…but it had some heart.

That’s my conclusion from watching the Pilot episode. Looking back on that first episode it’s clear to me that it lacks soul..identity.

Things are not what they seem..you’re only seeing part of it

I hope that’s the case, because “Ghost” didn’t seem to know who it wanted to be, or what it wanted to do. Like an actual ghost, it seemed to be trapped somewhere, between states. Was this the result of being passed through too many hands, causing each creators ‘vision’ to be imprinted on to it’s own blank slate?

You ever try and clean an actual slate? You always see what was on it before

As much as I disliked that line, it would perhaps be best if Dollhouse wiped away the imprints that have caused it to lose some of it’s early identity.

In my opinion, episode 1.01 ‘excelled’ when it got down to the basics – when the characters interacted, when moral met amoral, when Active spoke to Active. This is why I think a lot of people have responded so positively to Sierra - she was like a breath of fresh air, she gave the whole “Active” concept balance, whilst giving us a glimpse into the dynamics of how the Dollhouse operates when things get hairy.

It’s going to difficult for me to become invested in Echo without the help of the other characters. Sometimes the way we see others shapes us more than the way in which we see ourselves – it’s what gives us compassion, humanity, or otherwise. So think that it’s vital that we see the continued interaction between Echo, the Actives and the management – how will Echo shape Boyd, for example? It’s easy to assume that this is all about Echo – in my opinion, it was far more interesting seeing Boyd’s reaction to Echo’s (Miss Penn) condition. He disagrees with the ethics of the dollhouse, but he was the one fighting for Echo to be sent back in. He saw it as being for the greater good – through the damaged Echo, the life of a little girl could be saved. Echo may be lost, but at least Davina was salvaged. I think that Boyd’s perspective throughout this episode was the thing that gives me hope for the series. Now we need to let the others come out to play – Adelle, Claire, Sierra, Victor, Topher, Paul and yes, even Echo (I jest. Of course Echo).

The show will be far more interesting if the focus is spread around a little more. Being an Active isn’t quite like being a ‘super hero’ (super heroes have egos which we can measure them by), and it’s not half as interesting as being human. So, give us the human/Active interaction, let us see the light and shade, allow Echo to grow, but also give Sierra and Victor the chance to grow with her (or against her). Basically, the show should look to draw us in on the relationships – like the one we see between the unwitting Echo and her ‘protector’ out on the field. Boyd had faith (heh) that Echo could get the job done, that she could extract Davina safely – he believes in Echo more than Adelle seems to. He let her do her thing whilst others were looking to hold her back.

And this is what I mean by “Ghost” having some ‘heart’. This didn’t make it a classic episode, or even a ‘good’ hour of television (I would have turned off during the bike scene had I not known about the premise, seriously!), but I was at least pleased to see some interesting themes bubbling under the surface.

Trouble is, the themes that they forced down our throats – “You can’t kill a ghost” (or whatever), were too cliched and surely not becoming of the premise behind the show.

That said, if Dollhouse can show improvement throughout the 13 episodes, then I’d take that as being a positive.

SciFiWire have an interview with Harry Lennix, who portrays Langton Boyd on Dollhouse. In a show filled with questionable ethics and amoral outlooks, Lennix believes that Boyd is an important player:

“I love this character in the context of this show. He’s really not so much the conscience of it. He’s not really so much the kind of spiritual base, but he’s the guy that asks the question ‘Why? Why are we doing this, and what are the consequences of what we’re doing?’ So whenever that happens, I think that that in itself becomes the kind of dramatic core of the show. Why? The person that asks the questions is the one that I think has the responsibility of providing those answers.”

“Without giving away too much, I would say that my immediate why—why does the Dollhouse exist, why do people hire out other people to do certain tasks they can’t do themselves, or whatever?—is because they have a deeper need. Something exists outside of what we’re taught is right and wrong. Something exists that’s bigger than that. Some things transcend right and wrong. We have basic urges and basic needs that sometimes go beyond the simple black or white of an issue.”

