BLAST YOU, DOLLHOUSE, FOR DESTROYING MY PEACEFUL, QUIET FRIDAY NIGHTS AND THEM TO MUST-SEE TV STATUS. NOW WHEN SHALL I NAP?

Seriously, though, when you have a kid, and you don't want to pay for babysitters, Fridays become a bit depressing when all you have is a bottle of booze and the choice between Househunters and the Ghost Whisperer. Even if I wasn't already an unabashed Whedonite, I'd have pooped myself just for the freshness of a Dollhouse-type series. The fact that each episode is substantially better than the last is just icing. In Whedon We Trust!

Oh, and Tudyk is awesome. Greatest pirate dodgeball player EVER.

I dunno if this is enough to push the show out of stupidity yet... but it'll give me something to look forward to on Friday nights after the Battlestar finale *sob*.

Alpha's lair looks like a Firefly set. It *so* does...

Also, I could see them having Topher be a doll, but if so, why would they have to limit his security clearance? I mean, it makes sense that he wouldn't have the clearance to know that *he* was a doll, but they could've given him a personality that could keep the fact that Alpha was alive secret, at least. Or something. Now the doctor? She seems more likely to be a doll, to me.

And yeah. It's probably a no-brainer that the ice queen bitch in charge of the Dollhouse is Echo's mother/sister, because the writing of this show really doesn't rise above cliches. I think they confirmed Topher is a Doll.

So really, this is a way of saying it's got about four shows until FOX puts it out of its misery, right?

The Whedon hack-writing is strong in this one. Why Whedonites cling to him so much has completely confused me. His shows are actually painful to watch. It's almost like the Whedon fans like to see how much cheesy, badly-written, poor dialogue they can take. Is it some kind of audience participation thing, like Rocky Horror? Am I missing the part of the joke where all the Whedonites stand up at the end of another terrible, juvenile plot with stock archetypes, silly bantering and slow-ass story progression and they say, "PSYCHE! You really thought we LIKED that?"

His writing is bad, but that's not what drives me away from his shows. What really makes me hate Whedon more than any other creator out there is his fan base. Browncoats and Scoobies and other flavors of Whedonites can be downright irrational and scary. They make obsessive Trekkies and Star Wars megafans look positively sane.

In a perfect world, BSG would have been on network television (NBC) and Joss' grade-B schlock would be on SciFi (oh, I mean SyFy) where it belongs.

Gah... I need coffee.

Remember, this week's episode is the sixth, which everyone says -- including Whedon, Dushku, and all the TV gossip pundits -- is where the show finally starts being awesome instead of mediocre or actively awful

And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you...

So far the show has been just ok.
I think what keeps me watching is the fact that Whedon uses the same actors over and over and I like them (was very happy to see Amy Aker! And love Tudyk).
I don't know about stupid ass Topher - it would figure he'd be a Doll. I hate him the way I hated Warren - sleazy, sexist, and entitled. blech. Hoping Alpha kills the shiz out of him. THAT will keep me watching ... at least for a little while.
Agree that lady in charge HAS to have some other connection to Echo.

Also, anyone else a little creeped out by FBI-guy's neighbor.She just screams psyco-heads-in-the-freezer-type to me.

I'm really not sure why Fox keeps commissioning Whedon's stuff if they're going to air it in a death slot (by network tv standards) on Fridays :s I see it (presuming it gets better) as one of those shows that's on the wrong network. It's just logic that it should be on SyFy. Just like other shows (Swingtown, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, etc.) didn't belong on network television as they had no hope of getting enough of the right audience/being able to do what they wanted and their ratings suffered greatly as a result.

At any rate, I've missed a few...but here's hoping it gets better.

I'm just waiting for the escape from the dollhouse so we can finally get to the Whedon formula of: band of outsiders versus big bad corporate/gov/evil/thing, where each individual has a specialty, an evil guy turning good joins up with them, and the father figure to guides them all through the process.

I don't know about you but I like dolls programming themselves to fight against the dollhouse from the outside.

We'll see what happens, I guess, but with remote wipe capabilities, Alpha choosing to let Echo live, and a secret lair, I think we may finally move away from the cutesy procedural we're stuck in. I can only be entertained for so long wondering what the doll of the week will be.

For fuck's sake, people... think there's been enough bitching about this show yet?

I'd like to remind everyone that Buffy and Angel's first seasons weren't exactly up to par, either. It ALWAYS takes a new show a while to get up to speed. ALWAYS. (And yes, Firefly was an exception to this rule. It still stands). It's six weeks into the show, give it a goddamn chance before you write it off!

Also, seriously not getting the Topher hatred, here. I think if you singlehandedly create a system for overwriting and erasing people's personalities, you're entitled to be a little geeky.

And ZeroCorpse, why the hell are you watching Whedon stuff if you hate it so much? As rabid a fan as I am, 'll accept that his writing isn't for everyone, but unless you insist on trolling these posts, maybe you should stick with your BSG, hmmmm? And by the way, the ancient sages came up with a brilliant method of dealing with TV shows you absolutely hate: CHANGE THE CHANNEL.

I haven't watched a single episode of this show. I guess I'll wait til it's cancelled then watch it years later on the Sci-Fi channel.

I'm not a devout Whedonite, I thought Firefly was fantastic but I never really got on with Angel and Buffy really fell apart in later seasons. However I'm really enjoying Dollhouse so far and I'm keen to keep watching it until the inevitable cancellation from Fox (which will probably be around the same time they dump Terminator too).

Speaking of Firefly, Nathan Fillion's new show is horrifically cliched. He manages to keep it almost watchable somehow.

Honestly, I think you guys are being a bit overcritical on Dollhouse. I think its a pretty decent show, excellent for its timeslot (which will eventually cause it to die) and I think a lot of the ill will towards this show stems from fox. They did a shitty job promoting this show, trying to link it with terminator implying that the dolls were robots, not humans. Similarly I think that they writers have really missed an opportunity by ignoring the human aspect of the show. Instead as of now we just get vaudeville-esque random plots from the mainstay characters and random guests and some long term story dangling about just slightly on screen. Its a show with a direction, but it seems like they've been struggling to figure out how to apply that direction on a episode to episode basis.

I am a leaf on the wind. I'll keep watching, but so far Dollhouse leaves me cold. I don't agree with complaints I've heard/read about Eliza Dushku's acting. The problem for me is that the most of the regular characters have been too stiff for me to give a damn about. Meanwhile, the character whose dialog most resembles what I've come to enjoy from Whedon is too sleazy.

I reall don't think Topher is a doll and I really don't think Echo is DeWitt's daughter.

1. Topher didn't come up with the tehcnology... he is just one of a few people who understand it. Where am i getting this from? He said that some Japanese guy was after his job. And if i remember rightly, Joss said in a interview that there were Dollhouses all round the world.

2. Echo and DeWitt's first scene did not in any feel like they were familiar with each other. I don't see it at all.

I'm incredibly excited about Alan being Alpha. I was dubious at first because he had such a 'topher' like role on Firefly, but the minute i saw that pic, i could see how perfect he is going to be as a villain.