Wish I’d Thought Of That!

I love getting attached to characters in television series, and there’s nothing I like better than a series marathon. Thanks to my Direct TV DVR, I can record a season’s worth of series and gobble them up in a week or two. Mmmm, twenty-four hours of Sawyer. Yum.

But LOST comes next week. The series I’m currently enjoying are Lie To Me, Fringe, Reaper (of course, already blogged about that, and sadly the series finale may be the last I ever see of it as it is rumored to have been cancelled) and Dollhouse.

The latter being the subject of my bloggy today. I was instantly captivated by this series about an underground organization that uses operatives called Dolls who have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas. (and instantly adored all the characters. The jury’s still out on Agent Dunham on Fringe) Kudos to Ms. Dushku, who is also the producer. I just finished the last of season one and I can hardly wait for a new season. It better not get cancelled. (Didja hear me, Fox?)

It occurred to me, as I was tingling from the conclusion of the finale episode, that these “Dolls,” are also shifters, of a kind. The shift is done in the mind. After all, what we are is what we perceive ourselves to be, is it not?

I like to think my WIP, tentatively called Last Rights, has a similar twist. Set in the future, it’s about cloning, and the government’s secret use of cloned super-soldiers. Secret, because clones are used only for re-growing organs for their donor, and are believed to be mentally comotose, vegetative lumps of flesh that cannot speak or learn.

I call it Last Rights, because the First Rights law decrees the donor has first rights before their clone. So when the donor needs a new heart, the clone gives his up. But the truth is clones are as human as you and I, and the government has used a high-tech brainwashing technique to imprint the memories of one of its earliest human soldiers onto their clone warriors.

The tragic memories of that first soldier are what drive the clones to be the most aggressive fighters, fearless and determined to exact revenge. The hero is a cloned soldier (who doesn’t know it) and the heroine is a private detective hired to transport her nephew’s clone home so he can donate a life saving heart transplant. They are targeted by a fanatical cult who wants to prevent the transplant, even if they have to kill the clone to keep it from happening.

Along the dangerous journey, my heroine must decide which child to save: her nephew, or the adorable clone whom she’s learned is as bright and intelligent, and as real and alive, as any five year old.

I wonder if Josh Whedon would be interested? : )