Dollhouse

Joss Whedon talks ’Dollhouse’ and ’Dr. Horrible’

Deep breaths, Joss Whedon fans. The “Firefly” debacle is not being reenacted. That’s the word from the man himself.

Joss Whedon, who had a famous falling out six year ago with a previous Fox executive regime over the “space western” “Firefly,” is back with the same network, making a new show called “Dollhouse,” which premieres in January.

The show stars Eliza Dushku (Faith on Whedon’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) as Echo, a woman who is hired for “engagements” by wealthy clients. The engagements are not all of a sexual nature (in fact, Whedon said Tuesday they’re mostly not sexual, especially at the beginning of the 13 episodes that Fox has ordered).

But whatever the encounter, when it is over, the personality Echo has been given during the duration of the engagement is wiped clean and her memories are obliterated. Between assignments, she lives in a “dollhouse” with other “actives” like herself.

Dollhouse Speaking of memories, this week Whedon fans may have felt like they’d entered the Wayback Machine. Back in 2002, Whedon was forced by Fox to make a new pilot for “Firefly,” and that was just one part of a situation that caused him much grief – the network cancelled the series after only 11 episodes aired.

So it was with some trepidation that fans of his TV shows read a long letter from Whedon that was posted on the fan site Whedonesque.com on July 22. It explained why he’d just written a new pilot for “Dollhouse.”

Say what? Actually, Whedon said it was his own idea. When Fox executives had some reservations about the the first “Dollhouse” pilot that he’d made, Whedon proposed making that pilot Episode 2 of the show. And he’d shoot a brand-new premiere episode.

After he gave several dozen members of the press a tour of the “Dollhouse” sets on Tuesday, I sat down with Whedon to ask him about “Dollhouse’s” birth pangs, among other things. (Alan Sepinwall also talked to Whedon after the set visit, his story is here.)

“The fact is, there are echoes of what happened before [with ‘Firefly’], so some people are worried,” Whedon told me. “My response to that is, first of all, thanks, I’m glad you care. And also, you can be worried. The show could have all the support in the world from Fox and still not [be successful]. There’s no guarantees in this business. The fact is, their support hasn’t wavered, but they did sort of view what I’d done as a little bit different from what I’d sold.”

“I looked at [the first pilot] with a very cold eye, an executive’s eye, and said, ‘OK, I know what they want that they don’t have,’” Whedon said. “I asked them, ‘Do you want [a new pilot]?’ earlier, and they said, ‘No, no, no, we just want to figure out how to make this work.’ I said, ‘Here’s how you’re going to make this work. I’m going to write you a new one.’ They were very grateful.”

In the conversation below, Whedon talked more about the new pilot and what elements were “amped up” in it, about the genesis of “Dollhouse” and about the development of the character of Echo.

I also quizzed him a little about “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,” the Internet sensation that he said had been streamed 2 million times at drhorrible.com before the free-view period ended July 20. (I spoke to Neil Patrick Harris, the star of "Dr. Horrible," earlier in the week; that story is here.)

I should note that for this conversation, we sat at a table on the set of the spectacular, two-story, main “Dollhouse” set – the place where the “active” live, work out, dine and interact with their handlers. Like the rest of the “Dollhouse” sets, it had an Asian feel that Whedon told journalists was intentionally spa-like (as he was giving the tour, he said the sets were designed to have a “zen kind of loveliness”). Yet the “actives” were never far from their handlers’ sight.

“No matter how free they feel coming and going from the Dollhouse, in essence, they are completely tracked” within the complex, Whedon said.

We also visited the elegant set that housed the office of the “Dollhouse’s” director, the large, circular co-ed shower that the “actives” share, and the round room in which five “actives” “sleep” in beds that are tucked below the level of the floor (on the set tour, Whedon called them “a little womb-like, a little coffin-like”).

“We wanted a very nurturing environment, and that’s why we went with ‘spa, spa, spa’ in the décor,” he said. “We wanted natural elements. We wanted to do anything that would say, ‘This is not anything but a happy, harmonious home, don’t ask any questions.”

