Dollhouse is Terrible.

Like many people I am a fan of [some of] Joss Whedon's work. I thoroughly enjoyed Buffy, Angel was mostly good, Firefly was interesting, and Dr. Horrible was genius. But Dollhouse? Ugh.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the show it's about a bunch of people who sign their brains away to a company in exchange for clearing debts or escaping some sort of criminal activity. They sign a five-year contract with a promise that they will be free after five years and won't have to deal with the problem that brought them to the Dollhouse in the first place.

Before the show started a lot of people were concerned about how you could have character development in a character whose brain gets wiped clean every time an episode is over. But Joss Whedon had an explanation for that: She's DIFFERENT. Something in her brain stores little bits of previous "engagements", which causes her to remember from time to time - and often nearly botching engagements because of it.

Now, they have a place for "dolls" who go bad: the Attic. The Attic is where they get sent for misbehaving - such as remembering previous engagements or horribly screwing something up to the point that they can't be seen in public again. I don't think they ever explained if the Attic means their 5 year contract is null and void, but some of the talk suggests that the Attic means you're not leaving after your 5 years are up.

Sounds great so far, right? Well this is unfortunately where it goes bad. Despite the cast being actually quite good there is one key aspect of a story like this missing completely. Do you know what it is? It's the same thing people were worried would be a problem. Character development.

That is, the development of the main character and her closest friends. We have marginal development on the people who work at the Dollhouse, but the story focuses around Echo (Eliza Doucheku) with bits of Sierra (because you need an Asian) and Victor (because you need a guy who looks like a rapist). Even though things happen to these three characters every day, they never remember it. Except Echo, sort of. She remembers enough to glitch out during key moments in an engagement - such as negotiating a hostage situation.

The result we're left with is characters who develop very slowly and in very small amounts. It's hard to find yourself invested in a character who only remembers a fraction of what happened every episode. In a show where every episode is the same thing (crisis, problem, problem solved, crisis fixed) you need characters whose personalities and lives you're interested in. When they have no personality to speak of you need something else. But what? We don't know, because Dollhouse doesn't have it and no other shows are foolish enough to try and make a show with no characters.