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Open on a clean-cut young boy hitting a home run. "When I grow up, I want to be a Doll!" he enthuses to a camera.
What follows is a sleek promotional video. For the last decade, the Rossum Corporation's Dollhouse Project has been an unparalleled success. After training and therapy, volunteers are turned into Dolls for a length of time at their discretion. All races, genders, and body types are welcome. Everyone is somebody's fantasy.
For a week, a year, or more, anyone can be anyone else. It's the modern equivalent of backpacking across Europe, almost. Who hasn't spent a summer as a Doll?
The longer they're under, the more they're paid. And when it's done, they're given whatever "replacement" memories they choose. How to play the piano, a semester at Harvard, a naked weekend with Angelina Jolie...
Former/in-between/addicted Dolls give interviews, a creepy mix of corporate and cult. Being wiped means they're able to give 100% of themselves to compassion, purging themselves of modern society's psychic toxins. Victor says that being a Doll gets him closer to God. It's like a day spa for your soul.
The video wraps up, revealing it's been watched by disgruntled FBI agent Paul Ballard. He led the initial probe into the Dollhouse, but was never able to get anything concrete. His superiors closed the case, but he's sure there's something hinky going on. It occurs to him that amnesiac, unquestioning, super-fit Dolls would make the perfect criminals. He's so suspicious he moves in next to Mellie, a former Doll. She did three 3-year stretches, the longest any Doll has been under. Why'd she let herself be wiped over and over again? More importantly, why did she stop? Ballard wants to know. Ironically, to find out, he'll have to become Mellie's best friend, an individual as tailored to her as any Doll...
What he doesn't suspect, what not even most members of the Dollhouse Project know, is that not every Doll is a volunteer. To keep up with demand, and to keep profit margins up, Rossum has been using non-consentuals. When their terms are up, they're simply covered up and shipped to another city's Dollhouse. Death Row inmates. Prisoners of war. Illegal immigrants. And one young girl, Caroline Pierce, who knows something so explosive that Rossum can't let her know it, yet they don't dare kill her. In the LA Dollhouse, her name is Echo.
And she's beginning to remember everything.
What follows is a sleek promotional video. For the last decade, the Rossum Corporation's Dollhouse Project has been an unparalleled success. After training and therapy, volunteers are turned into Dolls for a length of time at their discretion. All races, genders, and body types are welcome. Everyone is somebody's fantasy.
For a week, a year, or more, anyone can be anyone else. It's the modern equivalent of backpacking across Europe, almost. Who hasn't spent a summer as a Doll?
The longer they're under, the more they're paid. And when it's done, they're given whatever "replacement" memories they choose. How to play the piano, a semester at Harvard, a naked weekend with Angelina Jolie...
Former/in-between/addicted Dolls give interviews, a creepy mix of corporate and cult. Being wiped means they're able to give 100% of themselves to compassion, purging themselves of modern society's psychic toxins. Victor says that being a Doll gets him closer to God. It's like a day spa for your soul.
The video wraps up, revealing it's been watched by disgruntled FBI agent Paul Ballard. He led the initial probe into the Dollhouse, but was never able to get anything concrete. His superiors closed the case, but he's sure there's something hinky going on. It occurs to him that amnesiac, unquestioning, super-fit Dolls would make the perfect criminals. He's so suspicious he moves in next to Mellie, a former Doll. She did three 3-year stretches, the longest any Doll has been under. Why'd she let herself be wiped over and over again? More importantly, why did she stop? Ballard wants to know. Ironically, to find out, he'll have to become Mellie's best friend, an individual as tailored to her as any Doll...
What he doesn't suspect, what not even most members of the Dollhouse Project know, is that not every Doll is a volunteer. To keep up with demand, and to keep profit margins up, Rossum has been using non-consentuals. When their terms are up, they're simply covered up and shipped to another city's Dollhouse. Death Row inmates. Prisoners of war. Illegal immigrants. And one young girl, Caroline Pierce, who knows something so explosive that Rossum can't let her know it, yet they don't dare kill her. In the LA Dollhouse, her name is Echo.
And she's beginning to remember everything.
