Claire Saunders

Dr. Claire Saunders

Portrayed by Amy Acker, Dr. Claire Saunders is a recurring character of Dollhouse. She looks after the physical well-being of the dolls, and has an acid wit that she usually reserves for Topher, who may only be kidding about being smitten with her (or not). She is scarred from a razor attack, which occurred three months before the events of Dollhouse, during an attack on the Dollhouse by the rogue doll, Alpha, during his composite event. Dr. Saunders appears in 12 of the 13 episodes of the first season. Joss Whedon loves the character "because she wears misery and torture on her face literally, and we definitely learn how Claire came to this fabulous career. In the last few eps we get to turn the Acker up pretty high."

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Characterization

Background

The original Dr. Saunders was the Dollhouse's male physician, an older man in his fifties of sixties. After Dr. Saunders was killed at the hands of rogue Active Alpha, Topher imprinted the damaged doll Whiskey with Saunders' personality. Some alterations to the original Saunders personality in the new, younger Claire Saunders include memories related to gender difference, computer skills beyond those of a physician and also curiously, a hatred for Topher.

Personality

Joss Whedon describes the role: "Amy [Acker] plays Dr. Claire Saunders. She works in the Dollhouse and she's a very moral force. She's very, very, very broken. She's scarred, literally scarred. Something happened at the Dollhouse a while back, and she was scarred. She just sort of lives there, and her whole mission in life is to take care of them. Topher, the programmer, who is going to be cute and funny and sexy, he programs them, and he has a very amoral kind of point of view, and she is sort of his counterpoint."

Saunders is the most likely to oppose or criticize DeWitt's decisions, usually on the basis of endangering the Actives, whereas Langton objects on the basis of morality. Saunders also sometimes justifies the Dollhouse's services as being a benefit to people, unlike Langton, who sees no redeeming value. The plan in "Needs", to give some of the Actives back their original personalities so they can find closure but not escape, was conceived by Saunders, not DeWitt.

meetcute.biz

When Boyd enters Dr. Saunder's office at the beginning of episode 1x09 she quickly runs across the room to close a webpage on her computer. It was a fictional website meetcute.biz, assumed to be a dating service. This may indicate the doctor attempting to develop some kind of life outside of the Dollhouse. This episode also states that Saunders has not left the Dollhouse in some time.

Scars

Her scars were described as "indeed pretty intense. Not along the lines of Two-Face or Darth Vader, but not at all subtle. There are three on the right side of her forehead that all run from top right towards her nose. There is one on the left of her forehead that is much shorter and runs from left to right across her eyebrow. There's one that runs left to right across her nose and down into her cheek, and may in fact be a continuation of the one on her eyebrow. The last one runs vertically from her left nostril down across her lips to her chin."

These scars came from when Alpha slashed Whiskey's face with a pair of pruning shears, apparently out of jealousy over Whiskey being more popular with clients than Echo. This happened moments before Alpha's composite event.

Saunders appears to be absolutely terrified of Alpha, forcefully denying Boyd's suggestion that Alpha may still be alive, and later complying with Alpha's demand, at knife point, to summon Echo.