FOX hasn’t announced yet whether or not we should expect to ever see Dollhouse on the schedule again, but I thought Tim Minear’s “Omega” did a reasonably adequate job of finishing off the season and leaving room for the future without keeping anything dangling that can’t be stomached if the show never returns. It was not my favorite episode, and by the end I was feeling a little disappointed. But there’s a balance that has to be kept when you’re managing a series with a 10% chance of renewal. You can’t run your series as a prequel for upcoming graphic novels.

When we last left our crew, Alpha had imprinted Echo with the personality of a white trash tart, and set off to places unknown. Those places turned out to be an abandoned electrical plant of some kind, where he has set up — GASP! — his own Dollhouse chair! I’m not sure how he figured out how to build it, but he uses this piece of technological wizardry to imprint a kidnapped young woman with the original personality of Caroline. Why would he do something so weird, you ask? Because Alpha blames his original personality for abandoning him when the going got tough — in fact, he destroyed his original personality. Smashed the “wedge” containing it to pieces. And now he wants Echo to do the same to Caroline, making the body they’ve written over over experience a painful death.

But first he implants Echo with the personalities of every imprint she’s ever had — something, it turns out, that happened to Alpha right before he escaped from the Dollhouse. For some reason Alpha believes his surfeit of personalities makes him a kind of god, and he assumes Echo will respond more or less the same way. He miscalculates. Alpha was just a few steps away from becoming a serial killer before becoming an active. Echo, on the other hand, was a college student battling the unethical treatment of lab animals. It looks like no matter how many sets of memories, emotions, goals, and desires you give to somebody, their original self will eventually win out.

That may be bad news for the Dollhouse. And in the short term, it’s bad news for Alpha. Echo kicks his ass. But then he shoots “Caroline” in the neck and runs off with her wedge.

Meanwhile, back at the Dollhouse, Ballard is helping DeWitt and Langton hunt down Alpha. He’s convinced that you can’t just wipe a person clean, so whomever Alpha was before coming to the DH plays a critical role in determining why and how he’s doing what he’s doing. He uses the word “soul”, which causes Topher to roll his eyes. But of course, we know Ballard is correct. We’ve seen it in Echo all along. Eventually Ballard and Langton track Alpha to the plant, where they arrive just in time for Ballard to catch Caroline’s wedge.

Strictly in terms of entertainment value, “Omega” works very well. I especially enjoyed the revelation that Dr. Saunders (Amy Acker) is, in fact, an active who used to be known as Whiskey. But that’s also a great example of what bothered me about this episode: everything happened too fast. Wouldn’t it have been more interesting to show Saunders slowly come apart as she begins to suspect she might be a doll? In this case, she just hacks into Topher’s files and learns the truth. She does get off a good line to Topher though: “I don’t understand why you made me hate you.” Good stuff.

But it all felt rushed. So rushed, in fact, that once Sierra and November were implanted with … some kind of crime solving agents, we never saw them again! I guess there just wasn’t time to follow their pursuits. They must not have have been very good imprints, though, since they never made it to the electrical plant. And Alpha, who seemed so terrifying and real last week, this week was more of a cartoon. I also don’t think I can overlook that Alpha allowed himself to be chased by Echo, even though he had a gun and she didn’t. I suppose you can argue that he was just too in love with her to kill her or something like that. I don’t buy it. I thought it was lazy.

But nothing felt more unduly compressed than the conversion of Paul Ballard from anti-Dollhouse crusader to Dollhouse subcontractor. This just doesn’t make any sense, and it’s simply not the kind of transition that can convincingly happen in 44 minutes (or however long these things are with the extra-short commercial breaks). If the series does end here, this will be the thing that leaves the worst taste in my mouth. And since Ballard arranged for the early release of November (real name: Madeleine) rather than Caroline, are we to assume that Ballard is now going to be Echo’s handler? I’m willing to accept that Ballard isn’t the morally upright savior he initially appeared to be — in fact, that’s what I enjoy about the character — but I’m going to have to see how that conversion from outsider to insider really went down before I’ll be able to accept it.

Unless … maybe he thinks he can bring them down from the inside? So on that point, why would DeWitt even trust him? “I know what he wants,” she tells Langton. We’ll see.

Whither poor Victor? Another visit with Ms. Lonely Heart?

