Epitaph One, the final episode that was never aired on TV, was initially created because the studio needed a full thirteen episodes for the DVD/Blu-Ray set. Joss Whedon decided to give them one more episode, but one that would be mostly shot on video to save costs, and it would turn out to be one of the best episodes of the first season. Taking place ten years in the future, in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles that's been ravaged by constant violence and street warfare, a small band of survivors led by Griff (Chris William Martin) are searching for a safe haven amidst the chaos when they come across the abandoned Dollhouse several stories below the surface of the panic-gripped streets. The place is empty of people, but the imprint machine remains, and when Griff's crew realizes what it is, it takes everything they have to blast it to smithereens.

Many years ago, the imprint technology went wireless. The meaning of this is ominious, because now people no longer need to lie down in a chair to have their personalities switched. Their personalities can now be snatched from them while they're walking down the street, and replaced with a mass muderer program--known as a Butcher--with the simple instructions to go out and kill as many people as they can. The Chinese are blamed for using the wireless imprint program to create an army of killers within the US population, as people who haven't been wiped arm themselves and stay away from any technology that can broadcast the imprint signal. Griff and his gang think they're safe in the remnants of the Dollhouse--until they discover that somebody else is down here with them, and this enemy is killing them off, one by one.

Epitaph One is a haunting, poignant and very dark story that shows what happens when the Dollhouse technology becomes common knowledge and literally hits the airwaves. The regular cast of characters is viewed in flashbacks, with no real clue given as to their present day whereabouts. The warnings about the imprint technology that have been raised throughout the first season have largely been ignored, as we see Adelle and Topher grappling in flashbacks with their part in how the personality switching technology has been abused by their bosses and then ultimately turned against them. Dollhouse, the series, had been teetering on the brink of cancelation, before being renewed at the last minute. But had it been cancelled, this episode would have served as a bleak and very ominous finale. As it stands now, this dire and darkly brilliant episode is even more frightening, because it can still happen.