In the dollhouse

Last week, I watched Dollhouse. (Don't read too far down, spoilers there be) WHICH HAS TOTALLY EATEN MY BRAIN. Normally I daydream about sex, or my unfulfilled career as a stunt double/stand-up comic.

But at the moment, I'm daydreaming about Dollhouse and wanting the next series now. One night, I actually fell asleep thinking about it and woke up still thinking about it. The received wisdom seems to be that the first episodes weren't that good, but I actually enjoyed them and found everything compelling. Admittedly, things do pick up dramatically at episode 6, but to me it felt like a natural build up.

I don't really feel the need to empathise with the central character, who has her personality re-formatted at the end of each episode, because there are a lot of interesting side-acts to keep me hooked. It may be because it's such a welcome distraction from the rest of my life that I've found this show so compulsive, but I got through all 13 episodes in less than a week and I'm currently doing the re-watch with commentaries thing and working my way through most of the special features. I'm not sure what I'll do when I get to the end. Meep.

When I was younger, I quite liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I recently managed to get round to watching seasons 6 and 7. They were diverting, at times entertaining. Watching them needed doing, I needed to finish the saga. But they were as morphine to the heroin that is Dollhouse. Or Firefly. Maybe I've matured (fingers crossed), maybe Joss Whedon has matured. Maybe Firefly and Dollhouse are just more to my taste. Maybe they haven't been going long enough to get crap (Firefly certainly hasn't). But I think they are both streets ahead of Buffy. And Dollhouse is getting a second series. Woo!

To anyone interested in Whedon's work, I would definitely recommend you check this out. I didn't really have any preconceptions about it and just loved it.