MTV Movies Blog › Tahmoh Penikett

Episode Title: "Instinct"

Written by: Michele Fazekas & Tara Butters

The Story: Echo (Eliza Dushku) has been many people and many things -- a blind churchgoer, an athletic damsel in distress, a dead woman solving her own murder -- but this time, she enters the world of motherhood once Topher (Fran Kranz) imprints her with a physiological bond to another man's baby. Her role is to replace the baby's dead mother, but Echo's attachment to the child takes more than a few turns for the worse -- and not even her handler Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) can break that bond. Read more...

Tags dollhouse, eliza dushku, Tahmoh Penikett

If "Dollhouse" has one defining weakness, it comes in the form of Echo, the show's central character played by Eliza Dushku. The problem isn't necessarily in the acting -- though that could be argued -- but more in the fact that, as a character who literally changes personalities from week to week, it's nearly impossible to fully latch onto her plight.

When your show's central conceit focuses on a veritable brothel specializing in the sales of attractive, impressionable human beings, the lack of an accessible main character is a tremendous problem. I think that even the staunchest of Joss Whedon's fans would agree that they've stuck with "Dollhouse" not because it's a particularly riveting television experience, but because there's enough promise for it to eventually become worthwhile.

Thankfully, season two is looking to deliver on that promise. Read more...

Tags amy acker, dollhouse, eliza dushku, Fran Kranz, Harry Lennix, joss whedon, Tahmoh Penikett, Vows