The man I bought my new Blackberry Storm from recommended that I watch Dollhouse. We were having some lovely geekery together as he showed me some components of the phone and we chatted about Battlestar Galactica and Lost.

Yeppers, I’m a silly old nerd when it comes to Science Fiction and apparently so was he. To the point of when I called about getting a body glove for the phone, he updated me on what was happening on the new Joss Whedon show.

Last night, I got my Hulu on and watched everything they had available (I didn’t get to see the first show, so I’m going to have be inventive on that one.)

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this.

On one level, the Dollhouse is an escort service for very wealthy people to live their fantasies, and of course, many fantasies evolve around sex. The “Dolls” are human beings that are programmed to believe they are what the clients asked for. Echo/Caroline (Eliza Dushku) believes she is in a cult, she believes she is the wife of guest star Patton Oswalt (who hires a Doll once a year to pretend it’s his deceased wife who could died in a car wreck before he could share wonderful news with her) or a singer of a suicidal pop star. Sex is part of the fantasy, but that’s not all of it. (Oswalt uses a very clever line about a judge throwing a Kindle at a client, which tickled me.)

When the assignment is over, the Dolls are taken back to the, you got it, Dollhouse and their minds are wiped and they revert into a child-like, docile state until the next assignment.

The guy that played Helo on BSG is the FBI agent somewhat obsessed with finding Caroline, who of course, is now Echo. This is an obsession for him, so don’t expect romance in this relationship.

Because, you see, everyone uses everybody in this show. Except the Dolls when they are at the Dollhouse, because at that point, they are children.

The first few episodes were marginally okay, but it was the episode from Friday night that pulled it all together. Who do you trust?

The idea of the escort service is only part of it. The issue of completely controlling people for fantasy or gain is at the crux of the arc of the story.

The scary thing about it, is that it’s presented in a fashion that’s it’s already happening.

And, let’s think about it, our movie (noticed I am dealing in make-believe worlds here as I know no spies) knowledge of spies is that they knowingly have sex, become new people and pull a fast one over their opponents is something we have seen for years. (Bond, James Bond.)

But, what if a person is so enmeshed into the traditional spy plot believe that they are indeed the person they are playing, well, that’s plum scary. Code words can bring them in or out of their assigned and programmed roles. (Each Doll has a handler who takes care of them and gets them out of trouble if it shows up.)

I wasn’t bowed over by the first few episodes although I liked them but wasn’t fanatic about it, but Friday may have just made me a believer.

And the show is pretty damned disturbing on many levels. Don’t say you weren’t warned.