RoboCop,”
Francis writes. “Each one of these movies, while firmly bound
by science fiction tradition, riffed on the genre in an interesting
way. Blade Runner gave us a little existential crisis to go
with our robot murder, The Road Warrior blended tropes of the
American Western into its apocalyptic sci-fi milieu, and Aliens
arguably remains the iconic vision for military-based sci-fi to this
day. Dollhouse, to get back on topic, does a lovely job of
sneaking in some surprisingly thoughtful ruminations on the nature of
identity between all of its witty dialogue, well-crafted characters
and inventive sci-fi conceits.”
Dollhouse
has indeed “riffed on the genre” during its short lifespan,
taking a taboo topic like high-end prostitution and transforming it
into a dissertation on identity while likewise masquerading as a conspiracy
thriller. Still, all good science fiction makes at least passing homage
to what came before, and many of the movies of the ’80 explored
similar themes of “who we are” and “what it means
to exist” as well as the inherent dangers of advanced technological
breakthroughs.
The first
of the sci-fi movies that Kyle Francis mentions is Blade Runner,
the 1982 classic based on the book by Philip K. Dick, Do Androids
Dream of Electric Sheep? The film takes place in 2019 (ironically
the same year that the Dollhouse episode “Epitaph One”
depicts) where mankind has perfected robots that are identical to humans.
Called replicants, these genetically-engineered beings are programmed
with a lifespan of four years, a failsafe designed to prevent them from
developing emotions of their own. Banned from Earth, where professional
police assassins known as “blade runners” track-and-kill
them, four escape from another planet with the goal of having the failsafe
death warrant removed from their programming.
In addition,
actress Sean Young plays a female replicant (Rachael) programmed with
a lifetime of memories who was previously unaware that she was herself
an android. The similarities between Rachael and Dr. Claire Saunders
from Dollhouse are abundant. Saunders was originally an active
named Whiskey who had her face scarred by rogue-active Alpha. Because
the real Dr. Saunders—an older male physician—was murdered
during Alpha’s escape from the Dollhouse, the damaged Whiskey
was programmed to become the new Saunders. Claire Saunders thus discovers
late in season one that she, like Rachael, is not real and that her
memories are nothing more than fabrications.
In the
first episode of season two, “Vows,” Saunders confronts
her creator—technological guru Topher Brink—much like the
rebel replicants confronted theirs in Blade Runner. “It’s
not an easy thing to meet your maker,” Rutger Hauer’s android
tells the head of the Tyrell Corporation, the man responsible for his
existence. Although that encounter ended in violent death for Eldon
Tyrell, Dr. Saunders leaves Topher Brink physically alive but emotionally
damaged in “Vows.” Hauer’s conversation with Tyrell
ended with a kiss, for instance, while Saunders begins her confrontation
with Topher by sneaking into bed with him. “Why shouldn’t
I love you?” she asks when he inquires what she is doing. “Aren’t
you loveable? Aren’t you Big Brother? Aren’t you the Lord
my God?” When Saunders later inquires, “How will I live?
How do I go through my day knowing everything I think comes from something
I can’t abide?” Topher’s response could just as well
have come from Tyrell: “You were made as well as we could make
you… and you have burned so very, very brightly.”
In RoboCop,
Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is a police officer in a future Detroit that
is overrun with crime. Much of the police protection duties have been
contracted to a private company, Omni Consumer Products (OCP), which
has developed the technology to build a “super cop.” When
Murphy is killed while out on assignment, OCP uses his dead body and
brain to create the first Robocop. Just like Eliza Dushku’s active
Echo begins experiencing memories of the different personas she is programmed
with, Robocop has glitches of his own when he begins to remember what
happened to his original human form. As he figures out the pieces of
his previous life, Robocop goes rogue and embarks on a mission to not
only bring Murphy’s murderer to justice, but topple the high ranking
OCP executive masterminding all of Detroit’s criminal activity;
in Dollhouse, meanwhile, Echo uses her re-awakening to follow
in the footsteps of her original self and bring down the Rossum Corporation,
the private company behind the imprint technology.
