Visiting Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse" today

It's the last day of TV critics' summer press tour — our press conferences ended Monday with NBC but today, we have some sets to visit. And at the top of my list is a trip to get an early glimpse of "Dollhouse," the new series starring Eliza Dushku (above).

UPDATE: Here's my report on my eye-popping visit to the "Dollhouse" set.

Last week at the Fox party I spoke with Joss Whedon, who created "Dollhouse" and numerous other shows, including his instant online classic, "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog," which at four bucks is a bargain (I paid). He spoke about the production challenges facing "Dollhouse" that compelled him to shoot essentially a second pilot for the series. Since our talk Whedon has given a much longer answer at his website, but this is the shorter oral-history version:

TV Barn - Joss Whedon - 71408

The only thing he didn't mention in our interview was the co-ed showers. As you will see below, they appeared in the original pilot ... and Whedon confirmed to , uh, his own the Whedonesque site that they will remain in the show, for those of you who make viewing decisions based on such criteria.

TV Barn at TCA: Chuck Todd

The NBC News political director and I spoke after the lively MSNBC press conference. Instead of talking about Fox News or other controversies, however, Chuck and I talked politics. And we talked a little at the end about life after Tim Russert. Listen up.

Chuck Todd 7/21/2008 (MP3)

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Previously on TV Barn: Tim Russert, RIP

NBC executive says: Jay's not going anywhere for a while

UPDATE: NBC has announced a June 2009 launch date for "Tonight Show with Conan."

I seem to have stirred up quite a storm with my discovery last week of this juicy quote buried inside a USA Today story about Jay Leno's car collection. Nine paragraphs in, Leno declares, "I am definitely done next year — with NBC."

Many observers, not just me, took this to mean that whatever negotiations were going on between the network and Leno had broken down. Rather than host a series of prime-time specials or do some other work for NBC, Leno was waiting for his contract to run out so that another network (read: ABC) could sign him up to compete against Letterman and the man who succeeded both Letterman and Leno at NBC, Conan O'Brien.

Last night, following NBC's presentations here at summer press tour, I spoke with Rick Ludwin, the longtime executive in charge of late night for NBC, and he said he had spoken to Leno about the quote.

CW chief: "Smackdown" was just too manly for our "brand"

Dawn Ostroff, the onetime chief programmer at Lifetime, must wish sometimes that she'd stayed in cable. By now she'd probably be in charge of the whole Lifetime empire and come into work every day to overnight ratings that look a helluva lot better than those of the CW, the so-called broadcast network she runs.

I'm guessing, of course. Ostroff doesn't reveal her true thoughts about working for the CW — or anything else about the CW, for that matter. No broadcast executive is more evasive, more unwilling to say anything that would seem committal or decisive or even remotely candid about the challenges facing the fifth-rated network (sixth if you count Univision). Sitting in a CW executive session is the closest we TV critics will come to knowing what David Gregory felt like as he shadow-boxed a hapless Scott McClellan.

Fox News ready to attack the fall campaign

There’s a new pit bull at Fox News Channel, and, no, it’s not recently hired contributor Karl Rove.

It’s Chris Wallace, the onetime mild-mannered moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” now host of “Fox News Sunday,” who bared his fangs at the liberal media during a panel this week to promote the top-rated cable news channel’s upcoming election coverage.

TV academy CEO: "Boston Legal" keeps getting nominated because it's a great show!

The Emmy nominations were announced before sunrise Thursday here, and as usual they offered their share of pleasant surprises and huge disappointments. If one chronic problem ails the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences more than any other, it is the voting body's inability to recognize TV shows that are aimed at viewers under the age of 40.

At a party Thursday night thrown by ABC, which plays host to the Emmy Awards Sept. 21, I bumped into John Shaffner, the Academy's chairman and CEO, and buttonholed him on this.

Jimmy Kimmel asks questions, then splits before anyone can ask HIM ...

No sooner did ABC entertainment chief Stephen McPherson open the floor for questions than "Tom Weinerman from the Sarasota Star-Herald Tribune" asked, "There are rumors that ABC is actively courting Jay Leno for 11:30. Is there any truth to those rumors?" From the peals of laughter coming from the network seats it didn't take long to figure out that Jimmy Kimmel was holding the mike.

"How to Look Good Naked," now with 50% more "Queer Eye" content

"How to Look Good Naked," the Lifetime show in which fashion tipster Carson Kressley helps women accept their less-than-model-thin bodies, returns for its second season, sporting a makeover of its own.

"Naked," which signed on in January, took Kressley's dual message of self-improvement and self-acceptance and applied it to women instead of men. Operating solo instead of as part of a quintet of lifestyle experts, Kressley focused solely on helping plus-sized gals stop loathing their bodies and start loving them. By the end of each half-hour episode, his subject invariably was delighted to pose for the cameras in lingerie that flattered their figures — then take even those coverings off for a discreet, TV-safe cheesecake shot.

Mad about "Mad Men"

These similarities between "Mad Men" and "The Sopranos" can get overworked. Sure, both shows were offered to HBO by David Chase. Both were immediately embraced by TV critics (who spent much of the off-season ginning up comparisons between the two). And yeah, both were slice-of-life dramas that challenged comfortable notions of the American dream ... and both were advertised on New York City transit.

But beyond that? Did "The Sopranos" ever emblazon its logo on hundreds of Zippo lighters? Did it issue specially branded GAF ViewMasters with slide wheels of its stars, like "Mad Men" did (pictured)? I think not. Did Michael Kors pay homage in his fall collection to the fashion style of Paulie Walnuts? Did House Beautiful feature Carmela's remodeling work in its June issue? I think not.

