During one moment of tonight’s episode of Dollhouse, the doll of Victor-turned-Dominic said the word “whiskey” right before he was injected. A couple of notes about that:
1. “Whiskey” is the letter W in the NATO phonetic alphabet (just like Victor, Echo and Sierra).
2. Dominic was clearly talking to Dr. Saunders.
Add those two points together and it appears that dear Dr. Claire Saunders is, in fact, a doll.
Taking that a step futher, recall that Amy Acker is only listed as a guest star, at least for this season. The topic of the dollhouse being a sort of fountain of youth has been brought up before, especially since last week. So, could it be that Dr. Saunders was actually killed once before and this is her new body, in that of the doll Whiskey?
In fact, this could be said about most or all of the current staff at the dollhouse. They could easily be recording the latest “version” of themselves for easy retrieval, should they meet an untimely demise. Then their memories are simply put into an existing doll. Rinse, repeat. The entire dollhouse could simply be a sort of incubation chamber for all of the staff residing there, or perhaps for people higher up in authority that we haven’t seen yet.
In any case, I’m going with Dr. Saunders being the doll Whiskey. What that means remains to be seen.
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on May 01, 2009 @ 22:13 EST5EDT
Add to your clues when Alpha asked Saunders if she always wanted to be a doctor, and when she said yes, he called her a liar. Additionally, there was something about the way that he spoke about his slashes being unique; as if he only slashes dolls, to give them their own unique characteristics. eh…I’m probably creating my own conspiracies.
i was thinking same thing. would also make sense because then mr. dominic could have been having a relationship with the REAL dr saunders, and once they saw how they treated her, he decided to blow the whistle.
i suspect the bigger purpose of the dollhouse is the fountain of youth.
My crazy guess based on this episode is that the OG Dr. Saunders was killed by Alpha in the original attack, but Whiskey was only disfigured. Those scars take her out of the lineup for most engagements, so they put the most recent backup of Dr. S in Whiskey’s body. It explains this scene, and furthers the theory that nobody that signs a contract actually gets back out of the Dollhouse.
It makes sense and answers the question that’s been nagging at me since the beginning as to why the Dollhouse hasn’t paid for plastic surgery for the doc’s face. It was an on-the-job injury after all, and surely they have a world-class surgeon in the wedges. If they actually have any voluntary employees, it can’t be good for staff morale to have a reminder of the massacre staring them in the face all the time. But nobody would care about fixing a meat puppet.
i had noticed both Mr.Dominic(Victor) calling her whiskey and Alpha calling her a liar…but there was one other thing that made me wonder…the fact that when being interrogated by Echo the spy hunter it was told that she never leaves the dollhouse…she is there at all hours…apparently so she can be there whenever shes needed…or is it so the dollhouse can keep an eye on their ‘doll’…?!
Also in last weeks episode when Echo was interrogating the staff. She mentioned that Dr. Saunders had not left the Dollhouse since the Alpha attack.
Saunders = Echo fits – but they can’t *all* be dolls since the others all caught the virus in the “Echoes” episode (which dolls couldn’t catch, or rather they could catch but exhibited different symptoms)
Dr. Saunders wasn’t featured during “Echoes” when the others were affected by the drug. Have to wonder if that’s because she would have presented the same symptoms as the other Actives.
In the flashback to Alpha’s escape Topher says that Dr. Saunders looks like a jigsaw puzzle, again, maybe that was more drastic than we assumed.
*possible spoiler*
In the script for the unaired pilot “Echo”, Topher repeatedly refers to Dr. Saunders as “The Phantom”. Dead woman walking?