The main set, a soaring, two-story structure with a catwalk around the edges and a high-tech office suspended almost over a pond structure in the middle of the room, was a stunner.

All those sets were built as a result of a lunch Whedon had with Eliza Dushku over a year ago – when their long discussion of Dushku’s career led to the “Dollhouse” concept. I started my one-on-one conversation with Whedon (which is edited and slightly condensed below) by asking about why he seems to have such an affinity for women under pressure.

MR: You seem to be drawn to these women who have a situation or an ability that they may not want. Do you have any ideas about why you keep being drawn to that?

JW: I’ve never had it described to me that way. I look for strength, that’s what interests me. Weakness and strength are basically the things that interest me. What turns me on about a woman is her strength and I think that strength is manifested by burden.

As Captain Hammer [of “Dr. Horrible”] has taught us, when you don’t know what pain is, you can’t handle any. I’m interested in the women who do have something put upon them, so [then] they fight back.

I do think there is an element in our society, in most societies, to which that is true of every single woman. A burden is put on them, the burden of proof in a way, that they are human. Just human. I will always be drawn to those stories.

MR: So many women on television are defined by the men in their lives. You’ve given us a lot of women who are not necessarily defined by men. Echo seems like she is to some degree defined other people but also she’s kind of this free-floating agent.

JW: Well, no, the really fun thing about the show is that she’s absolutely defined by other people, it’s her job to be defined by other people. The idea that she might become defined by herself is potentially lethal to her. It might cause her to be killed if she becomes a person. That to me is absolutely the essence of the show.

MR: How conscious of herself can she become? This is one of my biggest questions about the show.

JW: It’s a two-step, back and forth, back and forth at the beginning, because she’ll get a piece of self-awareness, that’ll be the crux of the episode, and then it’ll be wiped away. Whether or not she still has it… because after every engagement her memory is completely wiped and her personality is removed, and she waits for the next [engagement].

But she starts to collect little bits. Whether or not she gets all those little bits together and starts forming a coherent person or plan to become a person or whether they all get taken away from her is her constant struggle.

MR: I have to ask the Fox question.

JW: Yes, Eliza is a fox.

MR: A stone fox. But I read what you posted on Whedonesque last night and listened to what you said while we were on the set today, but it’s just hard to hear “Joss Whedon shoots new pilot of his show for Fox” and not get the heeby-jeebies [thinking we might have a repeat of what happened to “Firefly”]. Was it all your idea, or were you all in a room and someone said…

JW: No, no. This was my idea. And I felt pretty canny about it. I went online to explain what happened so I didn’t give people a sort of Pollyanna boilerplate that meant I couldn’t tell them what was really going on. That’s not helping anybody. And people are too savvy for that, and they know my history with Fox.

The fact is, there are echoes of what happened before, so some people are worried. My response to that is, first of all, thanks, I’m glad you care. And also, you can be worried. The show could have all the support in the world from Fox and still not go. There’s no guarantees in this business. The fact is, their support hasn’t wavered, but they did sort of view what I’d done as a little bit different from what I’d sold.

I understand why. I sort of go, hmmm, some of it I think maybe they didn’t get, and some of it, you know what, I didn’t deliver on it in the way that I should have. You have to have the ability to know where the truth lies. It’s not in me and it’s not in you, it’s in between us. That simple ability is lost to so many people and it keeps you alive.

I looked at it with a very cold eye, an executive’s eye, and said, “OK, I know what they want that they don’t have.” I don’t want to gut this [first pilot] episode. I’m proud of this episode. Everybody did a really good job. There are scenes I want to tweak and changes I want to make, but if I go to the network and say, “I’m going to give you a new first episode,” they will be excited – they didn’t have to ask for it.

And they never did, because I asked them, “Do you want [a new pilot]?” earlier, and they said, “No, no, no, we just want to figure out how to make this work.” I said, “Here’s how you’re going to make this work. I’m going to write you a new one.” They were very grateful. They were like, “Most showrunners don’t do that.”

I’m just like, I know that I believe in this world. I don’t care how people get there, as long as they get there. And what they wanted was an episode that showed an engagement that ran through its normal course.

