The fifth story ‘True Believer’ is a strange mix of the good, the bad and the tantalising of this production. It had the potential to be exceptionally interesting, but blows it all towards the end in a somewhat lob-sided third act. Meanwhile, Dollhouse is entertaining one of its most important clients, a senator. He wants an active to help the FBI investigate the cult by getting inside the compound where they live. The cunning plan is that they’ll give Echo an implant that allows them to see what she sees, and give her an imprint from a deeply religious person who is blind. The thinking is that the cult won’t suspect a blind person, and they can gather evidence from a remote video feed of what she sees that will allow them to raid the compound. The surgery isn’t without its risks, although Adelle DeWitt brushes these aside and tells them to modify her immediately. We then have a really silly scene where she’s given the eye surgery, which appears to involve putting a big spinning drill bit through the front of her eye, even though we’ve been told it’s no worse than corrective laser treatment. This was exceptionally dumb, and it didn’t really help that Olivia Williams, who plays Adelle, seems to be trying to do an impression of Judi Dench as ‘M’ with her clipped responses to everyone. Boyd drops Echo off at the compound so she can convince them that she’s been sent to them by God. The leader, Jonas Sparrow, shines bright light in her eyes, apparently the best way to detect FBI insurgents it appears. But rather stupidly they do this in a room where they keep all their guns, giving the FBI outside the evidence they need to raid the compound. At this point the friction between Boyd and the lead FBI man surfaces, as Boyd wants to get Echo out before the mayhem ensues. There is a little twist here, where we find that it wasn’t the cultist who wrote ‘Save Me’ on the shopping list, but the FBI leader wanting to get a reason to break up the movement. I suspect that in an earlier draft of this script a complete turnabout existed where the cult was the good guys, but then they put in that they had more guns than the Taliban and that altered the dynamic. At this point the cultists do what you’d expect if you’d seen Waco and get everyone in a single building and set fire to it. By now Echo can see again, because the self-appointed saviour gave her a smack around the head, undoing the delicate surgery they performed with the giant drill bit. She has a ‘revelation’ that she’s been given sight by God to lead them all out, and she knocks out Jonas with a candle holder. Actually it’s what she hits him with is so big that I was actually surprised his head didn’t come clean off. Everyone but one loony leaves the burning building; he spits in Echo’s face and gets punched out for his trouble. She’s about to leave when Jonas comes around, and he’s been left holding the AK-47, conveniently. An FBI-type figure enters the room and shoots him dead, before revealing he’s nasty-man Laurence Dominic. He doesn’t like Echo, so instead of saving her he knocks her out with the butt of his gun and leaves her to die. She doesn’t because Boyd then turns up and carries her to safety. It’s not a great plot, but it suffices I guess. I’m sure religious cults wouldn’t appreciate the 2D way they’re portrayed, but they’re unlikely to have a TV to be offended, I guess. The few small twists they threw in this story were welcome, but insufficient. We need some really good ones, like that Dominic is imprinted or that Paul Ballard becomes an active, or that given a codeword Echo can switch between multiple personalities, or something really crazy. I’m sure they’ve planned a long drip-feed of minor revelations, but this show needs some big ones soon or we’ll never actually get to see those episodes. At the moment this looks purely like a lightweight vehicle for Eliza Dushku, and not remotely what fans of Joss Whedon had hoped for. Unless it gets much, much better I can’t see this getting more than the 12 episodes they’ve commissioned.
