Dollhouse Ep 6 (No Spoilers)

This is the episode that takes it up a notch. It does so. It does so smartly and enthusiastically and swiftly. It is good stuff.
It means that I’m going to stick with Dollhouse to the end. What they are doing here is seriously interesting ideas TV, and there’s precious little of that on the box.
Warning, however: the procedural stuff that so conspicuously failed to sing in the first five episodes will still be a major part of the show for the rest of the season. We shall hope that it is done more cleverly than it has been so far; we shall hope also the interesting stuff is integrated into the procedural content, rather than sitting alongside it as has been the case in most of the episodes so far. Whether or not this is achieved will determine whether Dollhouse will be remembered as an incredible one-season show that took a little while to hit its stride, or a weird one-season oddity with great ideas and poor execution.
The fan service/bra shots moments were noticeably missing this episode, too. This episode makes it abundantly clear that they do know what they are doing, and while you can argue their choices, they aren’t putting in salacious content without being aware of the implications. They are, in fact, aggressively positioning the viewer as complicit in systems of exploitation and abuse. The way the episode ended, with a beautiful heartbreaking song as [edited because it was a spoiler], seemed like it was reaching too far except it also worked on its own terms – because despite myself I did sympathise with that [character].
(Prediction: within a week there will be on YouTube a “clips compilation” from Dollhouse eps 1-5 gathering all the important bits together, so you can watch all the background you need then jump straight into episode 6.)
[Apologies for the spoilers. They were minor but they were there. Brain was not in gear.]