LeeRoy Brown, you were right!

Adam Lee was right, and I listened to his advice in the nick of time. You might recall that I pretty much threw in the towel for Dollhouse in exchange for starting to watch Nathan Fillion’s new show: Castle. I was thinking that Dollhouse didn’t have the goods to thrive as a new show and that while I want to support Joss Whedon in everything that he does, I was going to support a show that was worthy of it. I mean, why back a lame show just because it’s made by a person you admire?

Right after making this statement and taking Dollhouse off my list, Adam let me know that they had turned a corner on Dollhouse. Something had happened that had started things in motion, things that would upset what I thought had been the status quo. It seems that I had underestimated Joss Whdeon’s ability to play the long game – to have planned out his show in a seasonal mindset, rather than in an episodic fashion like so many producers seem to do.

For those of you unfamiliar with this show, it’s main premise is that there is an agency of young, beautiful people who have their minds wiped and rebuilt over and over again in order to accomplish various missions presented by clients. These missions can range from blind dates, to hostage negotiation, to bodyguard work. This would seem to be a scenario that would lend itself to all kinds of adventures, except for the fact that you have characters that are constantly forced to forget everything that they had done, meaning that the characters are unable to grow and change along with the collective experiences. This was why I couldn’t quite see myself getting behind this show in the long run… fortunately, Whedon is like 5 steps ahead of me and angled the season’s arc to reveal the main character’s history and have it come to the surface, despite the efforts of her employer.

It’s a difficult balance to maintain, and while I’m not saying that they’ve pulled it off completely (I had, after all, given up on the show at one point) it seems like they’re still pushing on and making progress where I thought there couldn’t be any. There appears to be a major corner-turning coming up for this week, and while I won’t reveal what it’s all about, I think Dollhouse might actually be finding it’s second gear. I can only hope that it finds 3rd before the network decides to pull the plug.