This is Sierra, one of the main Actives on which Dollhouse's writers focus. Sierra as character is interesting because she is the only character, besides Echo, that has her full back-story revealed to the audience. However, knowing everything that this young woman has gone through makes her character all the more tragic. In fact, I argue that of all the characters in the show, Sierra suffers the most (outside of straight-up getting killed) because of her experiences with the Dollhouse. Let's examine Sierra's victimhood.
1. The first scene of Sierra in Dollhouse is her transformation from human to Doll.
Needles and electrodes are injected around over her exposed body, and with the flip of a switch, Sierra begins writhing in pain. Echo is standing outside and shares this look with Sierra, and promises to herself to "help her not hurt".
Next week, I'll show how the Dollhouse deals with Sierra and Victor's inexplicable romantic and Sierra's reasons for entering the Dollhouse continuing that first scene's theme of Sierra in pain and powerless to stop it.
"Man on the Street" was a pivotal episode in Dollhouse for many reasons. Not only did this episode establish more clearly the world in which the Dollhouse exists, but it also helped to set in motion major character's motivations and paths for the rest of the series. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the story arc of FBI agent Paul Ballard's search for Echo, the young woman he knows as Caroline.
Watching the first five episodes of the series, it seems obvious that Paul's one-man fight against the Dollhouse is failing miserably. His case is considered a joke by his peers and superiors; his investigations consistently lead to nowhere, and the only major lead he had - the Russian informant Lubov - was actually the Doll Victor, working with the Dollhouse. Paul has lost his wife, his friends, and credibility at his job from working this investigation.
But that isn't why Paul keeps going. Early in the series, Paul was given a photo and later a video of the Active Echo before the Dollhouse - when she was still known as Caroline. This put a face on the Dollhouse's mistreatment of others, and it also gave him a new goal: to save Caroline, which might not have the most noble intentions, but certainly is motivating.
Before this point in the series, anyone watching Dollhouse for the first time might still be concerned about the series' potential and its direction. The first five episodes, like many fledgling TV shows, follow the "mission-of-the-week" formula that allows new viewers to grasp the basics of the show without seeing it from the beginning. However, with the sixth episode "Man on the Street", everyone from critics to Joss Whedon himself insist that this was the turning point of Dollhouse - when the audience was first given a true glimpse into the mythos and the motives of those in the Dollhouse.
For example, up until this point, how much the real world was aware of the Dollhouse has been kept purposefully unclear. Whedon uses the format of a man-on-the-street news reporter (hence the title) covering a story on the Dollhouse to give us a sense of the average person in the Dollhouse world. The conclusion is clear: every person interviewed has some prior knowledge of the Dollhouse. Yet while some correctly believe in its actual existence, the majority dismiss the idea as urban legend. A shocking number of people also admit that if presented the opportunity, they might want to volunteer themselves as a Doll, seeing it as a way of escaping life's difficulties with no strings attached.
The key mission statements of the Dollhouse are 1) the Dolls' engagements fulfill the needs of people who need help or comfort, making the deed justifiable and 2) that the Dolls are perfectly safe in a blissful state that continues uninterrupted between engagements. Yet this episode will show through the experiences of Echo and Sierra how neither of these statements hold true, nor will they for the rest of the series.
Next week, I will address the culmination of Agent Paul Ballard's quest to uncover the Dollhouse when he finally catches a Dollhouse client in the act and gets to meet Echo, the woman he knows as Caroline.