I’m still just as interested in the universe of this show as I’ve eve been. I just wish the events of “Omega” could have been stretched out over three or four episodes. But at least FOX came through on their promise of airing a full (half) season. Dollhouse will almost certainly never be a hit show, even the network does renew it. But as the viewing public becomes more segmented, and as the cable television spectrum continues to grow, there ought to be room on the dial for shows with small but devoted groups of fans. And if you want to keep it on Friday nights with low rating expectations, that’s fine with me. Some of us geeks are tired after a long week of work and like to stay home.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

So there you have it. This finale was okay, but not good enough. I want more. But if it’s not to be, then at least the show reminded me what it’s like to set foot in a Whedonverse again. Thanks, guys.

When fans of Dollhouse mourn its inevitable cancellation this month, we will point to three episodes as evidence of what might have been. “Man on the Street” and “A Spy in the House of Love” will be two of them. “Briar Rose”, this week’s excellent entry and the penultimate episode of the season, will be the third.

I have been very, very careful to avoid being spoiled about which actor would be portraying Alpha, the former active who went crazy and started slicing up people’s faces. I knew it was a casting choice that excited people, so I guessed it was probably a Whedon alum. When I saw Alan Tudyk’s (Firefly) name in the opening credits for this week’s episode, I figured he was probably the guy. When they introduced him instead as a housebound, marijuana-growing expert in environmental systems, I began to wonder if maybe they decided not to credit the Alpha actor, and were going to have, say, James Marsters show up at the end. But as soon as Tudyk started gleefully shutting down all the Dollhouse security systems (after telling Ballard that he couldn’t), I knew my initial instincts were correct.

And by the way, what a performance! Tudyk was hilarious for most of the episode (and credit Jane Espenson for writing some wonderfully zany dialogue), but his transition for neurotic tech expert to stone cold psychopath was startling and entirely convincing. It makes me sad that we had to wait the entire season to get this character, and now … well, how much more of him will we get?

“Briar Rose” is full of solid performances. Special mention has to go to Enver Gjokaj (“Victor”) for his spot on impression of Reed Diamond’s boxed NSA agent Dominic. Even Topher seemed unusually subdued (for him) while explaining his idea to implant Echo with a grown up version of a troubled young girl in need of help. That storyline, by the way — Echo counseling the child prostitute — was both resonant and out of place. Yes, it ties neatly into Paul’s attempts to rescue Echo from the Dollhouse (and suggests that Echo may need to “think of herself as the prince”). But during those scenes, I felt like I was watching another show. I do hope we get some kind of resolution about the little girl though. There’s a good philosophical debate to be had about whether the DH can be a force for good as well as … well, maybe not “evil”, but certainly less morally defensible motives. If Echo’s grown-up disturbed girl can turn the actual disturbed girl’s life around — well, does that even the scales at all?

Ballard remains my main source of joy with this series, and his early kiss-off to poor Mellie was just so painful to watch. He makes a comment to Alpha early in their quest that, in effect, the dolls aren’t actually people. Shades of Battlestar Galactica there — not surprising, I suppose, considering Espenson wrote for that series and Tahmoh Pennikett was a regular. It gets a little meta-heavy, though, when Topher uses the word “frak”. Anyway, there’s no question that Mellie’s pain over the way Paul treats her is genuine — hell, she’s ready to fling herself off a bridge before her handler shows up and takes her back to the DH. Poor, Mellie. She really drew the short straw.

But how would Ballard have reacted if Mellie really had jumped off the bridge? Doll or not, that’s the permanent end of someone’s life (not accounting for the possibility of implanting her original personality in another body, which to me is nothing more than a photocopy), even if her emotional attachment to him can be chalked up to “programming”. But she’s not Caroline, and for some reason, she’s the only doll Ballard has any real interested in rescuing. Oh, he wants to bring the whole operation down, yes. But his single-minded purpose is to bring Caroline out of there, even though he really should have no reason to think that would be any less dangerous to him than rescuing Mellie would be.

We’re left with Boyd and Adelle debating whether or not they can put Ballard in the chair. Boyd rejects the idea on the grounds that Ballard hasn’t agreed to it. Adelle, who sent Dominic to the attic without a second thought, naturally disagrees. Which brings me back to a thought I had early on in the series: why don’t they just capture Ballard and write over his real personality with a nearly identical one that doesn’t have any interest in pursuing the Dollhouse? Isn’t that a more sensible solution than trying to kill him? Well, maybe that’s what they’re going to do.

Right now, though, the threat of Alpha — who has written a specific though heretofore unknown personality on Echo and left with her — seems more important. For the moment, Ballard and the Dollhouse have the same goal.

I can’t wait for the finale next week.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

“Carrots! I’m growing medicinal carrots. For a friend. They were here when I moved in!” Comment away, but please no spoilers for future episodes.