I watched "Dollhouse" tonight, and I enjoyed it but with some major reservations.

The scene between the tech and Echo's handler was a clunky, painful example of "As You Know, Bob" exposition that was pretty much insulting in this day and age when even a cop show like "Life" (which, to be fair, I think is pretty damn good tv) showed better pacing and subtlety in the revelation of its basic premise. Speaking of which, what I have are issues with the fundamental premise of the show -- not the squicky human trafficking one most people bring up (I take it as read that Joss is going somewhere with this; he's certainly not endorsing it, so getting all upset that it's even happening in the story seems silly. Drama has to come from somewhere, usually from conflict.)

No the problem I have is with the actual set-up of the show. The "Actives" are being imprinted and reimprinted with all these different personalities and sent out into the world. They are expensive, so only people with LOTS of money and/or power could hope to hire these people.

I see major logistical problems. The entirety of what Echo does in the first episode happens within a single city and its environs (or at least they make no effort to give us the sense that it doesn't). Echo is seen in company with a client at a very busy restaurant/bar location filled with lots of people who apparently have the wherewithal to hang out with her wealthy client-employer.

So.... how is this going to work? Fairly soon, the Venn diagram of people who both know of and can afford to hire Actives is going to start overlapping with the people who have encountered her in their rarified circles. This is a problem similar to that faced by Sydney on Alias but at least she wore crazy disguises for every mission.

No, this is not a convincing world. This is not a convincing set-up. I also didn't like the by-the-numbers casting. Meek Amy Acker playing scarred-up meek Doctor Woman was meek; smart-alecky overconfident cute tech-boy was smart-alecky and overconfident; dominatrix woman-in-charge was ice-queenish; good-guy ex-cop was conflicted and good; handsome, bucking-the-system cop was called on the carpet for bucking the system and then immediately further ignored orders and broke the rules to do his job, etc.

I would at *least* have swapped Amy Acker to play the tech. It wasn't so much that the roles were a bit standard-issue (though it was a bit of that); it's that the actors playing them fit the stereotypes so exactly. I do hope that is something that is going to be subverted in the near future but since the focus is on the Actives, I do wonder...

Still, I'll keep watching for a bit to see things build up. A show like this is about layering; it entertained and intrigued enough to get a few more episode-watchings out of me.

And now, to Bedfordshire!