Whedon's new drama 'Dollhouse' is no 'Buffy'

Genius is not necessarily a portable commodity.

That's my pithy way of backing into "Dollhouse," the new Fox series from Joss Whedon, creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," one of the best dramas ever produced for TV. Over seven seasons, "Buffy" proved to be clever, witty, horrific, satirical, pointed, relevant and packed with action, and it went out with one of the strongest finales ever for a long-running series.

"Dollhouse" is no "Buffy," to the point where I don't believe it will take seven seasons to get to its finale. In fact, it will be lucky to last through the spring.

Even so, "Buffy" fans have been waiting for years for Whedon to return to the peak of his powers. Although his first stab at a new series, the sci-fi outer-space drama "Firefly," was a muddled mess, hopes were still high for "Dollhouse" when it was unveiled last year, in part because it reunited Whedon with "Buffy" slayer sidekick Eliza Dushku.

Yet Fox executives threw a damper on the series when they announced it would get a midseason launch on Friday - not a vote of confidence, as it remains one of the lowest-rated nights of the week - and even though Whedon supposedly tweaked the pilot leading up to its premiere, it's my sad duty to report that it's a major disappointment when it debuts at 8 p.m. Friday on WFLD Channel 32.

It's as if Whedon took everything promising about the series and deliberately downplayed it to start.

Dushku plays Echo, one of five "actives" in the title organization. Thanks to a new (but, as it turns out, far from perfect) technology, they've had their entire personalities scrubbed, to be replaced by a new consciousness and a fitting set of skills for whatever duty they're assigned. They could be assassins, courtesans or simply a best friend for someone in need. They do the job, come home, have their blank slate reinstated and wait for the next gig.

All right, there's room to maneuver there. Just as "Buffy" served as a metaphor for a teenage woman becoming aware of her immense powers as an adult, the "Dollhouse" premise could serve as a metaphor for one woman's struggle for identity.

Unfortunately, as fine and firm as she looks at all times, Dushku doesn't have the acting chops to pull that off. Where Whedon found ways to make Sarah Michelle Gellar's limited range work as Buffy, the high concept of "Dollhouse" is too nebulous and puts too much weight on Dushku to allow her to carry it.

That's a pity, because otherwise the cast is terrific. Olivia Williams, who played the teacher and love object in "Rushmore," resurfaces as Adelle DeWitt, head of the Dollhouse. Reed Diamond, from "Homicide: Life on the Street," is her man Friday, Harry Lennix is the "handler" assigned to oversee Echo (notice the parallels with Anthony Stewart Head's Watcher in "Buffy," Aware One) and Fran Kranz is Topher, the nerdy, "Hamlet"-quoting technician in charge of the personality programming (who, as the main source of comic relief, wouldn't be out of place on "The Big Bang Theory").

All the pieces appear to be in place for a fine drama series, but what does Whedon do with them in the pilot? He turns Echo not into some demon-defying action heroine - God forbid - but into a mousy, asthmatic hostage negotiator. It might be a conscious gambit to defy expectations, but it also leads to a major anticlimax. Having stumbled out of the gate, the show doesn't get all that much better next week. Although there's more action, with Echo programmed to be a skilled outdoorswoman in a take on "The Most Dangerous Game," it also gets bogged down in confusing time shifts and mythological back story.

In short, not only is "Dollhouse" no "Buffy," it's no more coherent than "Firefly," a disturbing trend for someone considered a TV genius not all that long ago.

Still, the material is here for a compelling series, and it should be remembered it took "Buffy" until the end of its abbreviated first season for it to find its perfect pitch of humor mixed with horror. Teamed with "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" on Friday, "Dollhouse" will get more of a chance to succeed than "Firefly" did, but not much more. If it doesn't find its balance this spring, Whedon will be well on the way to his next post-"Buffy" stab at TV genius.