Well, first and foremost the sharp dialogue that Whedon is known for. That's what made me a fan of his, and its absence is glaring.
Secondly, I'm not so sure that this concept can sustain a series. If the main character is just wiped clean at the end of every episode, how can we develop sympathy for her? I realize she's showing signs of remembering, but this needs to move faster. As is, I really don't care about Echo. The only reason I see to be invested in her is because she is the main character and the shows tells us we have to.
On another note, the character of Ballard seems like his plotline could be interesting, but it looks like he will be spending most of his time running around in the background, not really interacting with the rest of the cast (which is kinda funny when you consider that the actor spent the entire first season of BSG doing exactly that.) The programmer also gets on my nerves. He almost seems like they're trying to repeat Wash, except Wash was a funny and endearing character.
I actually liked last week's episode more than this week's. I wonder if this was supposed to be the pilot--there was some exposition in the dialogue with the boss lady that would make sense as an introductory episode.
Unfortunately, I agree with a lot of your points, Odo. I am hanging on because I have the strong feeling it will get a lot better, but to be honest, if BSG wasn’t on right after, I might’ve just tivo’d it to watch later and do something like work on the computer instead.
It is hard to generate any empathy for Echo having to start from scratch every week, though I get that the story thusfar is letting some of Caroline’s personality show through little by little. That’s the big takeaway I got from this episode—it wasn’t the doll’s personality that made her think that she would need to kill the psycho hunter guy, it was possibly her own, and she would ultimately be okay with that. That this might be her original personality—tough, gruff, and (from the hs video), can be something of a bitca, is interesting, even if that kind of character isn’t a stretch for ED as an actor.
That also brings up something else that bothers me. Two weeks in a row, part of her assignment has been to sleep with the client. Especially with this week, but even the first one with the guy who just bought her to be his girlfriend, this proves Ballard’s statement the first week about the Dollhouse being a high-price human trafficking ring. It is just icky, and makes me loathe pretty much everyone heading the Dollhouse. The boss lady and the security guy are not likeable at all. They both seem smug and lacking conscience, money/power hungry who I will feel no sympathy for when Caroline finally wakes up, and kicks their asses for turning her into a prostitute and endangering her life every week. Topher is season-7 Xander-like smarmy without having the loyalty to make him likeable. I don’t know enough about the Amy Acker character yet but they sure handicapped her by disfiguring her and making her resentful about being cut up by Alpha. Still don't know enough about Ballard, either. Boyd’s the only character I’m finding myself liking, but that is tempered by the fact that he sees first-hand how Echo is treated by the company, and still goes along with it all. At least he’s showing signs of being bothered by it.
A big part of what I’ve enjoyed about Buffy, Firefly, and Angel is that all those shows were about camaraderie, even if all the relationships centered around one strong personality. All three pretty much struck that tone right from the start, while in Dollhouse, we don’t have the camaraderie, nor do we have the strong personality. It looks like that will be the focus of these first few episodes, building both, or at least the strong personality. I’ll continue to watch, but right now, it seems like starting from ground zero as the show did, they will really need to put the pedal down if they’re going to accomplish it in 8 episodes (now 6).