So the Dollhouse is basically an excuse for people to step outside of the law in order to do bad things without getting caught. Or perhaps I’m being too cynical, there’s going to be many different reasons as to why an indivual would hire an “active”. In some instances these dolls represent an extension of humanity that enables us to do the things that normal humans can’t. I don’t think Dollhouse will get too fantastical too soon, but it’s perhaps worth considering that these dolls are like ‘superheroes’ – people with the ability to do superhuman things, a symbol of hope.

The problem with superheroes is – not all of them have altruistic world views, not all of them are ‘good’ (whatever that is). Granted, the dolls start off with no memories, no real conscious awareness of good and bad, but this could be even more dangerous, because it places all of their power in the hands of the programmer - ‘the man behind the curtain’. His world view is their world view . You can’t tell me that Topher wont bend the rules slightly, you can’t tell me that he wont add his own nuances into the melting pot of the “actives” uploaded ‘instructions’.

Lennix goes on to talk about his favourite aspects of the missions, the moral compass of his character and relationship building with Echo:

“My favorite pieces really are when I get to connect with Eliza’s character and Fran Kranz’s character, Topher. We get to talk about what’s going on, like on a more human level, a level that doesn’t have to do with the assignment. Like, what exactly are we doing in this Dollhouse, and why are we doing it? What are the ramifications of what we’re doing? Those are my favorite moments: when you ask a very simple question.”

“I don’t think it has to be a lot,” he said. “I also enjoy fighting and doing the stunts that I get to do, but I think one well-placed question can take five seconds, but it resonates. It will carry on to the next week.”

“These are the questions that only time will reveal. I cannot reveal that, because I don’t actually have all the answers myself. How does it work when you switch personalities from week to week, but they tell you every time you see this one person, you trust that person? What does that person’s brain do to make all of that make sense? I don’t know. It’s a very good question.”

Source: SciFiWire

Sorry, couldn’t resist, that photo is just so apt. Also, yay for the ensemble! Finally we see and hear from them – they do actually exist, the dolls behind the curtain are real, people! Spoilers ahead:

The cast were asked if it was difficult adjusting to the changes and shooting a new first episode, and Fran Kranz(“Topher”) replied, “It wasn’t too difficult with me. The first pilot started where the dollhouse was up and running, so I treated it like I would any episode – Just another occurrence in the life of the character. I never really saw it as doing another pilot. It was just another step forward in the whole process and making the whole story that much richer.” His costar, Battlestar Galactica‘s Tahmoh Penikett (“Paul Ballard”) said, “For me, [the first pilot] was a warm up to working with everyone. It felt like it just sort of warmed you up for the new thing. It was a slightly different direction, but not that too different for me.”

There are some issues Echo displays on the first episode while doing an assignment, and Dushku said that as the season continues, “I’ve had many flaws and many glitches. I think that’s sort of where the show takes off. She’s absolutely glitching and starting to become self aware. The memory wipes are not entirely working, so things can set them off and throw them off.”

Whedon said that in most episodes of Dollhouse there “is in some sense a standalone and has closure. At the same time, it advances the mythology. That’s what separates it from a procedural.” He added that, “Towards the back half of the 13 [episodes], we do get a bit more into the mythology” noting that, “The relationships, even if they don’t remember each other, are very charged.”

It’s clear from the pilot that there’s an often argumentative relationship between Echo’s handler, Boyd Langdon (Harry Lennix) And Topher. Said Kranz of the two, “They work in the Dollhouse. And the spend a lot of time together. What I love about the show, among many things, what’s fascinating to me, is the time we get to mediate on the whole concept. It’s very fascinating and provocative. We have time to bat ideas off each other. I have weaker morals, whereas Harry’s character has a real sense of values. We have opposing schools of thought on the dollhouse and what we’re doing, and whether it’s good or bad.” Whedon said he recalled the two actors coming up to him after their first scene and asking, “Are we friends?” Whedon said his reply was, “I think Topher would say yes and Boyd would say no and neither has the whole picture.” – IGN

Some really good stuff there. I’m really looking forward to seeing the opposing schools of thought between Langton Boyd and Topher Brink play out. In a sense, it must take someone with ‘weaker morals’ to do what Topher does, but at the same time does that make it right, and where is the balance in his world view..where are his limits? As for Boyd, do his ‘values’ hold him back, are his ideals too idealistic for the world he lives in, or can his humanity count for something?

