Joss Whedon talks "Dollhouse" renewal I found the following excerpt particularly amusing:
The last few episodes we got to play "the man behind the curtain" a lot. We did less of, “And this week, she’s a neurosurgeon!” Which we’ll still do to an extent, it’s part of the fun. But we got into what makes the place tick, what makes it wrong. It was less, “Murder She Was Imprinted to Write.” The episodes were more satisfying and the network responded to that. And we also responded to their ideas about pacing and it being more of a thriller and a conspiracy so they were seeing what they were hoping for when we got the aspect we were looking for.