I’m sorry. I can’t take it anymore.
I watched three full episodes of Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse” and decided somewhere in the middle of the third episode that I couldn’t continue to watch the show. It didn’t help that the third episode had the dreaded troubled-pop-star-deals-with-stalker storyline, which has been done so many times before that it has become one of my biggest pet peeves. Bad stage production, bad singing, bad crowds…ugh.
The show has a solid premise — a business that rents out “dolls” which are programmed to suit the clients’ needs — and a pretty compelling macro storyline — a renegade doll on the loose and, separately, an FBI agent (Tahmoh Penikett) trying to find the dollhouse — but the week-to-week episodes just aren’t all that interesting. One week, the main character, Echo (Eliza Dushku) is an unconvincing kidnapping expert, the next she’s bait for a psychopath who likes to hunt humans. And last week she was a sassy backup singer who said things like, “You’re not okay…okay?”
Mind you, this is coming from a fan of Whedon’s work with “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel” and “Firefly.” I was really rooting for this show to work, but for whatever reason — suspect acting, sketchy writing, poor continuity — it just doesn’t.