After being advertised by FOX as a Dollhouse “Event”, I feel a little cheated. If anything, the previous episode in which Echo’s origins were revealed within a tight, funny plot should have been the “event.” Tonight’s episode (above) was just a giant, messy tease.

The commercials, put on this earth to deceive and annoy viewers, made us believe that the actives organically started to remember their previous lives. The main plot is their attempt to escape. While the episode was technically fine, I didn’t really feel it.

Of course my blind faith in Joss Whedon tells me that the episode was off because it was written by a writer I’ve never heard of (not a good sign). It felt like the episode was forced to be more important than it actually was. The extreme lights and darks, the slow-mo shot of Echo falling to the ground, the large quantity of extras, and the eerie singer/songwriter-y tune playing over the last 5 minutes, all screamed “This is important!” But the pacing seemed off, the editing was too quick, and the twist ending seemed to negate the importance that we had been promised.

Worst of all, because an audience has the strongest connection to the physical faces of a drama, the bad execution made me question the casting. <Spoiler Alert> Perhaps it was because the Dollhouse implanted the personalities in order to test a theory, that I felt disconnected to the actives. Had their personalities come back organically, like in the previous episode, I might have felt more inclined to care. <End Spoiler Alert>

In the first episode that we get to see the “real” people behind Echo, Sierra, Victor, and November, and the actors seemed to fall flat, especially the women. Miracle Laurie (November) and Dichen Lachman (Sierra) seemed even more boring and lifeless than when they were dolls. Eliza Dushku (Echo), while good at missions and emotional breakdown scenes, can’t handle silent moments. Without the usual snap of Whedon dialogue, her emotional pauses felt someone just didn’t write enough dialogue for the episode.

The disappointment I felt for the ladies, did lead to one great discovery—Enver Gjokaj (Victor). He managed to come off as charming, realistic, funny, and purposeful. Although Whedon is known for his female casting finds—Sarah Michelle Gellar, Eliza Dushku, Alyson Hannigan, Summer Glau—I suddenly realized that although it may be a “Dollhouse”, it is the men that rule this roost. Along with Enver, Fran Kranz’s Topher, Harry Lennix’s Langdon, even Reed Diamond’s Dominic have been the most consistently impressive characters. Yes, most of them are not dolls so they are allowed more personality, but watch any episode and your eyes are drawn to them before the slutty, kick-ass actives.

Sure, I can understand a sloppy episode every now and then, but Whedon better return to form quickly. In his past series, he always wrote the “event” episodes—the first episode, the last episode, and the game-changer in the middle of the season. In the second season of Buffy, he wrote the first episode when Buffy confronts her unresolved feelings towards being killed; he wrote the game-changing episode in the middle of the season when Angel turns evil after experiencing a moment of pure ecstasy, and he wrote the two part finale when Buffy sacrifices her true love to save the world. Perhaps Whedon is more concerned with his family now (which he conveyed when I saw him at NY Comic-Con) and less concerned with penning the “important” episodes. Either that or the event that was tonight’s episode was FOX’s attempt to boost ratings that are less than stellar.

Dollhouse airs at 9 p.m. on Friday nights on Fox.