"Quality television" is not automatically an oxymoron. The foremost exception to that near-universal rule is Joss Whedon. "Buffy" and "Firefly" were, and remain, exemplars of what television can be, and their quality — excellence — stems from a single source: Joss Wheden's writing. Between his way with a twist in the story to a twist in the heart, few have ever accomplished what he's managed to do in a relatively brief tv career.

And now we have "Dollhouse." I managed to avoid almost every teaser — for me, they are all spoilers — but I did catch one warning about the show that I now bear in mind having seen the first episode: This may take a while. If I had watched the first episode cold and then been asked who was behind it, I doubt I would have said Whedon. It was not typical television writing, but it wasn't that far from it. There's little in it that I would call Whedonesque, no head-snapping lines, no punch-to-the-gut plot quirks. What there was was an hour's worth of set-up (ok; forty-some minutes): Who Echo is, what the Dollhouse is, who the players are that will be making the story happen. And we had a number of examples of what the Actives could do. Obviously, the show needed a 2-hour premiere, but frakkin Fox wasn't even able to get it on the air until the middle of February. Viewers will need time to get into the story and what promises to be a multi-layered story arc; I'm not sure we'll get the chance.

Perhaps Whedon is already writing the movie that will show what "Dollhouse" could be if given the chance "Firefly" was not.