Dollhouse

"Haunted" was one of the best episodes of "Dollhouse" this season. It wasn’t action-packed and didn’t have a huge amount of mythology, but it was so unforced. The humor — and there was a lot that finally felt up to Joss Whedon’s capabilities — was natural and the relationships real. The final two episodes of the season are looking pretty exciting, but what was reassuring about "Haunted" was that although it went back to a bit of the old format — Echo taking on a personality and a mission without traces of Caroline popping up — there was a real person inside the personality she played.

"Dollhouse" has improved so dramatically since the beginning and "Haunted" felt like the pay-off. A lot of that had to do with the schoolgirl-like back and forth between Olivia Williams as Adelle and Eliza Dushku as her newly-dead friend, Margaret. This was one of Dushku’s few human and sympathetic characters — Esther in "True Believer" being another — since most times she’s either playing a staring-into-space doll or an emotionless bad girl. The scenes between Adelle and Echo as Margaret sparkled.

Topher also had his moments. It turns out he’s not an entirely callous jackass (though a funny jackass) after all. Every year on his birthday, he programs a doll to be his video game-playing, twinkie-eating, football-throwing version of a best friend. How sweet and sad. (Dichen Lachman was once again terrific as his buddy; she’s good no matter what character they throw at her.) And Adelle, who we learned last week has been a client of the Dollhouse herself, lets it pass because she can certainly relate.

But not everyone was getting the benefit out of the Dollhouse mindwipe. Ballard showed signs of cracking while playing pretend with Mellie when he got a little rough in the sack. Was he taking out his frustration on her or simply deciding what he was doing couldn’t be right, so it might as well be wrong? The final straw for him was seeing the hundreds of aliases the computer spit out when he ran Mellie’s fingerprints. He’s known all along that there are real people behind every doll, it’s why he’s trying to bring down the Dollhouse, but it truly hit home that Mellie is someone else, and it’s not the girl who makes him manicotti.

The whole murder-mystery story wasn’t spectacular — it was sort of a third-rate recycled TV contrivance — but it was highly entertaining. Whedon has said he sees "Dollhouse" as kind of a cross between "Alias" and "Quantum Leap" and last week we got some "Alias" with Sierra’s race-against-time mission and this week it kind of felt like "Quantum Leap" with a woman having to unravel a mystery and repair the damaged family members she left behind before anyone could get any peace. It was also an interesting identity angle to consider how tantalizing it must have been for Margaret to consider getting a second shot in life — in a much younger body. Strangely, part of me was rooting for her to just run off in that new form, but that’s not exactly a happy ending since that body belongs to Caroline.

"Haunted" was incredibly funny, and the humor flowed naturally out of the situations: Dushku’s reaction as Margaret when her own son, Nicolas (Jordan Bridges), kissed her; Sierra asking Topher if she could "play with the sleepies"; and the bickering brother and sister and drunken uncle cracking up as "Julia" tried to defend Margaret. (Whedon mentioned in a March interview, that he regretted naming the character, Nicolas, since the actor reminded him of Nicholas Brendon who played Xander on "Buffy.")

"Haunted" was a breather episode: light on mythology, but better for it. For "Dollhouse" to work it needs that deep mythology, but it can’t be all about it all the time. You need heart, too. That’s the difference between season three of "Lost," which was all about smoke monsters and weirdness and this amazing current season which has answered questions and also furthered the mythology. "Haunted" was the perfect episode to air at this point in the season.

Last week, I had a "Firefly" marathon, capping it off by re-watching "Serenity," and marveled again at the richness of the characters and the witty writing. Whedon’s shows are loved not because of their bang-up sets or expansive budgets or huge guest stars, but because of the characters and the writing. Before tonight, I would have said "Dollhouse" hadn’t and maybe even couldn’t come close to hitting the heights in those areas that "Buffy," "Angel" and "Firefly" did, but "Dollhouse" scored high marks in both in "Haunted." It needs more, but this was a very good sign.

Whether "Dollhouse" will be back for a second season is still up in the air, but this episode and the next two will show just how much it deserves a second (and hopefully more) chance. "Dollhouse" needed to get more human, and it got a big dose of that in "Haunted."

Next "Dollhouse" episodes:

May 1 episode: "Briar Rose"

Ballard’s investigation leads him to the agoraphobic designer of the Dollhouse (guest star Alan Tudyk — yay Wash is back!); Echo helps a young girl deal with her traumatic past; Adelle goes to the Attic in search of answers; and Alpha reveals himself to set his end game in motion.

May 8 episode: "Omega"

Alpha’s reign of terror continues as his obsession with Echo endangers Caroline’s survival; Ballard must make a life-changing decision; and one Doll is permanently deactivated while another’s shocking past is revealed.