You can find a brief write-up of the Dollhouse TCA Panel over at Dollverse.

Meanwhile, the always interesting Tahmoh Penikett talks to Zap2it about what we can expect from his character in Dollhouse (he also talks briefly about BSG):

I wonder what that “connection” could be..

I wasn’t overly impressed with the last batch of Dollhouse promo photos, largely because they seemed rather uninspired and featured only one person. But I gotta admit, this lastest one (taken from the same shoot, I presume) is pretty cool:

I like the fact that it’s not too ‘posey’, if you know what I mean? Then there’s the fact that we can’t see her whole face (intrigue!), and it looks like she’s lost in a crowd – she’s just another doll..or is she? I also kinda like the tag-line for this promotional photo - “She can be anyone, except herself”. Not exactly mind-blowing but it gets the message across. I do hope Fox give us as many promo photos as they produced for “Fringe”. Seriously, they went promo photo crazy. Hopefully, we’ll see some of the other characters/cast in the subsequent promotions.

Speaking of which, and as if by magic, here’s a new cast photo..

I’m not gonna nit-pick too much because I’m just glad they’re giving us more than Echo for a change. But it doesn’t look all that ‘legit’, and the backdrop makes it look like “The Happening” is happening.

Thanks Bastian

Here’s a 2 minute sneak peek from the Dollhouse premiere which will air Feb 13:

EW.com

Total Sci Fi have an interview with Dollhouse creator, Joss Whedon, where he talks about the origins of the show, how the series will strive to reflect the human condition, the writing process and building an ensemble around Eliza Dushku’s “Echo”. May contain very mild spoilers depending upon your disposition:

What’s Dollhouse about?

It’s about a girl trying to figure out who she is, while she’s imprinted with every personality you can imagine. It’s about acting, living, being a woman, being everything. Let me put it this way – when I thought it up and launched it at Eliza [Dushku, who executive produces with Whedon and plays main character Echo], the first thing she said was, “Oh, my God, it’s my life!” And she meant mostly as an actress, but then we realized it didn’t just mean that.

It’s a metaphor for everybody. If it isn’t, you’re missing something. The idea is, we all have certain assumptions about who we are, based on what we were told when we were little and what we think we’re supposed to do. And we have a lot of assumptions about what is good, and what about us is not good, and what’s sinful and what’s saintly, and we’re often wrong about all of them. Dollhouse is basically about breaking all that down and exploring it and finding out what it really means to be a human being.

How did Dollhouse come into being?

To me, Eliza is like watching a meteor shower. I’m just amazed. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I’ve known her for 10 years. She’s always been a star. But being a star and being a human being are two very different things. And over the 10 years, we’ve spent time becoming friends, but I’ve also watched her deliberately and painfully take control of her career and the way in which it’s going, the things she is portraying, and you don’t see that a lot.

I see it with Felicia Day doing The Guild on the internet, saying, “Nobody’s going to make my way, so I’ll make my own way,” and Felicia is smart enough to pull that off. The two of them share that. Eliza – when I first sat her down, years ago, to say, “Stop making bad movies!” she said, “We don’t set out to make them bad – I don’t know what to tell you.” But we talked about her agency, her choices. And it was a bleak landscape.

I seem to be the guy who spends his life saying how hard it is for beautiful young women – but it ishard to be an ingénue in this town. We got together a few years later, [but the people around her] insisted she do the big-budget thing, so nobody wanted to know what Eliza thought, except Eliza.

