Dollhouse

The "Dollhouse" pilot is a bit muddled — it feels like a puzzle that wasn’t put together quite right. Maybe that’s because the first episode wasn’t really meant to be the first one at all. But even though the pilot (9/8 C Feb. 13 on Fox) is flawed, it has major potential. The best thing is that since the time I’ve watched it, I’ve been thinking about the show a lot — always a good sign — and I’m excited to see what comes next.

Even the most talented TV creators (and Whedon takes the top spot in my TV triumverate above J.J. Abrams and Rob Thomas), can falter, but this is still Joss Whedon! (And I’m not saying "Dollhouse" is a flop.) Whedon is a planner — he’s not going to get tangled in a mythology he can’t see his way out of, he’s not going to allow some of the characters who aren’t very well-developed in the pilot to stay that way. What I’ve always admired about his shows is the wit, the creative unnatural worlds he develops, and that he always puts the characters and their relationships first. What Whedon isn’t known for is bang-up pilots. He doesn’t deliver the jaw-dropping first episodes that someone like Abrams does, so judging the potential for "Dollhouse" from just the first episode is hard. But the potential is there.

The pilot dumps us into the action immediately, but we don’t learn much about Eliza Dushku’s character Echo before she was made part of the Dollhouse. The organization wipes its actives’ minds of their memories (both their own and the ones they’re implanted with) to be given new memories and skills in order to accomplish certain tasks. At one point, Echo was a young, idealistic woman named Caroline who got herself into trouble, and maybe in place of going to jail, agreed to a five year contract as an active. (Of course, even if they wipe her memories of the Dollhouse clean, it seems doubtful they’d just let her go. It pays to be suspicious of corporations these days.)

Things pick up when Echo takes on her first major assignment — help return a rich man’s daughter from her kidnappers. But the memories of one of the borrowed personalities, a hostage negotiator, start to surface and interfere with the assignment. Here’s where Dushku gets to show some emotional range as she reacts realistically to the woman whose past she’s reliving.

The major players in "Dollhouse" are the tough and practical Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams, "X-Men: The Last Stand," "Rushmore") who heads up the operation; Laurence Dominic (Reed Diamond, "Journeyman"), DeWitt’s blustering, fierce right-hand-security man; Boyd Langdon (Harry Lennix, "24," "The Matrix" sequels), an ex-cop and the actives’ handler, who is starting to doubt the morality of the organization he’s working for. (He seems to be hearding toward a father figure/bodyguard for Echo.) There’s also the amoral techno wizard Topher Brink (Fran Kranz, "Welcome to the Captain"), who handles the memory wiping and poking and prodding; the quiet, scar-faced medical doctor, Claire Saunders (Amy Acker, "Alias," "Angel") and the dogged FBI Agent Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett, "Battlestar Galactica") who is investigating the Dollhouse. There are also a handful of other actives like Sierra (Dichen Lachman) and Victor (Enver Gjokaj).

I immediately liked Lennix as Boyd, an honest man starting to have reservations about the work he’s doing. And I adore Amy Acker, who can play so many roles — from the mousy, sweet Fred on "Angel" to a cold-hearted villain on "Alias." Agent Ballard’s role didn’t quite mesh with the rest of the episode’s story, but he’s an interesting entry point — he’s convinced the Dollhouse exists, but not exactly what it’s all about. He also could ewnd up being a romantic interest for Echo. Ballard’s superiors want him off the investigation since he’s stepped on some high-profile toes, but he’s not done digging into the cases of people who have disappeared.

Whedon has an affinity for oddballs, dorks, unlikely heroes and society’s outsiders, and some of the "straight" characters in "Dollhouse"— those more associated with the real world — don’t play as well. The FBI agents and even the kidnappers come off as a bit cardboard and ridiculous since their motives and jobs aren’t particularly special — the kidnappers just want money, and what’s a quirky mind like Whedon’s to do with such a banal motive?

"Dollhouse" feels very different from anything Whedon has done. It’s closer to "Firefly" and "Angel" than it is to "Buffy," although the actives, during the time after they’ve had their memories wiped, reminded me of the Buffybot: they’re pleasant, childlike, naive and literal. They don’t remember anything about their old life or the mission they’ve just been on. But Echo starts bucking the system almost from the beginning: she’s troubled when she spots fellow doll, Sierra, in pain. In a way, it’s good that "Dollhouse" can’t directly be compared to Whedon’s previous work, but the premiere also lacks some of his characteristic warmth and sharp humor. Lab rat Topher would seem an obvious candidate for some sharp sarcasm.

So why the hopefulness? "Dollhouse" has an intriguing premise with a lot of plot strings to pull at. It just needs to strike the right balance among the personality of the week; the melancholy of dealing with people who can’t retain their own memories; intriguing relationships and an investment in what happens to these people.There are a lot of dynamics here: the relationship between the three actives Victor, Echo and Sierra (maybe getting their names from the NATO phonetic alphabet?); the concern of handler Boyd; Echo’s increasing awareness of not only her own personality but the other ones she’s inhabited; and Agent Ballard’s investigation into the Dollhouse. There’s also the discovery of the actives’ back stories and real lives. Before Caroline became Echo she had friends; she must have had a family. So where are they and what do they think happened to her? What’s the real goal behind the Dollhouse? With every episode, we’ll probably get better insight into Echo’s past, but the final scene of the premiere suggests just exactly what she might have to go home to.

So, no, the pilot wasn’t perfect, but it felt like a taste of what can be. "Dollhouse" might just take a few episode to find its footing.