Dollhouse: Clawing your eyes out actually ISN'T that painful

Dear Joss Whedon: We get it. You like girls.

You had a hit with Buffy -- unexpected, wasn't it? I'm sure it had nothing to do with the reaction of Sarah Michelle Gellar's boobs to cartwheels and ninja fighting. From the ashes of the (much, much worse) movie version came a 7 season teen-pleaser, replete with monsters, makeup, martial arts and sex. Throw in a quippy line every thirteen seconds or so, bake at 450 degrees for forty-four and a half minutes: That sonofabitch was golden.

Then it was time for Angel, attempting to lure the equal-but-opposite crowd of disinterested teen girls with David Boreanaz's brooding. He made everything brood. He could make his ankles look pensive if he had to. But there weren't as many girl-based opportunities, so you jammed them in when you could -- Femme-fatale here, demon lady there. Good on you for getting five seasons through, but every time we turned a corner there was another evil chick waiting to rip somebody's penis off. I know not ALL of the villains are female, but couple that with the number of possibly-gay vampires you threw into the situation and you have some sort of bizarre "pride" parade.

Let's leave Firefly out of this except for one word: River. Okay, one more: Zoe. (This show could be my thesis already, but do you kick sick puppies for fun?)

Then along comes Dollhouse.

There's really not a whole lot to say about Dollhouse just yet -- I fought my way to the end of episode one without killing myself, and that's a compliment for a Friday premiere on the Fox network. Aside from not attempting suicide, though, I found myself virtually 100% unentertained. Eliza Dushku is one of the hottest living things on two legs and I still couldn't get into it. Like a mix of "Taken" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," Dollhouse tells the story of Echo, a woman who's had her brain completely wiped in favor of designer memories: Billionaires pay her company (captors? Deceivers? Pimps?) for a custom woman, willing and able to do anything for a weekend. In the meantime, "Echo" lives in a house full of ridiculously hot super-bimbos while the staff constantly use "blank slate" metaphors to talk over her head. How clever! Erasing a person's memory and using a blackboard metaphor!

In the meantime, she gets some thinky-juice jammed into her brain with some flashing lights and becomes a different person every episode. The formula looks like it'll be having her solve injustices in the 36-hour-or-so window she has before she gets her memory wiped. Like Quantum Leap, except without the heart or originality.

My point is not to trash Joss here. I went to two (yes, two) of the Serenity workprint showings, traveling a combined total of somewhere around 450 miles to do so. But I'm over this. Firefly was a genius idea, a nugget of gold amongst low-rent UPN Sci-fi pop crap. This is just a rehash with a sub-par actress and an easy gimmick. Apparently next week she's an unparalleled outdoors(wo)man. Week after that she's a backup singer/bodyguard. I hate to say it, but I will anyway: Joss has finally OD'd on the vag with this one.


To wrap things up, apparently the rest of the nation agrees: On the Friday before Valentine's day, not even single, desperately lonely geeks saved this thing. Dollhouse was beaten out in the ratings by not only JLoveH's hilariously unfortunate "Ghost Whisperer," but also "Wife Swap," CBS man-bait "Flashpoint" and, horrifyingly, "Supernanny." It barely beat out "Howie Do It" and "Terminator." Trying to find the bright side of that, however, is like getting excited about lung cancer.