That's Better: Dollhouse, Week 2

In its second week on the air Dollhouse may have missed the mark (but met expectations) in ratings (failing to break 5 million viewers again) but, in my opinion, it found its ground creatively. 

Truth is, I'm not sold on the premise yet; the mythology is interesting but doesn't offer up a central character I can root for. 

But what made this week's episode an improvement on the last is that, unlike last week, you could feel Joss Whedon's fingerprints in this episode. Pilots have never been his strong suit but the pilot of Dollhouse didn't even seem like it'd been written by the beloved Buffy mastermind. But this episode had a Whedon-sized dose of female empowerment; it had big, fun weapons; the characters and relationships began really showing signs of complexity; and it had plenty of his trademark quippy dialogue. 

So while I'm not there yet, after this week's episode, I'm confident that with time I'll become a Dollhouse fan. After all, Whedon's back to sounding like himself, and that's a voice that's never yet let me down.