Map of My Backyard

So we're a good seven episodes into Dollhouse and I'm still not sold. There two things that I expect when I sit down to watch a Joss Whedon show - excellent dialogue and kick ass characters. The dialogue is just not here in this show, I have no idea why, but excellent dialogue could probably get me watching a show that I hated everything else about. It's lack means Firefly needs to sell me on either premise or characters. I still don't know the names of the vast majority of the characters on this show, and in the instance of every single character who is played by an actor that I've seen in something else, I prefer their role in something else. Hell I like Ilyria more than whoever it is that Amy Acker is playing here. Early on in the show I kept thinking that it was a big ensemble cast and that it's sometimes hard to introduce characters in those circumstances, but by episode 7 in Firfly we could have "Jaynestown," an episode which would not have worked if people still didn't know the names of the characters by that point. I hate to say it, but not only am I getting ready to quit watching Dollhouse, I'm beginning to hope that it'll be canceled so that Joss and the cast can go do something more fitting of their collective talent.

I honestly wonder if Joss isn't rushing the plot of Dollhouse (which in its overall arc, with the secret greater agenda of a shadowy agency is at least vaguely reminiscent of where Firefly was intended to go) at the expense of the things that he usually does well in order to avoid being canceled before the plot gets off the ground. It's a shame if that's what's going on, because I think that it's seriously damaged the quality of the show.