Dollhouse

A Guided Tour of Dollhouse Season 2

Friday night sci-fi fans may have lost The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Battlestar Galactica, but Dollhouse is back for a second season (beginning September 25, 9/8c, Fox). The show’s creator Joss Whedon talked to TV Guide Magazine about what’s up with Echo (Eliza Dushku) and Paul Ballard (Tamoh Penikett) and the rest of the gang, as well as the possibility of a second edition of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

Congratulations on Dollhouse’s renewal. Did Fox ask you to change the show in any significant way in an effort to get bigger ratings?

No, they really didn’t actually. The show as it came to be at the end of last season, pleased them very much. They pretty much just said, “Can you make it for less?”

So did you have to fire half your cast?

No, we didn’t have to do that, amazing enough. They cut the budget nominally. I respond very well to that kind of challenge. In fact, it’s made our stories bigger instead of smaller, now that we don’t have to spend our time thinking about little things like, ‘What’s this show?” “What’s it about?” and all those things that I was given last year. We can just concentrate on getting this done and getting it done right.

Will there still be the weekly story with the Dolls going out on assignment?

Yes, we’ll still walk the line between standalone engagements and more arcing stories. The Actives will go out on different engagements every week and take on different personalities and be in different situations. But at the same time, we’ll be ramping up the stuff that we were getting into towards the end about what the Dollhouse is for, and what it means. So it will have a healthy dose of personal relationships and conspiracy and all the stuff behind the engagements as well as a bunch of fun engagements.

What’s your answer to those who are queasy with the idea that the Actives are basically prostitutes since they have no power over who they sleep with?

I never thought of that! No, I did. I think it’s a little more complicated than that. But there is that element of they have sex with people sometimes. We always deal with what it does to them psychologically. What good can come of it and what terrible can come of it and how are the people who are manipulating them feeling about what they’re doing. You get into the area of sex at all in America and it’s a touchy subject. Our response is to come at it head on and so we’ll see a lot of the consequences of what’s been going on with the Dolls over the next 13 episodes.

Who feels the consequences? The Actives aren’t self-aware.

Well, Echo has been reaching toward a kind of awareness and we’re going to be sending her further along that journey. She’ll start to form her own ideas about what’s going on.

Will she hide that from her handlers?

She sure will!

So what will happen as Echo starts to get her identity back?

That’s just going to make her life harder. We’ll also get to see more of Victor and Sierra and where they came from. And we’ll discover what got everybody there. We know Boyd is a moral guy; he was a cop so his presence here is a little incongruous. We want to tease that for a while and then actually explain it.

What is the former Fed Paul Ballard up to signing on to the Dollhouse? He was a good guy last season.

He’s going to definitely be more intimately connected to the house but that doesn’t mean that he’s completely lost his way. Yet.

Are you implying that he’ll be so deep underground that he’ll start to identify with what he’s enmeshed in?

Umm-hmm.

Is Paul working with any entity or agency this season?

At the beginning he’s solo, but he’ll form an alliance inside the Dollhouse—with whom I’m not saying.

Will Echo get enough self awareness that she could be Ballard’s in-house ally. She m-i-ight. [Laughs.]

Why did Paul demand November’s freedom rather than Echo’s, since Echo, aka Carolyn, is his obsessive reason for bringing the Dollhouse down?

That is an essential question that comes up as well. Was November the girl he wanted to free because he had had a relationship with her and he felt worse for her? Or was he just getting rid of her because her being there would make him feel guilty for his obsession with Echo? It’s either the noblest thing he’s ever done or it’s the other thing. That question will come up early on.

What’s happening with the resolutely amoral Topher?

We’re going to put him through the wringer a little bit. Take a few swings at him. He’s going to be knocked off balance.

Among the several big shockers last season: Amy Acker’s character is not a Dollhouse doctor, she’s a Doll. Acker’s in a new show [ABC’s Happy Town]. Is she back at all? Even though Happy Town only has a seven-episode order, we could only get her for three episodes. Networks cooperating with each other is not how that works. We do have some things in store to shake up her world a little bit. The question will come up, how do you live your life once you find out that’s who you are. It might make you a little bit nuts.

