I don't think that we're supposed to think they're good, just that they facilitated a good thing. I think we're supposed to regard them as dodgy at best, and that's one of the points of the show.

if a guy uses a glory hole, he could have no idea who is going to give him a blow job, but I would say that he has consented.

I hate to get all male-gaze-y, but I would say that if a guy is sticking his dick in something, he's pretty much consented to the act of *him* penetrating something/one.

That brings us back to the question of business model. Prostitution(rape included or not depending on definition) is part of it, the one thing they can always do better than a conventional pimp or madame. Erika and I think others suggested that highly confidential errands (whether legal like personal assistant or an assassination) would also be something they could offer. I don't think the forgetting is as big a guarantee as it seems at first glance. So your active forgets. But a big evil organization knows. And I'm not sure I would take their word they don't listen in, and don't record the memories of their active before erasing them. But, like a lot of illegal businesses, they do respect confidentiality and don't blackmail just as a matter of long term self-interest in remaining an on-going business. So even if the client does not trust the "nobody knows your secret" claim, they probably are confident their secret will be kept.

Their are a couple of other aspects: guaranteed expertise and instant availability. Since any active can be loaded with an expert imprint, and apparently they have memories of real people, you can hire an expert through them and be guaranteed that the expert will really be able to do the job whether the job is legal or illegal. Need an asassin? They can provide a highly competent sociopath on short notice. Need a kidnapping negotiator? Whether their negotiator is the best or not, at minimum they can guarantee that the expertise is real. Imagine you are Bill Gates and Melissa is kidnapped, and for some reason you don't think going to the police is the right thing to do. For all your billions, do you know how to select a qualified kidnapping negotiators? I mean if they offer credentials, do you know how to evaluate them? If you are hiring someone else to evalute that expert, how do you know the evalators are good? Someone who can create an instant expert, complete with real memories and real experience recorded from someone with a top record in the field may really be your best shot.

Also, if you are unethical enough to use them at all, the advantages of being able to get your high value labor via one stop shopping, with a quality guarantee you trust might have real advantages. If a few days work done right can make a difference of millions, it might be worth a very high price for guarantee that work is done right. And if what you are buying is illegal quality guarantees are probably very hard to come by, even for a billionare.

It's funny because the sense I'm getting is that the actives are for short-term jobs. I wonder how long a new personality can last in an active before things start going south (a la Alpha).

So you really couldn't have Echo as your personal assistant, but maybe they could bring in a different assistant each week?

Plus, in a few days the expert will no longer exist, and there goes that witness. How do you prosecute an assassin who only existed for a few days?

That would be a good episode, farther down the titillation scale and full of the potential for drama. Especially if Echo did the job without blinking, proving the completeness of the imprint.

edit: I'm playing with my storyline more. The police get the murder weapon, several weeks later Echo on another assignment leaves a fingerprint somewhere and gets caught, and she not only doesn't remember the Dollhouse but she's in an utterly new personality. No amount of interrogation could get information out of her, because there's none to get. The alibi would be fake, of course, and the Dollhouse might decide to kill her for tidiness sake.

I suspect that the actives can be programmed for long term use as well. Just a feeling. Might need reinforcement, with the active coming in for "treatment" every so often.

I suspect that the actives can be programmed for long term use as well. Just a feeling. Might need reinforcement, with the active coming in for "treatment" every so often.

This would go along with the speculation that Amy Acker might be an active. Maybe this is what happens when your five years are up? Or if you become "damaged goods" on a job?

I just caught up on the show last night and the thread just now. Fascinating discussion! I'm not sure where I fall on it yet. My sense is that David is right in bringing up the sexism and racism in Mad Men and just as right in suggesting that Dollhouse isn't handling the amorality as artfully. I'm not as bothered by the rescue of the little girl from the first episode as Jessica, because I think they did try to establish that the Dollhouse managers were only convinced to go along with the rescue through blatant manipulation by Echo's handler dude. They were unconcerned with the girl, which is in keeping with the show's portrayal of them as the villains.

Anyway, I plan to keep giving it a chance, at least until it's cancelled next week. I've been worried since I first heard about this show that Whedon's voice isn't nuanced enough to address a premise this convoluted. And it's not as bad as I feared, although nowhere as good as I hoped.

I hate to get all male-gaze-y, but I would say that if a guy is sticking his dick in something, he's pretty much consented to the act of *him* penetrating something/one.

So consent is only applicable to being penetrated, and not the reverse? That's a bit too double standard-y for me. Why would a man able to consent to some nebulous potential person having sex with him, but not a woman?

I hate to get all male-gaze-y, but I would say that if a guy is sticking his dick in something, he's pretty much consented to the act of *him* penetrating something/one.

So consent is only applicable to being penetrated, and not the reverse? That's a bit too double standard-y for me. Why would a man able to consent to some nebulous potential person having sex with him, but not a woman?

That's not what I said. I was talking only about the issue of consent as it pertains to a man who is currently engaged in the act of putting his dick in something/someone. While men are certainly raped, that's generally not the way it happens (i.e., someone grabs a guy's dick and puts it in something/someone). If a man's dick is in someone/something, I tend to assume he wanted it there. Which might be a wildly inaccurate assumption, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

I said nothing about whether a man versus a woman would be able to consent to a nebulous potential person having sex with him/her.

t edit Christ. I'm into Andrea Dworkin territory, and I really don't want to be.