Dollhouse

Whedon and Dushku Invite You Into Dollhouse

The creator and cast talk about the new series.

January 13, 2009 - Note: Minor spoilers for Dollhouse follow. Nothing major, but I know how some of you Whedon fans can be...

Joss Whedon couldn’t appear in person at the Dollhouse panel today at the Television Critics Association press tour, so while his cast sat on stage, Whedon appeared on two large video screens via satellite from Boston, looking a bit like the Wizard of Oz. For those not yet familiar (however unlikely), in the series Eliza Dushku plays Echo, one of a group of "Actives", who have had their memories erased and can be programmed for any skill set based on the request of high paying clients.

In the pilot, a man hires Echo to help him with a hostage negotiation, and Whedon was asked why this person wouldn’t just hire a professional negotiator. Said Whedon, "Well, the point of the show is that an active or a doll is just the very best at anything that they do. Echo is always the avatar – the absolute ideal of what she’s being, in this case a hostage negotiator." He added that for the client, the other upside is he knows there will be "No distractions," because the person he’s hiring has no personal life issues to distract them.

Asked about the much discussed jettisoning of the original pilot, and a new first episode being shot, Whedon said the network "wanted to see the world of the show; the structure of the show, the stakes and the kinds of clients they’d be servicing."

The cast were asked if it was difficult adjusting to the changes and shooting a new first episode, and Fran Kranz ("Topher") replied, "It wasn’t too difficult with me. The first pilot started where the dollhouse was up and running, so I treated it like I would any episode - Just another occurrence in the life of the character. I never really saw it as doing another pilot. It was just another step forward in the whole process and making the whole story that much richer." His costar, Battlestar Galactica’s Tahmoh Penikett ("Paul Ballard") said, "For me, [the first pilot] was a warm up to working with everyone. It felt like it just sort of warmed you up for the new thing. It was a slightly different direction, but not that too different for me."

There are some issues Echo displays on the first episode while doing an assignment, and Dushku said that as the season continues, "I’ve had many flaws and many glitches. I think that’s sort of where the show takes off. She’s absolutely glitching and starting to become self aware. The memory wipes are not entirely working, so things can set them off and throw them off."

Obviously, an interesting part of Dollhouse is that Dushku gets the opportunity to play different people each week, as Echo is reprogrammed. Asked if it was her dream role, Dushku referred to herself in the third person, replying, "It’s Eliza’s dream role for sure. Joss and I have known each other for ten years since the Buffy days, since he wrote Faith and picked me. [To Whedon] Thanks again for that! I loved that part. [Echo] is a dream role, because I’m constantly changing and constantly on the move. I’ve said it before, but I’m a little ADD, so the idea of being in the same costume every day is a little conventional." She said that when she and Whedon sat down to talk about what the show should be, they both agreed, "Let’s do everything!"

Whedon said that in most episodes of Dollhouse there "is in some sense a standalone and has closure. At the same time, it advances the mythology. That’s what separates it from a procedural." He added that, "Towards the back half of the 13 [episodes], we do get a bit more into the mythology" noting that, "The relationships, even if they don’t remember each other, are very charged."

Whedon was asked his reaction to Dollhouse being aired on Fridays, paired with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which has had fans worried since it was announced, due to its reputation as "the death slot". Whedon had experience with that night, having had Firefly air there, and said, "My initial reaction was mixed I think. I had a bad experience once on a Friday. You might have heard about it. At the same time, I knew it was an instinctive reaction to something that had happened [earlier]." Whedon said he was also relieved though, and noted, "I’m very excited to be paired with Terminator," a show he loves and feels is a good match for Dollhouse.

For those worried that FOX was going to be as dismissive with Dollhouse as they were with Firefly, he said he felt that the decision to put Dollhouse on Fridays was "a different agenda" than what was done with Firefly. He said where the FOX execs of the past "were expecting to sit us on a Friday [with Firefly], not promote us, then expect us to be a huge hit instantly," the powers that be these days (who are almost all different than those during the Firefly era), "are about putting the 13 [episodes] on the air, and letting it grow." He said that he was "Ultimately more happy" having Dollhouse on Fridays, than the Monday night slot it was originally intended for.

The pilot to Dollhouse doesn’t have much humor to it, especially compared to other Whedon projects. Whedon admitted the show was, "Much more straight ahead dramatic than what we’ve done before. There’s less opportunities to be totally silly. But it’s me we’re talking about, as well as our staff. We can’t fight the funny." He added that "Humor definitely finds itself into the mix. I couldn’t make a show that is relentlessly serious, and I don’t think anyone would watch it."

It’s clear from the pilot that there’s an often argumentative relationship between Echo’s handler, Boyd Langdon (Harry Lennix) And Topher. Said Kranz of the two, "They work in the Dollhouse. And the spend a lot of time together. What I love about the show, among many things, what’s fascinating to me, is the time we get to mediate on the whole concept. It’s very fascinating and provocative. We have time to bat ideas off each other. I have weaker morals, whereas Harry’s character has a real sense of values. We have opposing schools of thought on the dollhouse and what we’re doing, and whether it’s good or bad." Whedon said he recalled the two actors coming up to him after their first scene and asking, "Are we friends?" Whedon said his reply was, "I think Topher would say yes and Boyd would say no and neither has the whole picture."

In the first episode, we only see Echo and one other active "in action", as it were, and both are female, but Whedon noted, "We will definitely see male [actives] as well. We had shot some people who were somewhat older, and they were in the original pilot,. We didn’t have the same opportunities to explore the house [in the new first episode]. Everybody’s fantasy and need is different. It’s pretty much evenly men and women - Different ages, different body types."

Dollhouse premieres Friday, February 13th at 9:00pm ET/PT on FOX.