Joss Whedon has created some of the best television shows in the business, including, of course, the late, great Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and its even better spin-off Angel. Whedon also created the great, wonderful, fantastic, best damn show in the ‘verse Firefly, which was crammed into a late Friday night slot and unceremoniously cancelled by Fox.

Eliza Dushku in Dollhouse

Given that history, it’s no surprise that Whedon’s new show, Dollhouse, placed in the same Firefly, inspired fan-campaigns to “save” it before it even aired in the first place. Still, as investment firms are fond of reminding us, past performance is no guarantee of future results. So the question in this case is: how good is Dollhouse so far?

The answer: pretty damn good. And intriguing to boot.

The Premise

The premise of Dollhouse is both utterly simple and utterly complicated. The institution that gives the show its title–the “Dollhouse” is a high-powered organization that, as its “product” sells engagements with its “Actives.” The “Actives” are people who have volunteered (or, at least, the show claims so far that they volunteered) to have their memories and identities erased completely. The Actives can then be reprogrammed to have different personalities. The pilot reveals that these bits and pieces of personalities are taken from actual, real people, and in some cases include actual memories.

In a lot of ways, as you might imagine, the Actives so far have been shown doing primarily what you think they would–acting as glorified escorts for the rich and powerful for whom a high class call girl isn’t enough. They need someone who is programmed to worship them and be their “ideal person.” But the role of Actives does go beyond that, as witnessed in the opening episode, which puts star Eliza Dushku’s character Echo in the role of an expert hostage negotiator. Presumably, more such roles will be coming as the show evolves.

What makes this premise so significantly unique is that it provides a nice episodic hook to the show–Echo is literally a new person with every engagement. But it also allows for an exploration of issues of personal identity, memory, ethics and a whole host of other issues as the show goes on. As someone who is fascinated by philosophic issues of identity and ethics, I’m interested to see where the story is going to go.

The Story So Far

One of the best aspects of the start of Dollhouse is that it isn’t putting us in from the beginning. It’s clear from the two episodes aired so far that the Dollhouse has been around for a few years, at least. Long enough that the FBI has an ongoing, albeit little respected, investigation. And I don’t think I’m spoiling too much when I mention that the second episode introduces an unseen Active known as “Alpha” who has suffered something called a “composite event.” It’s not quite explained what that means, except that Alpha went on a rampage and killed several inhabitants of the Dollhouse–although he curiously left Echo alive for reasons that will no doubt be explained later.

As a result of that rampage, we learn, the Dollhouse brought in some new blood, including a “handler” for Echo named Boyd Langdon, played by the always wonderful character actor Henry Lennix. Boyd is clearly an old pro whose seen a lot, but the Dollhouse appears to have given him a chance to do something new and different with his skills. The second episode also shows an interesting progression of Boyd’s attitude towards his job and towards the Actives–from barely recognizing them as people to caring deeply about Echo. Boyd’s definitely the “heart” character of the show so far.

The Execution So Far

Although the story and premise of Dollhouse are intriguing and ripe with potential, the execution could use a little work. For one thing–it’s tough to tell right now if Eliza Dushku has the acting chops to pull off being a different person every week. It’s a tough job for any actor and Dushku mostly made it work in the first two episodes, but that’s partially because of the nature of the characters she played. Time’s gonna tell if she can push it in the next few. I hope she can.

The other parts of the show are a little too “conventional TV” so far, as well. One thing I desperately miss so far is the wit of Joss Whedon’s writing. Dialogue in a Whedon show usually sings, but the two episodes of Dollhouse so far have been more prosaic. I read an interview with Eliza Dushku where she mentions that that changes a few episodes down the road and I hope that’s right. There’s a lot of parts and pieces going on in Dollhouse right now and they haven’t quite gelled yet. Hopefully when they do the rest of execution will hum along with it.

Overall

Overall, I’d have to say that Dollhouse has a lot of promise. If Eliza Dushku can hold up the acting end and the show lives up to its promise of exploring the nature of personal identity and self that are being hinted at so far, I’d say that it has a lot of promise. The danger, though, is that it either gets canceled before it gets going, or that it ignores the deep, intelligent parts of the show in favor of a pulpy shoot-em-up. Time will tell.