Dollhouse

Dollhouse creator/sooper-genius Joss Whedon got on the line with journalists for a conference call this afternoon to dish about the new season, which premieres next Friday, September 25th. We’ll have the full transcript of the interview for you in the next couple of days, but here are a few highlights from the call.

* Ray Wise had previously been confirmed to be playing someone high up in the Dollhouse organization. Joss expanded slightly by explaining that Wise’s character actually runs another Dollhouse, and he’ll show up by episode six.

* “The casting of Summer [Glau] was based on the knowledge that Summer exists,” said Joss. It had already been reported that Glau’s character, Bennett, will be a technician that works at a Dollhouse in Washington, D.C. Joss added that it was “safe to assume” that this D.C. Dollhouse is the one run by Ray Wise’s character.

* Joss expressed his regret over the departure of Amy Acker and said that “Dr. Saunders would have factored in hugely if we hadn’t lost her to another show.” (I believe that’d be ABC’s Happy Town.) Acker will be appearing in three episodes this season.

* Asked whether he was eventually planning on casting every member of Firefly in Dollhouse, Joss joked that “it’s a death match between Firefly and Battlestar.” He said that he felt more freedom to cast people he had worked with before or wanted to work with because he is “a lot less concerned with how the cast is perceived” this season.

* Joss said that the show wouldn’t be overplaying the “Such-and-Such is actually a Doll” card, because too much of that would make it hard to keep the show grounded and with serious stakes.

* Much of this season will be focused on Echo’s (Eliza Dushku) attempts to find allies amongst the other Dolls.

* Joss definitely plans to revisit the future timeline introduced in the DVD-exclusive episode “Epitaph One.” He doesn’t think there will be another DVD-exclusive ep on the next set, but this future timeline will likely be revisited late in the season.

* He also joked that he thought every show should have flashforward episodes because “I want to know what post-apocalyptic future was caused by Two and a Half Men.”

That’s all for now, folks. We’ll have the full transcript up in the next day or so. Dollhouse’s second season premieres Friday, September 25th at 9 p.m./8 p.m. Central.