Dang it, can’t seem to put itals in the subject line. If I would I could have clarified that we’re talking about a piece of intellectual property, Dollhouse, Joss Whedon’s first post-Firefly TV series, and not some kind of miniature play environment. Lemme blockquote it for you:
The drama stars Dushku as Echo, a member of a group of men and women who are imprinted with different personalities for different assignments. In between tasks they are mind-wiped, living like children in Dollhouse, a futuristic dorm/lab. A group of people, known as “Actives” (or “Dolls”), have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas and hired out for particular jobs, crimes, fantasies and occasional good deeds. When not imprinted, the Actives live, childlike and unremembering, in a hidden facility nicknamed “The Dollhouse”. Although the Actives are ostensibly volunteers, the operation is highly illegal, and under constant threat from a determined federal agent on one end and an insane rogue Active on the other. The story hinges around a greater and more subtle threat: Echo, a female Active, begins, in her mind-wiped state, to become self-aware.
The one thing I don’t get here (other than the charms of Ms. Dushku, who for some reason I’ve never really gotten the point of her tough-but-fragile on-screen persona) is how they’re going to develop consistent characters from week to week (other than the increasingly self-aware Echo) if everybody’s gettin’ their minds wiped all the time. Maybe it’ll be entertaining just to see the actors take on different personalities? But Whedon will have a good solution. He always does.