Dollhouse

I've been watching Dollhouse. (I keep wanting to type Joss Whedon's Dollshouse... because that is why I'm watching it.) It is five episodes in and I am torn.

It is either silly campy semi-exploitative fluff... or it is a long set up for something amazing.

I wonder if Whedon's love of Eliza Dushku has blnded him. Some what famously (or infamously) the concept of the show came during a four hour lunch between Dushku and Whedon. The base meaphor up for the show is so clearly how society forces women into roles (and furthur how actresses are forced into roles). It is a pretty shallow metaphor. But Whedon isn't known for having his metaphors be pretty deep. What he des well is what sci-fi/fantasy does well: metaphors writ large.

The concept of the show is so simple that there is no where for it to go. Adventure of the week with a heroine that the audience can never realy care about because she becomes someone new every episode.

But Whedon is very good at turning things upside down. And that is my hope. If the first 5 episodes of Dollhouse is just a long set up, getting the audience to believe one thing, getting them to expect one thing... and then they bring in the real meat of the show... it might end up being an amazing bit of brilliance.

Dushku has said in interviews that episode six is where it explodes. My fingers crossed.