Beyond that… it wasn’t well written. The interesting concept wasn’t realised with much creativity. The second season was better, largely because it finally dealt with realistic applications of this kind of technology. Most of the dolls assignments were unrealistic (and nevertheless dull to watch).

There were some great moments, but there were too many flaws for the show to ever work.

Though to give Whedon some credit – he is an awesome director. Apart from Dushku (and Tahmoh Penikett now that I think about it), he pulled great performances out of his actors. He has consistently found amazing actors in unknowns, and given unsung actors huge breaks and wonderful characters to sink their teeth into. While Dollhouse was ultimately a doomed endeavor, I have faith in Joss Whedon – he can do better.

I will admit, of course, that I enjoy the show on a level that not many other TV viewers are, such as the philosophical questions it delves into. I really enjoyed all of the twists that it threw (though I did not at first understand the twist with Boyd that comes at the end of season 2… then in the following episode I was like, “Oh! … oh shit!”) When they release both seasons on DVD, boxed together, I will be buying them.

SPOILER

I knew she was going to off herself the moment she went batty and started shooting. And when she actually did, it felt completely empty and useless. I literally mumbled, “Whoopdie-frikkin’-doo.”

There were a number of deaths that felt totally unnecessary or void in the series, actually. I think, for example, even when Ballard “died,” I was sort of “meh” about it because of how it happened (and the lack of real interest I had in his character to begin with- as has been touched on by other people posting). But the lightly-taken-death-of-a-main-character thing probably has to do with Whedon’s penchant for offing important characters to “prove the stakes are high” or whatever. I think he likes to do it, but he’s still not good at it. That sort of thing can work, if done right and well, but he doesn’t do it right or well- and therein lies the flaw with it when he does it. One of my biggest beefs with him was his totally, randomly offing one of THE COOLEST CHARACTERS in one of his movies. I’ve talked about it before on this site, and I’m sure Whedon fans know what I mean. Uh-huh. THAT one. Ham, WHAT!? Yeah but what I’m getting at is how while yeah, okay, people die in war/conflict/whatever in the real world in rather arbitrary ways; but when it’s inside a show, a universe over which *someone* has ultimate control, *nothing* should be arbitrary- not death, not life, not smiles, not frowns. It says the author/creator/whatever isn’t paying attention to what they’re doing, and it insinuates to me at least a little laziness on their part, or perhaps a lack of care.

That’s just my most humble of opinions, though. Naturally.

For me, what killed Dollhouse was getting too serious, too early. My hope was that they would start light with fun episodic, erm, episodes that built up a following broader than the fanboys before earning the right to tell the serious story. The closest comparator is really Quantum Leap. Remember that? How *fun* it was, not knowing who Sam would be each week? They could have done that with Dollhouse. The nod to the more modern series would have been similar to the X-Files (or more recently Fringe) – acknowledge a broader story arc, but don’t force it on you if you aren’t watching every episode.

My hypothesis is that Joss Whedon had a story to tell, and didn’t have the confidence that the series would survive long enough to do it justice, hence pushing it on the audience rather than letting it play out. Ironically, this is what killed off the show.

Gab, you might be right. Moral indignation does seem to be a big part of what’s supposed to carry us through the first season. But this presents a contradiction in terms, right? Is it possible to both empathize with Caroline’s victimization on a moral level and tune in to see the doll-of-the-week action show? Can you be entertained by her exploitation and morally outraged by it at the same time? That’s a lot of cognitive dissonance.

(Not trying to tear apart your logic; it’s just YET ANOTHER flaw in the premise.)

It might not be obvious from reading this article, but I didn’t hate the show either. Through most of season 1, I watched with quite a bit of anticipation waiting to see where they would take the concept, and I really genuinely enjoyed the last third of season 1.

Still, @cat:
I just didn’t care. Did anyone else find themselves really growing attached to the characters? I didn’t. Not to include spoilers, but I’ve been told Whedon fans are used to him killing characters so, for those character(s) who died…did it tear you apart? Affect you in the slightest? Nonsensical and unexpected because they seemed nonsensical or pointless. That characterizes most of the death and most of the plot for a good chunk of the show.

I thought it would have done them quite a bit of good to kill of Mellie/November a lot sooner; her continued presence in season 2 just muddled the plot. The twist where Boyd is the big bad guy didn’t make any sense whatsoever. Really felt like he just picked the least likely character just to have a twist there, and it made Boyd’s character so flat that it was impossible to care when he died.

But on the other hand, I did feel that tug of pathos when Topher died in the end. It made me realize, quite suddenly, that he and Adele were the only two characters in the whole show that I really cared about. And the writers seemed to spend most of season 2 actively trying to make us hate Adele.

@Gab:
One thing I do remember from the buzz about the first season was how Whedon tried to emphasize that it wasn’t until episode six that it would get “good.”

I was unaware that he had said that, but that is EXACTLY what the main article is about. When you’re trying to attract a new audience, you want to put your best foot forward, and it seems that someone (Wrather, we could argue for hours whether it was Whedon, Fox, or both) made a conscious decision to lead the show with 6-8 episodes of dull material that they seem to think they had to get out of the way before amping up to the good stuff that we’d been waiting for all along. Did they honestly believe that any audience in the world would put up with that?