On Dollhouse

The series premiere of Dollhouse, the new television show created by Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly), was this Friday. The show didn't make its way to iTunes until Sunday (let's hope they're faster than that going forward), but I downloaded it and watched it today. I was quite impressed.

The story revolves around a girl named Echo who has her memories and personality wiped, and is given memories and a personality catered to a specific job that needs to be done. Once the job is done, she returns to the dollhouse (the home base, so to speak) where her personality is re-wiped and she is made available for her next assignment. It's a really neat concept, especially given my interest in the subjects of memory and personality to begin with.

The pilot involves Echo's taking on two distinct personalities, the first to entertain a client and the second to negotiate a ransom exchange for a kidnapped child; the majority of the episode revolves around the second task. I don't want to say any more than that for fear of giving something away for those who may not have seen it and desire to do so.

From an acting standpoint, Eliza Dushku (Faith from Buffy) does really well in this role. I never appreciated her in the only role I've previously seen her, mostly because I found Faith's character to be so ridiculously irritating; however, she does really well here. This has got to be a very challenging role to act since she's basically playing a new character for at least a significant portion of every episode. I'm interested to see where the show goes and how the role is portrayed.

Overall, Dollhouse had a very strong pilot, and I'm really looking forward to the next episode.