This article contains spoilers for “seeding”.

Rent Kier! Dichen Lachman finally has its time under the spotlight. Like so many other Australian actors who finally made the jump to Hollywood, Lachman cut his teeth on the Australian soap of the Australian “neighbors”. However, although he has become a prolific veteran of American television, she was curiously wasted in flashing roles and yourself in tents like “Jurassic World Dominion” and “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”. Fortunately, this is not the case with “Souche”, the extremely trippy science fiction series by Dan Erickson On modern societies and their endless research of new ways to exploit their workers.

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Speaking of The Devil, the harmful giant of biotechnology Lumon Industries and its “section” technology have taken new shades of disturbance in season 2 “Severance”, especially with regard to the character of Lachman … or, should we say, characters. As you may remember, the actor made his debut on the series as Ms. Casey. With his almost ethereal way and his patience, Lumon Wellness’s advisor is perfectly suited to treat the children’s children, that is to say the personalities of the “cut” employees of Lumon who know nothing about life outside their work. Over time, however, it appeared that Mrs. Casey herself is in fact the innie of a scout Gemma, the wife of the believer of Lumon’s employee, Mark Scout (Adam Scott).

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Things have taken An even more disturbing turn in “Chikhai Bardo” of season 2. There, we have learned that Lumon has not only created several ingenies for Gemma, but also mainly held his prisoner because he submits his various audiences to painful experiences designed to test the limits of separation technology. Of course, if you are a longtime fan of Lachman, the idea that she played essentially to several individuals living in the same body will sound, because Erickson is too aware.

Before assembling the most powerful heroes of the earth, but after having sent his happy group of space cowboys With the follow -up film “Firefly” “Serenity,”, Joss Whedon has become philosophical with his short-term science fiction creation “Dollhouse”. The Fox series, like “Severance”, focuses on a shaded company – in this case, the shaded Rossum – which specializes in interference with the spirit of its workers. As its title indicates, Rossum programs its employees, AKA Active or Dolls, with temporary personalities and alternative skills, which allows its customers to treat these dolls as living dolls specially designed to achieve their craziest fantasies.

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In particular, Rossum dolls also form a more permanent alternative personality who knows nothing about the world beyond their workplace, alias their “doll house”, in addition to their regular personality, which does not keep any memories of their work experiences for Rossum. In other words, their doll personalities are the Innies to their outings, that is to say the personalities of Lumon employees who only remember the events of their personal life on the “section”.

This brings us to Lachman, who played on the two seasons of “Dollhouse” from 2009 to 2010 as Sierra de Poupée (whose real name is Priya Tsetsang). When Alan Sepinwall pointed out on the parallels between the Whedon show and the “section” during his interview with Erickson for Roller (More specifically, what happens to Gemma in “Chikhai Bardo”), the showrunner revealed that it was somewhat accessory:

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“Yeah. I had seen” Dollhouse “. But it’s funny: it didn’t really come to mind until we are writing the episode that it was a bit similar in the concept.

Erickson’s response makes sense. For all their similarities at the surface level, the “Séèvée” and the “dollhouse” are quite different. The latter only briefly affects the concept of work exploitation; Like the competitors of “squid game”, people are generally in a sort of disastrous strait when Rossum convinces them to “volunteer” to become a doll with the promise of a raised pay day in exchange for their services. Sierra, of course, is an exception to this rule, but even then, her scenario has more in common with that of Evan Rachel Wood Dolores Abernathy of the previous seasons of “Westworld” that Gemma. (The common denominator being, they are all quite dark in their own way.)

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For the most part, however, “Dollhouse” merges the themes of empowerment and autonomy for which is known with existential reflections, in particular the idea that dolls always retain parts of their temporary personality after being wiped. Likewise, it is shown that more powerful emotions transcend the programming of dolls, which is why Sierra always falls in love with his colleague Doll Victor (Enver Gjokaj), and vice versa, even when programmed with different characters.

There is also an intriguing meta-element in the “doll house”. After all, the relationship between dolls and people who direct Rossum is more than a little like the real one between the actors and their bosses. Unfortunately, it is a concept that does not really draw the attention it justifies in the series, because Whedon tends to avoid counting fully with its darker implications. (In particular, when some Rossum employees use dolls to meet their own personal needs, they are not vilified as their customers are.) Self-criticism has never been Whedon’s costumeIt is?

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“Seede” is streaming on Apple TV +.