I admit that I was going into the series premiere of Dollhouse wanting to like it because it stars and co-produced by H2otown's own Eliza Dushku and her co-producer/ show writer is the great Joss Whedon; that being said, the show could still suck. It does not. The first 10 minutes do a great job establishing the premise and some of the "rules" for the show. The "rules" for a concept like this where there is sci fi elements to it such as Buffy, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Comic Book et al. are important because without clearly defined limits to what is going on then anything is possible and the series will become silly because their is no logic to what can and can not happen. Whedon from his days writing for Buffy and Comics like X-Men  is an expert on this and early on explains things such as how the personalities for the "active" is created. (it is from an composite of other personalities) While this is a new show, it does have many aspects that are similar to Whedon's most famous creation Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The most obvious is that both shows have attractive female leads who sometimes have to kick ass. Another is the show has many alums from previous Whedon shows like Dushku  and the always lovely Amy Acker playing a scientist type of character which is kinda similar to what she played on Whedon's show Angel. Eliza's Echo also has a "Handler" at the Dollhouse which reminds me a lot of the Watcher/Slayer dynamic in Buffy.
Dollhouse also owes a little to The Matrix franchise. The mind wipe scenes where Eliza's Echo character is implemented with abilities and personality traits remind me a lot of the scenes in The Matrix where Neo (Keanu) would have things like the ability to do Kung Fu put into his Brain. I was not a big fan of Alias, but most of the things I read say Dollhouse is similar to that show in some ways. All these similarities is not to say that Dollhouse is unoriginal. Like everything it borrows, but it does so in a unique way that after one episode has already created a interesting universe. All the scenes with Eliza are great and the show only slows down when it introduces a side sub plot which is something that is necessary. The pacing of the show is done well which is helped by Fox's decision at least for this episode to limit the commercials to quick 60 second or 90 second blocks. While I usually avoid pointing out Eliza Dushku's looks because it is kinda weird to do since there is a possibility that I could run into her at Demos or something, it should be noted she looks great throughout but especially the second scene. One last side note, there is a decent amount of music in the show which for me is always a plus including Tilly and The Wall being played early on.