And when we got together for lunch this time, she was like, “I’ve made a deal, I don’t expect to write or control a show, but I do need to control the quality of what I’m doing and the image of what I am, and I want to make meaningful, decent, political, feminist, real, fun, sexy, interesting TV.” Those were all on her list. And I said, “There’s only one man for that job!” [laughs]

In the course of the conversation, the idea of Echo came to me from that exact thing. The story of Dollhouse is the story of somebody trying to figure out who she is while everybody tells her what they want her to be. That is the story of Eliza Dushku, and watching Eliza do that has been one of the great joys of my career. She’s always been an intellectual equal. She’s always been a seeker. I’m still trying to figure myself out.

That’s another point of the show, is that the people who control the Actives, the dolls, are just as much in need of understanding what they are as the dolls.

Read entire interview here.

Nice interview, even if it seems like I’ve read the same thing 1000 times already. Maybe it’s just me, but whilst Whedon seems to be doing the right thing in lowering expectations for the show (in general), he continues to ’talk up’ the talents of Eliza Dushku (and has done for as a long as I’ve been running this blog). Whilst I’m sure she’s a fine actress, it might be a good idea to start directing some of the focus towards the rest of the cast, especially in the current climate of doom and gloom? You know, spread the pressure out a lil’ bit? That said, I’m looking forward to watching her portrayal of Echo – if Whedon’s right, she should be well worth watching.

I guess you can call this a spoiler, if you haven’t seen any of the Dollhouse promo trailers..

Too much doom and gloom surrounding this show, cast that aside by taking a peek at these fancy ‘new’ Dollhouse photos! Just don’t look too closely at the third one, k?

(click to enlarge)

I realise the last photo has been doing the rounds for many months now, but this is a positive post.

Source: Multipleverses

This post contains official character information which has been released by Joss Whedon, Fox and official channels at various intervals, however some may deem it spoilery, so continue at your own discretion.

One of the most intriguing Dollhouse characters in the lead up to the show has to be Dr. Claire Saunders, her scars painting a vivid yet ambiguous picture of her back-story. When I first heard that the character would be scarred, I speculated that the scars might be psychological, and whilst that may also be the case, it’s clear from the above image that Dr. Saunders is physically scarred. Interestingly the scars themselves may reveal a few clues as to how she got them – She has two very prominent scars, one across her forehead and the other underneath her left eye – both of them are very ‘clean’ and precise, almost. This leads me to wonder whether they might be self-inflicted scars? If so, what would drive her to do such a thing?

If someone else inflicted the scars upon her then who..and why? Could Dollhouse manager Adelle DeWitt be the culprit? How about an Active? It wouldn’t surprise me if an active went ‘rogue’ and attacked her.

It’s a clever move by Whedon to make her the doctor – the person who tends to the dolls needs, yet clearly she is pretty broken herself. Another idea which crossed my mind is whether Claire is herself an Active? In the above picture she seems to be smiling lifelessly like Echo is in this image. Are the scars her only reminder of what it’s like to be human? In a sick-twisted way, are the scars the only thing left of her humanity?

Perhaps she isn’t an Active, in which case I question why she has chosen to not to undergo memory-wipe. Clearly she’s had some trauma in her life, so why not choose to forget? Although the Dollhouse is a very unethical set-up, the science behind it, if used with proper consent, can also be viewed as a Godsend to those who simply want to erase the past, even if it means erasing the good memories as well.

I very much doubt that anything in this show will be black or white – it’s a show which will explore the human condition (rarely ever black or white) even if that condition is being reprogrammed by Topher Brink and his ethically questionable mind-wiping machine.

So, what do you make of Claire Saunders and her scars? Feel free to vote in the poll..and come January, we’ll begin to find out how accurate your guesses were.

