Actives in training (left), Echo (right)
Actives (or dolls) are the employees, and also the merchandise, of the Dollhouse. Any client of the Dollhouse can hire Actives for engagements, although sometimes the actives also do pro bono work. For each engagement actives get the necessary personality imprinted (which can include false memories, muscle memory, language, etc.). After each engagement, actives get their memories erased and live in a child-like state in the Dollhouse, which serves like a dormitory/school for them. Most of the dolls are "young and beautiful".[1] Supposedly, actives are volunteers who gave up five years of their lives for the Dollhouse. They get "a ridiculously large sum of money and no memory of anything they did for the Dollhouse".[1]
Engagements
- Main article: List of engagements
The Dollhouse will usually be contacted by "shifty and rich"[2] clients asking for an active to perform an engagement. The Dollhouse (in particular Adelle DeWitt) runs thorough background checks on each client to ensure the active's safety. Usually riskier engagements (the ones where actives are in danger of getting hurt or killed) also tend to have a higher price tag. The actives are monitored internally and remotely by their handler, but they only listen in on the engagements that involve criminal activity.[1] After finishing the engagement the actives feel a need to return to the Dollhouse, where they get wiped.
Besides client-related engagements, the actives also get to do work for the Dollhouse itself, such as Victor sabotaging Paul Ballard's investigation as "Lubov" or Mellie's surveillance of Ballard, and occasionally pro bono missions.
In the Dollhouse
Tabula Rasa
The beds/sleeping chambers
The actives live in the Dollhouse while not on mission. Since they have no memory of their past lives or missions, their state, termed "tabula rasa" by DeWitt, is quite child-like. Bonding between the actives (for instance during lunch) is quite uncommon. Joss Whedon described the actives in their child-like state as "the most vulnerable characters" he has written so far: "And that's something we play on, the fact that when they're in their doll state, they're not just child-like, but they're kind of naïve and trusting and optimistic. Sometimes things are just sort of, when they're bleak, their optimism is kind of beautifully sad. When we realize that things are not going well and they don't, it's kind of heartbreaking and then when they begin to realize, they begin to think beyond what just a blank slate, then it takes on a different kind of poignancy."[3]
Scripts
Despite the Dollhouse's insistence that the dolls are wiped clean after each imprint, they do maintain a small skill base, which includes the ability to speak the English language. Dollhouse programmers take advantage of the visceral nature of language and imprints the dolls with scripts which help to dictate their actions and reactions. The dolls remember their lines from wipe to wipe and use them to negotiate their relationships with their handlers and their reaction to their "birth" after every wipe. Topher refers to this as a "neural lock and key." If the expected response is not given, it causes distress and confusion, and the Doll may repeat his or her line until receiving a satisfactory response.
- For a list of scripts, see List of Scripts.
Facilities
The Dollhouse offers big co-ed showers, work-out chambers, sleeping chambers, a swimming pool, and a variety of health related activities such as yoga, massage and art classes to its actives. Actives move at will from place to place and activity to activity when off duty.
Designation
The designations of actives are taken from the NATO phonetic alphabet. The exact method of assigning specific names to specific actives is unknown. Since the current Sierra is at least the second active to bear that designation, as mentioned in "Stage Fright," a name that comes later in the alphabet does not necessarily mean that active has been at the Dollhouse longer. It is possible that the first actives were named in order, and replacements merely take over the most recently vacated name. Gender may also play a role in name designation, given that a male Doll was assigned the typically male name "Victor."
List of actives
Currently active
Other actives are shown, but not named. At least five unnamed actives survived Alpha's "composite event;" they are shown being ordered to bed before their shower in "The Target".
Currently rogue
Notes & references
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 10 Facts about Dollhouse - Spoiler Alert!. pinkraygun.com (2008-05-15). Retrieved on 2008-09-23.
- ↑ Spelling, Ian (2008-06-02). Joss Whedon offers a sneak peak at his brand-new Dollhouse. Sci Fi Weekly. scifi.com. Retrieved on 2008-09-23.
- ↑ Topel, Fred (2009-02-25). Joss Whedon sheds some light on Dollhouse. craveonline.com. Retrieved on 2009-02-26.