MR: So people know what they’re getting.

JW: So people know what they’re getting. The first episode I had written was more mythological in structure and didn’t really represent the structure of the show each week. There’s a reason to do that, because it sets everything up, but there’s also a reason to do the other thing.

I’ve just finished the script of the new first episode, and I’ve really used the opportunity to really amp some of the characters and their introductions. [Cast member] Tahmoh [Penikett’s] going to do some Muay Thai. He’s going to be unhappy about the Muay Thai. “Do I hafta? Darn!” [Whedon was joking — Tahmoh’s very into martial arts]

MR: One of the things I most enjoy about your shows is how you put people in these orbits around each other and they keep intersecting and colliding in interesting ways. Is that something that will happen in the “Dollhouse”? Will there be unrequited love, frustration, the full gamut of Joss Whedon relationships?

JW: Oh yes. Actually one, no, two of the most twisted relationships I’ve ever come up with. I’m so excited about the Dollhouse and the ensemble of the show.

One of the things I said to Eliza when we were having lunch, before I had ever suddenly come up with the idea of the show and therefore realized I was making one with her, was, “You need an ensemble. You don’t want to be in every scene. You need a mythology that is bigger than the character, or you’re going to go nuts. You’re going to get exhausted and burn out after two seasons, at best. If you have a big ensemble, it’s a more interesting world, and you can relax. One day a week.”

So when I built the concept, or when it somehow poured out of me, that was one of the main things. And the only thing I regret is that I didn’t come up with the character of Dr. Saunders until after we’d sort of made the deal, because Dr. Saunders is turning into this fascinating character and [“Angel” actress] Amy Acker [who plays Dr. Saunders] doesn’t exactly make it hurt.

What we do in the writers’ room, and love to do more than anything, is, “Oh, this character would really be attracted to this, and this character thinks this about that character, this character’s terrible secret is going to be so fascinating when it comes up against this character’s terrible secret.” And what they all have on each other and how they all deal with each other is going to be different than anything I’ve gotten to do before. I’m very excited.

MR: If I could switch over to some Dr. Horrible questions before we end this, you said one of your goals with this was to make back enough money to pay back your crew. Is that on the horizon? Is that today, in six months?

JW: It’s certainly not today. But it is my hope that it will be within the year, maybe. We will have the DVDs out in a few months. And that’s hopefully going to be a revenue source from the fans. We did the first week free, we got it out to a couple million people.

MR: I was going to ask that – so 2 million is the number?

JW: Over a million watched the first one [Act 1], and then it was descending [with Act 2 and Act 3]. Those were not the final numbers, but it was around two million views [on drhorrible.com], in general.

Apart from my desire to create an Internet event, for the Internet, for the fans, for the community, it was also a way of saying, “Some people will check this out, maybe other people will hear about it, so by the time it is on DVD – and it’s still exclusive on iTunes, kids! – but maybe they’ll be drawn to it.

It would be nice to be able to pay the crew, it would be nice to make a profit, simply because I crave money. No, wait! Don’t print that! Simply because then, [if a profit is made,] we will have proven an economic model. That would actually be an enormous [thing] for the artistic community.

MR: Is something coming up, is there a concrete date of when you might shoot something else?

JW: There’s not a man jack of us who doesn’t want to. I’m not sure what hilarious song follows the last scene.

MR: If you had to choose a way to make stuff, would you make it the “Dr. Horrible” way, or the “Dollhouse” way?

JW: You know, [gesturing to the lavish, two-story “Dollhouse” main set] it doesn’t suck to have a set. I like to live in both world. Sometimes I go to McDonald’s, sometimes I go to [surely the name of a nice restaurant that was obscured on this recording when I got up from the table].

[The last questions concerns the last act of “Dr. Horrible,” so don’t read on unless you’ve seen it.]

MR: Did you have to go to the dark place in that last act?

JW: I’ve taken a huge amount of flack for that. People are like, “Joss has run out of ideas. All he can do is be mean.”

MR: But I guess, if you’re constructing an evil supervillain, he has to have a tortured backstory.

JW: I’m just sayin’.