Dollhouse/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• Dollhouse: In episode 1x03 ("Stage Fright"), I was always bugged by the outfit worn by the backup singer who caught on fire at the beginning of the episode. It seemed unflattering, out of style, and completely unlike what the other two backup singers were wearing, as well as what Echo later wore. And wouldn't that particular outfit be really hot up on stage? But then it clicked: the stunt actress had to wear full sleeves and leggings so she could wear the fire-retardant suit underneath it. Duh!
  • In the Dollhouse episode "Briar Rose", there's the Fairy Tale Motifs (well, motif) of Briar Rose or Sleeping Beauty, call it what you want, but there's also the biblical motif of the Garden of Eden, as discussed in the episode:

Steven: They told me this place was the new Eden.
Ballard: Adam and Eve weren't prisoners.
Steven: Excuse me, the apples were monitored!

• • • Basically, the Dollhouse is the Garden of Eden, the Actives are Adam and Eve before they ate the apples and they are happy in the garden, why wouldn't they be? They eat well, they have friends, they can swim in the pool whenever they want, but they have no free will - they are basically children and they are prisoners. The staff describe the outside world as a place of terror for the actives in which they could not live, Dewitt and Dr. Saunders actually make almost biblical speeches about how this place should not be corrupted and how the outside world will destroy the Actives. So in a way, Dollhouse is a deconstruction of the Garden of Eden, showing what a sick place it would be, and the cost of giving that place up is the world of terror and darkness in which we all live in Real Life. --Miz
  • This editor always thought, since the Actives are named for the military code for individual letters, there could only be 26 at a time. Which is fine, since they talk about the "previous Sierra". But they sleep in those five-pod rooms, which made me think that there must be, somewhere, a room where one Active sleeps by himself, since 26 divided by 5 is 5 with 1 left over. Then I realized, Alpha is that one, and he doesn't sleep in the pod at all. There's no "new" Alpha because Alpha is still alive.
    • Actually that one is Whiskey aka Dr. Saunders.
      • Probably both, really. There's a tradition in everywhere from sports to airplanes of not recycling designations with bad luck or a notable tragedy associated with them.

Fridge Horror

• Dollhouse makes it clear that the "imprinting" chairs can be used as highly effective torture devices. Bennett mentions that not only can she use the device to create pure, searing agony, but she can control a mind to the point that the victim is entirely unable to pass out. The fridge part comes from the realization that in order to be able to do that, Bennett had to learn how to do that with an imprinting chair - which means that before she started zapping Echo's body, she was experimenting on torturing other Dolls to get the effect she needed. And since they're Dolls, and the damage leaves no lasting marks on the victim, Bennett could torture a Doll as long as she wanted, and then wipe the memory of it...
  • The second episode "The Target" has such a moment. The bad guy intends to hunt Echo for fun in Hunting the Most Dangerous Game fashion. That alone is bad enough, but when you take into account his earlier comment about how if you kill something you have a right to eat it... *shudder*
  • Also consider that Ivy does not appear in the finale.
  • In the episode "Grey Hour", despite her grand speech on not getting famous means not getting dead, it's highly likely the women who "Taffy" mostly made up of is most likely either dead or a doll.
  • Epitaph 2 every secondary or minor character we meet in the entire series is either dead, or became a dumbshow, a different person or a butcher and if they we're themselves the whole time, they'll have to remember one hell of a Crapsack World.
  • Also, everything an imprinted Active feels is completely real, Echo has at least two different imprints who were sexually abused as children. One whose template killed herself due to not coming to terms with it, and another who was pimped out.
  • In Epitaph 2, it's revealed that the baddies shot an innocent victim in front of Topher every day he didn't complete his demon device. At first glance it seems like a very, very small mercy that the victims didn't suffer some more grotesque, slow and painful death. But a simple bullet to the head is how Bennett died. Meaning that he has to relive her death every single day. And Clive being the person who authorized her death and the death of the innocents would be fully aware of this.