Party time means party talk and talk about party food

There was a TCA party for Fox and FX talent at the Santa Monica Pier last night. I interviewed "Shield" creator Shawn Ryan and various cast members for an upcoming piece. I got an update on "Dollhouse" from its lord and master, Joss Whedon.

Spike Feresten, seen here making a promotional reel for the affiliates with "24" executive producer Jon Cassar, chatted with me about the upcoming season of his "Talk Show," which hasn't aired a new episode since January because of the writers' strike. He's got a 22-episode order for this season, but since Fox makes him shoot all the shows way in advance, he's already dreading scenarios like the one last season with Adam Carolla, which reaired in the spring as Carolla was appearing on "Dancing with the Stars" -- a fact Feresten never mentions on the show because it had been taped in the fall.

Talkin' tour with WBAL

I spoke with Baltimore broadcasting legend Steve Rouse, who was filling in for Shari Elliker on WBAL today. We talked about last night's Fox party, yesterday's Fox News panel, and how I was outfoxed by a certain music legend.

WBAL 7-15-2008 (MP3)

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TV Barn at TCA: Chris Wallace

"Fox News Sunday" anchor Chris Wallace, who cut short a vacation to pay tribute to Tony Snow on Sunday's show (my tribute to Tony), flew out here to TCA to play straight man on a panel that features "Outfoxed" villain John Moody, Bush advisor Karl Rove and Hillary's bulldog Howard Wolfson.

Before the panel, he chatted with me about Rove and expanded on his previous criticism of a certain other cable channel. He also — happily — put to rest conflicting reports about Mike Wallace's supposed retirement.

Radio radio

Paul Harris had some consoling words for me this morning on WHAS Radio in Louisville, where he's been filling in. We talked about TV press tour and specifically, my light-rail wreck interview with Elvis Costello, which I blogged about earlier. Here's a six-minute excerpt from our segment today:

Download whas_7142008_excerpt.mp3

Earlier, Chip Franklin and I remembered Tony Snow and we yakked about some other things during the 6 a.m. hour — which thanks to my being on the West Coast really was 6 a.m. today — on KOGO Radio in San Diego:

KOGO_20080714.mp3

TV Barn at TCA: Lois Vossen

The curator of "Independent Lens" and I had a lively chat this afternoon to discuss some of the films in the just-announced 2008-2009 schedule of TV's best, biggest and most diverse documentary lineup, including "Chicago 10" (pictured), "The Order of Myths," "Lioness," "Helvetica," "I.O.U.S.A.," and "Wings of Defeat."

Download TVBarnVossen07122008a.mp3

Here's the complete sched for the 27-week season of "Independent Lens," starting October 22.

TV Barn at TCA: Tim Goodman

Today's podcast guest is the television critic of the San Francisco Chronicle and the popularizer of the unofficial motto of the Television Critics Association tour: "Death March with Cocktails."

TVBarn_at_TCA_7_11_08.mp3

"Generation Kill": Band of brothers for a new age

After five years fulfilling his epic vision for “The Wire,” David Simon has returned to his journalistic roots with “Generation Kill,” a seven-part miniseries about young Marines under fire in Iraq that begins at 8 p.m. CT Sunday on HBO.

Al Swearengen live-blogs the HBO session

QUENTIN SCHAFFER, EVP FOR CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS AT HBO: First off, I just want to say I feel every time we get together now, it's like an Agatha Christie mystery. It's wondering who is going to survive the year.

Even money, this'll end in a bloodbath.

His aim is true. Mine sucks.

Even if I had been given a few days' notice, as opposed to a few hours, that I had been granted an audience with the King, as in Elvis Costello, I'm not sure I would've had any easier time interviewing him. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

In one of the great all-time squanders of my career, I spent most of my 20 minutes with the host of the new Sundance Channel interview series "Spectacle" chasing a very smart and agile cat down a pitch-black alley. In fact, the most economical exchange I had with Costello was the first one:

AB: You didn't say in the press conference why the show was called "Spectacle."

EC: [points to his eyeglasses]

Here in the TCA ballroom....

The view from my room

... no one can hear the haters scream. That's how bitchin' the sound system is here at TCA. Seriously, if you missed the last two days of navel-gazing commentary over whether two or more television critics should ever be allowed to appear in the same room together, all you need to read is this. But once I got into this 68-degree-chilled ballroom — this tour is being held in the same one the Golden Globes are televised from, at the Beverly Hilton — I thought: Do I hear people whining? I do not.

"Dogtown" and "Greensburg": Two docu-series I'm glad are coming back

I arrived at TCA, the television critics' tour in L.A., just in time to meet one of this fall's TV stars who I think is gonna break out.

Meet Georgia. She and 21 of her fellow fighting pit bulls — rescued from the Michael Vick estate — arrived at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah on January 2 of this year, not long after the National Geographic Channel had started filming there for its series "DogTown." John Garcia (pictured), one of Georgia's trainers at the sanctuary, told me she was one of Vick's best fighters. Which means she could have been one of Best Friends' toughest cases. Instead, after seven months of 24/7 attention, she was ready for a massive meet-and-greet, accepting affection from countless strange hands in a big noisy room — and not only loving it, but returning the love. I'm no animal trainer, but that's a helluva turnaround. Wouldn't you watch that?