Omega not-really-a-review

Things to not like about Omega (and by extension Dollhouse season 1... please let there be a season 2!)

1. Paul Ballard gets to play the hero
One of the things I liked about previous episodes was that it became more and more clear that Ballard was anything but a hero. He was twisted, arrogant, obsessive and terribly sure of himself in his misguided saviour behaviour. I liked the ending of Briar Rose where he was shown to be such. And then we have this episode... in which he gets to play the bloody hero three times! Once when he saves Caroline for Echo, once when he rescues and frees Mellie (who incidentally is a much more believable princess) and finally when he gets to rescue the Dollhouse from their folly by joining them as a contractor. Aaaargh. I am not impressed. I get that they need to keep him in the series and twisting him further into the system is a good way of doing it. I just wish that he'd been twisted out of his annoying self-righteous complacency.

2. Eliza Dushku's lack of acting/believability
I wish I could see some range in her acting. Dushku does okay in short spurts but doesn't really embody anyone. Speaking of range... I love Amy Acker!

3. The "everyone has a soul" plot-point
So we have bad souls and good souls? Bad souls go to hell and nothing can be done to redeem them. Good souls go to heaven and nothing ever corrupts them. Eventually good always triumphs over evil. Can you tell I'm being sarcastic?

4. The sheer individualism of the series
A lot of what kept me interested in the show was the building of relationships in an atomised world (thanks maia!). But in the end the writers still brought it back to individual characters. Echo vs Alpha. And that is boring and sad. Please let there be much more of Sierra and Echo, Victor and Sierra, Victor and Echo, Dr. Saunders and everyone else in the season to come.

5. The lack of development in Adelle and Boyd's characters
Both characters are flat and getting very, very tedious. Olivia Williams at least we've seen is capable of more subtlety. Could the writers please stop sticking her in the role of "evil head of soul-less operation" mould?

6. Victor gets his face slashed and goes back into the pod
Whisky gets her face slashed and is no longer good enough to be a doll? Ah the misogyny of men.

7. November is gone
And Paul gets to introduce himself and learn her name. Which just continues to highlight how little he thinks of her. He had no respect for Mellie because she was an imprint, or for November because she was a weapon and he respects Madeline because she's the real person. They're all real persons and totally awesome. And Paul shouldn't be allowed within 100m of any version of her.

8. The flash-back of Echo's imprints
Which seemed to be more of a costume change than a personality imprint. Echo... vapid plaything, fantasy girl, fantasy girl, hostage negotiator, fantasy, fantasy, ugly tights fantasy, fantasy. While also having to carry the the collective trauma of all of them. And this was to make her God-like how?

There were plenty of good things about the episode, (we're not bluffing... I'm bluffing... the rest of us mean business) I just needed to get the not good off my chest. Opinion anyone?