Although
not mention by Kyle Francis, Total Recall is another sci-fi
movie with ties to Dollhouse. Based on a short story by Philip
K. Dick, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” the movie
stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as a construction worker on Earth named
Douglas Quaid who begins having dreams of Mars. He goes to Rekall, a
company that specializes in implanting memories of exotic vacations
into people’s minds, to have an adventure on Mars imprinted, but
the process goes awry. It turns out that Quaid has already been programmed
during a previous replacement procedure. As old memories begin flooding
his brain, and spurred on by video messages left by his previous self,
Quaid eventually gets caught up in a conspiracy that takes him to Mars.
While not
philosophically deep, and more of a violent adventure than anything
else, Total Recall does have similarities with Dollhouse.
The device used to imprint memories, for instance, is a chair remarkably
similar to the one used by Topher Brink. Quaid has been given a fake
wife whose job it is to keep tabs on him, just like unaware active Senator
Daniel Perrin had a wife who secretly worked for the Washington D.C.
Dollhouse and was also Perrin’s handler. More significantly, Schwarzenegger’s
character is not willing to have his fake, imprinted personality erased
when given the opportunity to have his former self returned. Part of
this has to do with the “old him” being part of the evil
conspiracy the “new him” is trying to bring down, but it
also has to do with not wanting to let go of who he now is, even if
it was programmed.
Two characters
on Dollhouse are in similar positions, Dr. Claire Saunders
and Dushku’s Echo. When Saunders discovers that her personality
is not her own, she has the opportunity to access computer files that
contain her true identity but does not take advantage of the situation.
Topher Brink asks her why she didn’t open the file, and Saunders
replies, “Because I don’t want to die. I’m not even
real. I’m in someone else’s body and I’m afraid to
give it up.” Echo, meanwhile, has great reluctance in regards
to being reprogrammed as Caroline Ferrell, her original identity, for
the same reason of being afraid the new person she has become will cease
to exist. “I’ve been saving this body for her,” Echo
says in regards to Caroline, mirroring the words of Dr. Saunders. “But
I’m not her.”
While The
Terminator does not have any plotlines revolving around imprinted
identities or personalities, its major theme of how technological advancement
can lead to an apocalyptic future is present in Dollhouse as
well. In the sci-fi masterpiece written and directed by James Cameron,
the artificial intelligence network created by Sky Net became self-aware
and declared war on the human race. In Dollhouse, the imprint
technology was eventually perfected to the point were anyone could be
remotely wiped and reprogrammed, leading to the human race becoming
enslaved due to a loss of identity. The brief glimpses we see of the
future in The Terminator are eerily similar to those in “Epitaph
One,” with the survivors from both worlds forced into hiding underground.
The Terminator
franchise continued with a number of sequels and even a FOX television
drama, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. In both Terminator
2: Judgment Day and The Sarah Connor Chronicles, protagonists
in the present day attempt to prevent future events from unfolding by
stopping Sky Net before they build the network that brings about mankind’s
destruction. Despite success in their attempts, however, the future
continues to remain the same—if it didn’t, after all, there
would be no continuation of the story. The same holds true in Dollhouse;
during the penultimate episode, “The Hallow Men,” Echo and
her cohorts successfully prevent the Rossum Corporation from implementing
its plans of world domination, but the end of the episode depicts a
Los Angeles ten years in the future that has indeed been devastated
by the Dollhouse technology.
In his
book, Living Lost, author J. Wood argues that part of the appeal
of the ABC drama Lost is its ability to “borrow”
plotlines and make passing references to a litany of science fiction
works from the past, in effect tapping into our collective cultural
consciousness and adding to the viewing experience. In many ways, Joss
Whedon has done the same with Dollhouse—despite such
similarities to science fiction movies from the 1980s, he was still
able to craft his television series into something unique and different
in its own right, as well as worthy of standing alongside such sci-fi
masterpieces as Blade Runner and The Terminator.
Anthony Letizia
(January 25, 2010)
