“Belonging” is a good episode that felt like a missed opportunity, with great philosophical questions and strong performances, but a by-the-numbers plot.

The opening scene of “Belle Chose” was one of the strangest and most disturbing thing I’ve seen on TV in quite awhile. This was a very promising episode after last week’s disaster.

For about ten minutes in the middle of “Instinct”, I was hooked. And then it sort of turned to crap.

The good news is that “Vows” is superior to the season one premiere. Actually, the good news is that Dollhouse is back at all.

While “Epitaph One” is gripping and thematically rich, it could take a lot of mystery out of future season of the series if we’re meant to treat it as canonical.

FOX hasn’t announced yet whether or not we should expect to ever see Dollhouse on the schedule again, but I thought Tim Minear’s “Omega” did a reasonably adequate job of finishing off the season and leaving room for the future.

When fans of Dollhouse mourn its inevitable cancellation this month, we will point to three episodes as evidence of what might have been. “Briar Rose”, this week’s excellent entry and the penultimate episode of the season, will be one of them.

When Dollhouse misfires, this is how it does it: fascinating philosophical and moral questions tossed between the type of storyline we’ve seen a thousand times before. But at least Paul Ballard remains a wonderfully tragic character.