Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse Reviewed

OK, a little preface. I’ve watched the Dollhouse episode (given the history of remakes on this show, I don’t know whether I can properly call it the “pilot”) once, casually, without taking notes. I reserve the right to change my mind after I’ve watched it and marinated on it more. And I wasn’t crazy about Firefly when it first debuted, in retrospect one of the worse calls of my career….It was both better and worse than I expected, in different ways. One of my concerns about it was that—given Joss Whedon’s talent for making absorbing serials—the case-of-the-week nature of the show would make it harder to grow attached to. (I’m assuming that anyone who cares at this point knows the premise already, but in case I’m wrong: Eliza Dushku plays Echo, an “Active,” which is a person who has agreed to let a secretive organization erase his or her original memories and personality and implant new ones in them for “assignments” involving rich clients.) If it weren’t for Whedon’s pedigree, I’m not sure I’d be dying to see a second episode. But for me, the main draw now is not seeing Dushku become a different person every week, but getting to see Joss Whedon become a different writer every week.

- from Time