Thanks again to Amy Acker Fan for the above image

Fox source have interviews with four of the Dollhouse cast taken at the Eco-Casino Party. Watch below (may contain very minor spoilers – character roles/interactions, etc):

 Dichen Lachman – “Sierra”

Fran Kranz – “Topher Brink”

Tahmoh Penikett – Agent “Paul Ballard” (formerly Paul Smith formerly Paul Ballard 1.0)

Olivia WIlliams – “Adelle DeWitt”

An interesting array of interviews there – for me the most engaging (yet again) was Tahmoh Penikett, who had a few interesting things to say, including the revelation that the name of his character has been changed back to Paul Ballard! It was originally Paul Ballard before it was changed to Paul Smith, now it’s Paul Ballard again – as I mentioned a while back, Paul Ballard sounds better. Olivia Williams was also fairly interesting – looking forward to that English accent – sexy..evil? You decide. She also gave an interesting perspective on her character, calling Adelle a “Pimp” who mind-wipes teenagers. As they say ”pimpin’ ain’t easy”, especially with Paul Ballard hot on your trail! Another interesting aspect is this ‘teenager’ thing – does this mean that Echo and her friends are teenagers? I thought they were mid to late 20′s.

Good to see the other actors having a bit of screen-time, so to speak. These interviews have reminded me that I simply cannot decide which character I’m most looking forward to seeing – it’s basically a toss of a coin between Adelle, Ballard, Echo, Brink and whatever rogue character Mark Sheppard portrays!

Thanks to TruEcho in the forums for this one (and Fox, of course)!

E! Online’s Kristin has taken a look inside the Dollhouse and what she found was a cast all too willing to reveal details about their characters. Needless to say, SPOILERS AHEAD:

Proprietress of the Establishment: Olivia Williams said: “I’m playing a character called Adelle DeWitt, who runs the Dollhouse. If you need a date, you come to me and tell me what you need, and then I can imprint a beautiful young person with the personality of your dreams. She is ruthless, but she also has a level of understanding that a madam really needs in modern society.”

Uh, so, is Adelle evil? “I’m English, of course I’m evil!”

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy? Fran Kranz said: “I play Topher Brink, who is the computer programmer in the Dollhouse. Topher designs the personalities that people want for the dolls. I’m the guy who uses all these different amalgams of different personalities to create the person that you want to do whatever you want.

“I don’t know if he’s really a bad guy, but he might have a God complex that’s lasted a little long. I’m told I have no moral compass. In fact, there might be a little piece of wardrobe on its way of a compass dangling from my pocket…sort of as a reminder.”

Soiler Alert! Wicked-hot Enver Gjokaj explained, “I play Victor, who is a doll. Victor and Dichen Lachman’s character Sierra become friends with Echo, Eliza Dushku’s character.” And Enver has a pretty good secret to keep about Victor: Who he was before he entered the Dollhouse. Said Enver: “I do know who I was before, and it’s awesome—unbelievably awesome. I was excited to hear about that, too. I was just standing on the set and Joss said, ‘Hey, did I ever tell you what your background is?’ and I was like, ‘Uh, no, you have not told me what my background is, and I would love to know that,’ and he was like, ‘Oh, it’s this and this,’ and I just about crapped my pants.”

Dichen Lachman agrees that when you are on a Joss show there is no shortage of excitement: “We get to play so many different people. We’ve done three episodes, and so far I’ve been like a Navy SEAL, a bank robber and a doll. It’s awesome.”

I getting a bit of weary of DH spoilers, I mean the show is ages away. Should the cast be telling us exactly what kind of characters they will play!? Especially for a show which is all about the identity merry-go-round. Although at least we’re actually hearing from Dollhouse people other than Joss, Eliza and Tahmoh. Although I could listen to Tahmoh talk for quite a while. Anyway, Topher still interests me, his “God complex” still interests me. Should a man with a “God complex” be in charge of other peoples memories? Perhaps it takes this type of person to get the job done? I can’t wait to see Adelle in action, she can’t be as fearsome as she seems..she’s got a heart I tells ya! As for Victor, I’m interested to see just how ‘pant crapping’ his back-story is..the proof will be in the pudding. So to speak.

Read more over at E!

Thanks to TruEcho for posting this over on our forums!