Whedon's "Dollhouse," or the education of Active Echo

Three dozen critics ended their summer press tour by taking a tour of the jaw-dropping set of Fox's midseason buzz machine, "Dollhouse," led by its creator Joss Whedon and fetching star Eliza Dushku, who changed outfits midway through (she was wearing a purple blouse in the first half).

Much of the instant oeuvre of "Dollhouse" journalism has focused on the fact that creator Joss Whedon is shooting a new pilot to replace the first pilot that wasn't expository enough. I posted a podcast where Whedon and I talked about this last week at the Fox party, and Hibberd and Sepinwall weighed in with greater depth and Whedonesque knowledge after yesterday's tour.

But you know, that's largely a procedural thing, swapping out episodes. I suppose you could argue that out-of-order episodes killed Whedon's "Firefly" ... well, maybe. (One could debate if "Firefly" ever really died: It had a nice run on DVD and in theaters, and that's a lot more than can be said of most cancelled series.)

Sitting on the 30-foot-high, 100-foot-wide circular set of the "Dollhouse" holding area — let's call it an expensive-looking spa with a skybox —  what was more interesting to me was what Whedon was trying to say with his complicated-yet-simple new fantasy.

First, it should be said that unlike most sets you see up-close, the one at the heart of "Dollhouse" looks fabulous naked. This is the holding area for the zombies (or "actives," from the show's already plump lexicon) and is designed to cater to their every physical and emotional need between assignments. Now, after spending two lovely weeks at the Beverly Hilton, I must confess I am so ready to get out of here ... but the "Dollhouse" zombies are there for life and are seemingly content to stay in their luxe prison. The central drama of "Dollhouse" is that Dushku's character, named simply Echo, is going to figure out, s-l-o-w-l-y, that there is more to life.

So that was my inspiration for this question.

Joss, how much of this is a fun story that you want to tell — or a good story that you want to tell — and how much of this is commentary about the illusions that Americans want to trap themselves in?

JOSS WHEDON: There is absolutely no separation between the two. And the moment there is, you lose your ability to tell stories. What interests me about the human condition — we have this woman who is stripped of her personality and has to rebuild herself from scratch and not only her character, but *every* character is on some level dealing with their identity.

That's where the plots are going to come from. We might have to add bells and whistles — action, jokes, the things that are part of why I'm telling stories in the first place — but if the message you're sending and the story you're telling aren't intrinsically combined, then you ultimately are going to be untrue to at least one of them. You're gonna start with a polemic, you're going to start making lectures, or you're going to start contradicting what you want to say with your entertainment.

And with that, Joss Whedon has explained Aaron Sorkin's problem better than I could.

As I type out that exchange, however, his answer strikes me as more generic than it first sounded. Still, I love the fact that "Dollhouse" is going to be returning to the more colloquial setting of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." His other series — "Angel," "Firefly" and even the new delight, "Dr. Horrible" — are all set in some odd parallel world where only a select few humans form the community. With clientele coming and going (OK, johns), and the thoroughly L.A. design of its set, "Dollhouse" — a show with no finished episodes that we can see, a show months away from release — at least appears to be engaging actual American society once again.

I don't know why we talk about this show so much, but we do.

Previously on TV Barn: From Women's Murder Club to the Dollhouse

Comments

[TWM]

Firefly was on Fox, Wonderfalls was on Fox, Point Pleasant was on Fox... so Joss, what the frak are you doing back on Fox?

[Mark Jeffries]

Was Kevin Reilly at Fox when those other shows were on?