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.

If it weren't for the Dollhouse, the kidnapped girl in the pilot would have been raped and murdered. It was very specifically set up so that only "Miss Penn" could have put that together in time to prevent it.

Again, exactly. (And this is an awful lot of Jessica and I on the same page. Mark your calendars!)

Buuuuut .... and it's a big but ... just because the organization does some things which are fundamentally good, in no way absolves it of things it does which are bad. It just means not all the services it offers are squicky.

For example, if you hire a prostitute to have sex and clean your house, you will only get charged for hiring for sex. If you hire someone who works as a prostitute to do your laundry once a week, she'll only get in trouble for that if she doesn't pay her taxes.

ETA: Although she may end up with a government job afterward.

I just want to preface by saying I know very well how quickly a conversation like this can start feeling like an attack, and I want to be clear that I'm only asking because I'm curious about your position, NOT because I want to prove you WRONG WRONG WRONG or force you to represent a whole school of thought.

That may or may not make a difference to you, but I know I've been in the position of feeling attacked like that and I'd rather not do it to anyone else.

And then I tried to put into words what my question was and completely lost track. I'm still not quite sure at what point consent is possible versus impossible, if you assume (as I do) that consent can be withdrawn at ANY time. And I think it's bound up also with the issue of lying -- even if we posit that the base personality can consent to whatever happens in the Dollhouse, or that the imprints can consent to sex with the clients, the fact that the clients are always (by definition) concealing a major fact (we never met before, your memories are fabricated) makes consent murky. On the other hand, I'm not sure that lying necessarily negates consent. And then again what does "consent" mean anyway, other than (and this is how I've been using it) a legal thing meaning the other party is not legally guilty of rape.

I think. And Steph, you don't have to be the one to answer it, either. I'm being pussyfootish about this because I think it's always sensitive and potentially offensive, but also interesting and worth discussing. Now I'm going to buy a car, which... maybe I'll have sex in the back of one day. Okay, so I couldn't really connect it. Bye, y'all.

Now I'm going to buy a car, which... maybe I'll have sex in the back of one day.

Emily, what did we JUST SAY about the lack of room in the rear?