Breaking The Rules

I'm having trouble getting into DOLLHOUSE. A while ago a reader wrote in to ask if Joss Whedon wasn't breaking the rules by having a series in which he could tell any sort of story because his central character kept changing who she was. My answer was more or less "Let's see if Joss comes up with a consistent template based on something subtler than genre."

I'm not sure he has. But I think a bigger problem is simply that the whole premise of DOLLHOUSE is that the central character ... has no character. She's a different person in every episode. And when she's not being different, she's being a blank slate -- a bit of a drip, really.

How do you fall in love with her when you don't know who she is?

The concept seems compelling. But maybe Echo's the wrong main character. Maybe the detective who's trying to find her is the main character, and she should keep showing up in his life, convinced she's someone else. He's pursuing the impossible, trying to get her to remember who she is, and it's not working. Maybe that's what the show wants to be.

But maybe Joss is a little bit in love with Eliza Dushku, so that's not going to happen, is it?