And will your old buddy Alan Tudyk, who plays psycho killer Alpha, return?

We have plans to bring him back but not right away. We like Alpha as a looming presence. We’re going to be introducing a different kind of problem into the characters’ lives, but Alpha’s always on the periphery. We want to keep him alive and use him when we can but not to much that he loses his power.

Will Reed Diamond be back or is his character Dominic staying in the “attic”?

We’re committed to seeing him again, but we’re not going to pull him out of the attic right away. As is the case with a lot of other actors, they’re either busy or we can’t afford to have them as much as want. And we have a large cast to service anyway. So it won’t be right away.

Will we get to see that damned attic?

We may just have a visit.

What or who is this year’s evil presence?

I can’t explain too much other than that Paul’s agenda in finding out what the Dollhouse really is starts affecting everybody’s agenda a little bit because there is more at stake than just the lives of the people there. So we’re going to sort bring it into the larger world and we’re going to be dealing with some of the stuff that happens in Episode 13, the infamous unaired episode without making it impossible to watch for people who haven’t seen it. [Editor’s note: “Epitaph One,” the unaired episode, will be on the Dollhouse Season 1 DVD, on sale July 28. ]

Will you be going beyond this particular Dollhouse?

Yes, the picture is going to get bigger. It’s going to be less about the single lives and more about the whole workings of the place. Ulterior motives and ultimate goals will start to rear their ugly heads.

World domination! Can you give me a little more?

It’s pretty much a grab bag and world domination is probably on the list.

Are there characters that we’ve seen who will turn out to be running the whole organization?

There’s a couple of characters that we’ve seen who will be coming back who are part of this.

A conspiracy?

A conspiracy, yes.

Adele doesn’t run everything, does she?

She may not be the boss of everyone but she’s definitely the scariest person in the room. And we get to see some of that Everybody else in the House is afraid of Adele. There’s a reason for that.

Is she a Doll?

I ain’t saying.

Are there new characters coming in either regulars or recurring?

There will be some recurring characters as we learn more about the Dollhouse world. And somebody will sort of take Paul’s place as the fly in the Dollhouse’s ointment.

What’s your frank opinion of the first season, since it was a pretty difficult season for you?

I feel like we were trying to get to the show we wanted to make and while we were trying to figure it out we made a bunch of episodes that were diverting but not ultimately fulfilling for me. And then about halfway through, I felt that we found our footing and it felt like the network felt the same way and we all got on the same page. After that the show started to really excite me and we all started to have fun. You could feel it in the episodes. So that’s where we are now. The writers’ room has never been happier.

What do you think about being on Friday night?

We don’t have the burden of being a hit. We’re not being overly scrutinized. There’s no fear that our numbers will go down because they physically can’t. This is where I like to make TV. I like to be off the radar. So we’re all very comfortable with that time.

Will you be making interesting announcements at Comic-Con?

Yes, but mostly about my sexuality. [Laughs.] There’s no judging in the Dollhouse. We are going to be showing the lost 13th episode at the panel. That’s going to be a big thing. I have a few things to say about upcoming stuff.

Like what?

I’ll talk about my film, “The Cabin in the Woods, “ which we just wrapped, the Buffy comics, and whatever else I’m doing by the time the Con hits. There’s also something.

How about a musical episode of Dollhouse? It worked so well on Buffy

It’s crossed my mind. Eliza has a beautiful voice. And if I had that kind of money to spend, I’d know what world I’d live in, but we haven’t quite got there yet.

John Barrowman of Torchwood, who also has a fabulous voice, he told me that the worlds of sci-fi and musicals are not that different. Both genres are larger than life. Do you agree?

He’s absolutely right. They’re both that one step removed that allows you to get funky. That’s why I did Doctor Horrible, it’s those worlds.

Will there be more Doctor Horrible?

I believe, there will. Yes.

Anything we can announce?

Hmm, not yet, no. sadly. We have to make sure we writers have all ducks in a row, before we start quacking.