Dollhouse had better get a second season...

Wow.  Just finished watching tonight's episode, and wow.  

~~~SPOILERS ABOUND!~~~

Okay, first off, Alan Tudyk, yay!  

Second, Jane Espenson wrote the episode, love her.  

Third, Ballard made it into the Dollhouse at last.  

Fourth, Topher totally got what was coming to him, even the tree-hugger thought so.  

Last but not least we have Echo's forbidden memories coming up with the most interesting timing, hindering Ballard's attempt to rescue her and reaffirming her bond with Boyd.

And Victor wins for best line of the episode. "People were fighting on me."  (That may not be the exact phrase, but the line and the delivery were just perfect.)  Topher's usage of "frak" was also pretty nifty, but since the writer of this episode was one of the executive producers and writers on Battlestar it's more of a nice in-joke than an awesome tribute.

I have to say, I was getting pretty annoyed about what I perceived to be the glaring plot hole of the episode--that Alpha would be living under an identity that he had previously used and that Ballard could track him down like that.  Why the heck wouldn't the Dollhouse have been able to find him if that was the case?  I was especially surprised with such a misstep since this was penned by my favorite TV scribe.  But as soon as Sierra in her FBI Forensics Expert guise (which was beautiful, almost Bones-esque) called DeWitt with the identity of the slashed up body in Tuscon, and it became clear that Alpha had been pulling the strings all along--good gravy. 

This was just an incredible episode, and the previews for next week's finale just about made my poor little head explode.  Can.  Not.  Wait.  

Sigh, I really really hope this gets a second season, oh man I do.  I know it's not a shoe-in to get canceled, but it's definitely not a shoe-in to get renewed.  Gah...up fronts will not proceed quickly enough for me.  

Interestingly enough, a writer over at Not a Planet Anymore (a really cool blog I recently discovered thanks to Whedonesque) has been looking at the future of Dollhouse in comparison with and as a result of Buffy.  You can read the whole series here (it is several well written posts long), but in the concluding post I think the author totally nails the problem with Dollhouse right on the head.  The thing that makes Dollhouse (and all of Whedon's shows) so awesome is the thing that is going to kill it.  You have to actually watch the show to understand, and therefore enjoy, the show.  There is no coming in at the middle of the episode or missing an episode or three then picking back up later without complete confusion.  Forget trying to start watching halfway through the season or jumping on the bandwagon after a few seasons (unless you're willing to catch up on Hulu first or have a friend who is willing to give you a very thorough debriefing).  

I don't believe that the television audience reviles this type of story-telling--I for one relish it and this is exactly the kind of television show I love to watch.  I think the reason that shows like this aren't successful though is because television networks have no patience for this type of story-telling.  It doesn't fit into their archaic ratings scheme and it doesn't let them play around with scheduling whenever they feel like it.  Also, the simple truth is that with the rise of popularity for "reality" shows (the bane of my television watching existence), network executives simply don't believe that an audience is willing to actually invest in a series.  So when a network does take a chance on a show like this, it rarely ends up lasting past the first season (if it survives that first season at all) because the network doesn't know what to do with it, and isn't willing to let it build an audience who will be rewarded with story payoff and in return reward the network with consistent viewership.  Let's face it, these days, simply consistent viewership isn't what the networks are looking for anyway.  And that is truly a shame.  

So while my fingers are crossed, when it comes to Dollhouse, it is definitely a "hope for the best, expect the worst" kind of situation.  But man, I am hoping hard.