Dollhouse FINALLY Lands, Welcome Back to the Whedonverse

by Josh Roth @ 4:49 pm February 15th, 2009

“Grrr, Arrgh.” Seeing those immortal grunts return to the TV almost brought tears to my eyes. Joss Whedon’s shows are always leaps and bounds above everything else on television, but I’ll be honest, Dollhouse gets off to a bit of a rocky start. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s never, ever, ever underestimate Joss Whedon. That man will surprise you to no end, and at every single turn. He inspires creativity and all around genius form everyone around him, and we’re all better off for it. Buffy and Angel took a whole season each to really get rolling, but I’ve got a feeling Dollhouse will get us invested much quicker. Dollhouse has been a long way coming. It’s gone through several reshoots, re-edits, and re-whatevers to finally grace our boob tubes. The episode we saw last night was not in fact the original pilot. Network execs discussed it with Joss and they decided to create an entirely new first episode, after the original pilot had been finished.

They both agreed the first pilot was too dark, and didn’t give away enough of the show’s plot. So in the end we get an episode that feels like it’s trying a bit too hard to explain the world and the rules, and not enough effort on getting us into the characters.

Tahmoh Penkiett, of Battlestar Galactica fame, is only in about five minutes of the episode, and in those five minutes he barely ever speaks (it’s mostly blurry shots of him beating up some guy). Some of the secondary characters had the spotlight this time around. Topher, the Active reprogramming nerd, and Boyd Langdon (Harry Lennix), the ex-cop turned Active handler, seemed interesting enough but I wanted more Eliza Dushku and Tahmoh.

In terms of sheer quality it wasn’t the ‘Best. Pilot. Ever.’, but it wasn’t any worse than the Buffy or Angel pilots (I’ll leave Firefly out because it’s an anomaly). I expect great things from Dollhouse, and I’m quite certain we’re going to get it. Dollhouse shows a lot of promise, stick with it folks, Whedon is worth the time and effort. Tune in to Dollhouse Fridays on Fox at 9pm EST.