Brief spoilers for tonight's "Dollhouse" coming up just as soon as I get comped for two bottles of champagne...We're now at the point I reach with shows where I got to see a bunch of episodes in advance: it's been so long since I watched this particular episode, and my overall impressions of the show have so coalesced together, that I don't have very much specific to say here and am just waiting for the next new one. For that matter, I almost feel like I should wait two weeks for this sixth episode that Eliza Dushku promised would change everything.
In brief, I think it was a mistake to do two episodes out of the first four (the pilot being the other) where the imprinting process backfires in some way and nearly ruins the mission, because it creates yet another story hole for a show that can't afford to take on any more plausibility leaks. I don't care that Topher acts like the remote mind-wipe should be nearly impossible; when we see Echo lose it on a mission twice in such short order(*) because of a glitch in the technology, it makes it really hard to accept that anyone would go to the Dollhouse first (or second or third) to meet their needs. Why not just hire an actual safecracker?
(*) Joss Whedon did tell me that the episode order on these first four got reshuffled due to production issues, but it seems like the bow-hunting episode was the one that got moved the most, and that's a case where the client went nuts but the imprint process was fine.
Also, even though it was necessary to the plot, I really didn't want to spend that much time with Echo in her tabula rasa state. Taffy the thief -- both Dushku's version of her and Dichen Lachman's(**) -- was a variation on every other character Dushku plays, but at least she plays that note well.
(**) Given how easily Lachman copied Dushku's mannerisms here, and how convincing she was last week as the nerdy super-fan -- a character I don't think Dushku could have pulled off -- I suspect that we're going to be seeing a lot of "Joss should have built the show around her" chatter on these here Internets.
Anyway, that's all I've got. I may take next week's show off (having so many Friday shows to review all of a sudden is turning out to be a real hassle, what with me wanting to spend the weekend with my family instead of on the laptop), but I'll definitely be back for episode six to see if it lives up to the hype or if the show still seems too flawed to fix.
What did everybody else think?
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