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Dollhouse premiered last Friday, and I was interested in seeing what Joss Whedon had come up with this time. So I made plans to stay home and watch the show, only to end up leaving and going to the movies instead. Let’s hope lots of people stayed in and watched it, though, or it won’t last long. The question is, should it?

I went to the Fox site to watch the episode, and I liked it. It wasn’t great, but it was a good beginning. Eliza Dushku showed she has way more talent than many people thought, and she delivered an excellent performance. However, my favorite scene had nothing to do with her acting abilities but her dance moves. That scene in which she’s dancing in that tantalizingly short white dress set my brain on fire. I mean, wow.

Other than that, nothing was really memorable. As I said, it was a good episode, but it didn’t really make me eagerly await the next one. There were a couple of hints of what the overall story will be for the season, but the main plot of the episode began and ended, and in that regard I felt satisfied. But am I dying to see what happens to Echo next? I’m not sure.

There was a nice cameo by Amy Acker, which wasn’t shocking at all seeing as Whedon likes to work with the same actors over and over again, and that means we’ll probably get to see more Buffy/Angel/Firefly alumni in the future, provided the show has a future. The premise is interesting, yet a bit contrived, and I don’t know if it will find an audience (especially on Friday night). I mean, having agents whose personality you can erase and replace with whatever you need sounds cool, but is it really necessary? Why not work with “normal” people like every other agency in the history of secret agents and organizations? And what about those “personality flaws” they also download into their operatives? The reason for programming those (“they’re part of the package”) into the agents is really hard to buy. If you have the technology to download personalities and skills into a human brain, why wouldn’t you be able to bypass any deficiencies the original personality may have? The answer, of course, is so that those flaws come into play in the story, but I thought they felt forced, at least in this first episode. Besides, one of those flaws also triggered a huge coincidence that helped Echo solve the case, and that made me angry. Joss Whedon’s writing is always crisp and fresh, and he doesn’t need to resort to cheap tricks like that to make a story work. It’s hard for me to make my point without spoiling anything, so go watch the show and then we’ll talk some more.

To sum it up, this first episode of Dollhouse was enjoyable but nothing to write home about. Let’s see what happens next.