=-Kathy->

Another thing that I noticed this episode is that Dewitt seemed worried about screwing up when she talked to her boss on the phone. I'm wondering if we will meet this boss sometime down the road.

About the nato phonetic alphabet names of the actives, in a recent Joss whedon interview he mentioned they started out using them as a kind of place holder until they could come up with better names. He said they tried lists of all kinds of things, planets was one, can't remember what the others were. But finally they decided to stick with the alphabet names. He liked the conitations associated with the name "Echo".

While trying to find that interview I came across this one about names that I thought was cute:
YouTube - Dollhouse Unique Cast Names

Maybe I should have put it in a new thread instead.

MissDelaney

I disagree, I think that part of what makes this show so interesting is all the mystery. If we started the season before the incident with Alpha there wouldn't be any mystery. It's really intriguing to start the season off with this huge mystery. We don't know much about Alpha, they've never shown his face to us, we didn't see the incident happen--just clips of it. To be honest, if we started the season without that huge mystery, I think the show might come off as a little boring, at least until we hit that point in the middle where stuff actually started to happen with Alpha.

MethodicWays

Not only is it military language I believe the names also refer to the order in which they were made Dolls, i.e. Alpha was the first Doll (or at least first male doll) and Echo was the fifth female doll. I'm assuming that since Sierra is the 2nd Sierra that they have a collection of Dolls (Alpha through Zulu) and now new ones are only added when an Active is hurt or eliminated.

Little_Stewie

Excellent point. I wonder who her boss is......

OK, that's an excellent point you are making..... I guess if I had to pick between boring 'business as usual' episodes and what we have now, then I agree that what we have now is better. But maybe, as a compromise, the story should sometimes mention that only Echo's assignments are going wrong (cause Alpha sabotages them, apparently).

change my luck

The episode was great, I only just got to watch it as I've had a busy weekend. I enjoyed it much more than last weeks episode. I thought the idea of Echo being wiped half way through an OP was very interesting and enjoyable to watch. Eliza just owned this ep, I really thought she did so well to go from a kick arse lady to the Echo we know in the Dollhouse, very awsome.

I love that Sierra, Echo and Victor all sat at lunch together and Topher talking to Boyd about it LOL.

So glad Topher is getting more clearance on the Dollhouse and gets to find out more about Alpha and that he figured it out by himself. And I loved him freaking out about his job, it was kind of funny, the way he thinks he is so much better than anyone else

Once again enjoyed Paul/Victor this episode and Victors insight into Paul in their last scene, I think Victor hit the nail on the head there. Just nailed it. It is a bit worrying that Paul has made him a target for the FBI which if he goes on future jobs with a different imprint could cause some issues.

Sierra was hot in this episode, such a refreshing change tot he imprint she had last week.

As for Adelle, she did seem to panic more about the Paul situation whens he was talking to her boss, I wonder whats that is all about. How she got involved with the project at all if she is not the one completely in charge.

cmn24601

Drat, I have to re-do this entire post because FF failed on me.

You know, I was wondering if Alpha really is sabotaging just Echo's assignments. I mean, from our point of view it looks that way but that might be because the show is, for the most part, revolving around Echo--at least for the time being. I mean, it's obvious that his interferences with Echo's missions are obvious and purposeful and definitely dangerous for both the Dollhouse organization and Echo herself, I'm not doubting that at all.

But isn't Victor/Lubov's purpose to keep Paul Ballard from finding any leads to the Dollhouse and to push him in the opposite direction? Yet... I'm 95%, if not 100%, certain that Alpha is the one who provided Paul with the lead on Caroline. It's not as obvious as his interferences with Echo, but it's there.

So either Alpha is really looking at the big picture and tracking all the Actives to see if their jobs might be able to help him test Echo or he's really just out to get the organization itself. Or both. It could always be both.

Little_Stewie

^
Interest ing point about Victor and Alpha. Right now I am still unhappy with Victor/Lubov's character. It's just too confusing. I have no idea what's going on.....I am sure part of this confusion is wanted by Joss, but I can't help feeling that this part of the story is just poorly executed. Suddenly we see Victor as an active, I think it was last week's episode, and then there was no follow up until one week later. That surprise was kinda wasted, IMO.

Also, when Sierra, Echo, and Victor were sitting together at that Dollhouse table, Topher said they seemed to group together, sub-conciously. But how the hell does Victor know the girls? Did I miss something? That was poorly done as well, IMO.

But hey, I am sounding negative when I am quite positive about that show, actually......

change my luck

As far as we know Echo and Victor havent even met but we haven't seen all of their time in the Dollhouse, they could have met before now this is just the first time we have actually seen them together.

=-Kathy->

From this week's episode I think it is safe to say that Echo and Victor had been in the dollhouse together for some time, and have now included Sierra into their "clique", but from when we started watching he was away on his engagement with the Russian mob to deflect Paul Ballard. We didn't see him and Echo so that we could get the "big reveal" that he was on active. Unfortunately it wasn't much of a surprise to anyone who had read any of the pre-show hype about the characters.

As far as Dewitt and her boss, my guess is she is like the executive officer or manger and the boss is like president or chairman of the board of directors. She takes care of the day to day workings of the Dollhouse, following the directives of her boss(es). If you watched Angel, Dewitt is like Lilah or Lindsey and the boss is like one of the "senior partners" .

I've been thinking about the "memory wipes". I don't think that the memories are removed but that access to the memories are, sort of like amnesia. Maybe when a seemingly new experience is stored it is put into a place and the link established. But if there is a similar something already stored there, that previously stored memory is now accessible too. Anyway however it works, if the neurological pathways start to grow back then the active would start to remember. When they were first discussing Alpha's escape and killing spree they were quite surprised that he remembered his surgical skills from a former imprint.

If my theory is true, then the actives have quite a bit of stuff stored in their heads - their personality and experiences before they became actives, the imprints of personalities and experiences of people to give them skills, the experiences they have while in an engagement using those skills, and their time in the Dollhouse. If an active were to remember all those things they would probably go crazy trying to figure out who they were.

canflam

Your'e theory's kinda confusing. You think Active's aren't going to remember anything?

=-Kathy->

My theory is the memories don't get wiped. The pathways to the memories gets disabled so that they can't be accessed. Sort of like when you delete a file on your windows PC. The file is still there you just can't access it.

Johnnie

Topher probably does the best he can to 'wipe' them but I think something will either trigger the memories or they'll start coming back on their own in time, like the few signs we've seen of this even if they are very slight at the moment.

Though it can be made pretty much impossible to retrieve if you know how.

Little_Stewie

That are very interesting theories...... I personally was somewhat shocked that Topher didn't seem to worry at all about Echo, Sierra, and Victor having some kind of emotional/intuitive memory of each other. I mean, an incomplete memory loss is quite dangerous for the Dollhouse organization, no? One would think that they worry more about stuff like this......

cmn24601

Maybe they figure it's instinctual? Like, "well, they're doing it because they are instinctually drawn to each other but they don't actually remember each other."

Stupid reasoning, but when you run a facility like that one you don't want to admit to any flaws.

change my luck

There has to be a reason that Alpha eventually remembered and then killed everyone and why Echo is getting flashes sometimes. So I can believe that theory of that the memory is not completely erased.