Dollhouse

Joss Whedon, the creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” its spinoff “Angel” (which was co-created with David Greenwalt), “Firefly,” and a new Friday-night show on Fox called “Dollhouse,” has a fan following that is probably more clamorously devoted than that of anyone else in the business. In interviews, he freely discusses his creative process and his frustrations with certain aspects of the entertainment industry, and acknowledges the give-and-take he has with his fans, with whom he communicates far more than famous TV figures usually do. When you look into Whedon’s world—Whedonians have a large footprint on the Web, and there is much information and analysis to take in—the image that comes to mind isn’t of worshippers before an idol but of a chatty gathering of like-minded souls, who have come together to form a community. Which isn’t to say that he isn’t duly idolized: he is, after all, often referred to on Web sites as a god, and there are those who wear T-shirts to comics conventions that say “Joss Whedon Is My Master Now.” Paradoxically—for Whedon is an avowed atheist—what they worship is his questing humanism.

“Buffy” ended in 2003 and “Angel” in 2004, but the Buffyverse, as Whedon, fans, and scholars call it (“Buffy” has joined Madonna as a subject of study in the groves of academe), has survived in novels and comics, some of them written by the show’s fertile creator himself. While those shows were still running, Whedon created “Firefly,” a space opera-Western, which got yanked around by Fox, and then just got yanked. Whedon was nevertheless able to extend the story into a feature film—“Serenity”—in 2005. He used the occasion of the writers’ strike last year to concoct a short, wonderful Web musical starring Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day, and Nathan Fillion, called “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,” whose impetus was in part the desire to prove that one could produce and distribute good work without the studios. Now, with “Dollhouse,” Whedon is back on Fox, and the second time is probably not the charm. Only people who are willing to cut Whedon endless slack could find anything much to draw them in to this show, at least in the three episodes I’ve seen. So far, the vision, humor, and storytelling skill you’d expect to find are absent, and at the core of the series is an unpromising performance by Eliza Dushku (from “Buffy” and “Angel”).

What seems to be on Whedon’s mind in “Dollhouse” is the question of identity. Who are we, and who are we in relation to other people? And who are they? The “dollhouse” here is a facility—part laboratory, part corporation, part nefarious temp agency—where people’s brains are electronically denatured and then reprogrammed with whatever qualities are needed by the clients who hire them. The head of this outfit is a cold, smartly turned-out Englishwoman named Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams); the equally stereotypical lab geek (obnoxious, no social skills, drinks from juice boxes, has a chessboard on his desk) who does the brain-draining and the reprogramming is named Topher and is played by Fran Kranz. Hovering around the edges of the action is an F.B.I. agent, Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett, of “Battlestar Galactica,” a show that Whedon loves), who can’t persuade his colleagues that the dollhouse exists and that people are being used in this way—turned into zombies, then into other people, then back into zombies. When Echo (Dushku) and the dozen or so other dolls we see are at the facility, they spend their time getting massages, taking showers, and doing yoga—just like zombies everywhere. Trailing Echo wherever she goes is a handler, Boyd Langton (Harry Lennix), a former police officer whom we don’t know much about and who is so concerned about Echo’s welfare that, in this context, it seems suspicious.

What keeps the show from being too cartoony is the fact that the system isn’t perfect; despite being built to order, the “actives,” as they are called, have flaws. One iteration of Echo is nearsighted and has asthma, which affects her performance and puts a mission—“We prefer to call them ‘engagements,’ ” the manipulative Miss DeWitt purrs—and the company’s huge fee, at risk. As Topher overexplains, making a superperson isn’t possible: “Achievement is balanced by fault, by a lack. Can’t have one without the other. Everyone who excels is overcompensating.” And the deactivated actives seem to have a dim sense that they were once real people. In one scene, Echo, wandering around the facility, happens upon another woman all wired up on the table, getting shocked and making pained, somewhat sexual noises. (I turned on the closed-captioning on my TV to see how the sounds were described: “airy groaning.”) Echo has a blank look on her face upon seeing this, but you get the impression that perhaps a germ of awareness remains in her. That’s what you want to believe, anyway.

The problem with playing someone whose default setting is tabula rasa is pretty obvious, and the primary qualification that Dushku brings to the part is that she graduated with honors from the Royal Academy of Cleavage. In terms of gender studies, it is notable that Dushku’s demeanor as a zombie is much the same as the demeanor many actresses her age resort to when trying to project an image of themselves as unthreatening and “feminine”: a slouchy walk, a bobbly head, and ever-parted lips. Would someone please show these actresses a movie starring Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, Irene Dunne, Bette Davis, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, or Judy Davis? Whedon wants to explore the farthest corners of our natures to discover what it means to be human. But this vehicle, which he created specifically for Dushku, doesn’t seem fit for the journey.