Finally! Some actual Dollhouse news/information that comes from a credible source – Joss Whedon himself. He’s been talking about Dollhouse and what has really been going on behind the scenes. May contain aspects that you might conisder spoilery:

I know there’s been a lot of concern, various fabulous hues of panic alert readiness. So here’s the skinny. Some of the names have been changed.

The show was ruined by Flim Flinear. Okay, that’s another lie, and you’re probably close to giving up on this blog, so here we go. Yes, we’ve had to make adjustments. Yes, it’s been hard and I’ve been depressing to be around for awhile. Basically, the Network and I had different ideas about what the tone of the show would be. They bought something somewhat different than what I was selling them, which is not that uncommon in this business. Their desires were not surprising: up the stakes, make the episodes more stand-alone, stop talking about relationships and cut to the chase. Oh, and add a chase. That you can cut to. Nothing I hadn’t heard before on my other shows (apparently my learning curve has no bendy part) but frustrating as hell given our circumstances – a pilot shot, scripts written, everybody marching together/gainfully employed… and then a shutdown. Glad I was for the breathing room, but it’s hardly auspicious. So back into the writer cave I went, wondering why I put up with this when I can make literally dozens of dollars making internet movies. Why I do put up with this is divided into three parts.

One: They’re not wrong. Oh, we don’t see eye-to-eye on everything, but wanting the first episodes to be exciting and accessible is not exactly Satanic. Being Satan is, but that’s in their free time and hey, there’s no judging in the Dollhouse. This kind of back and forth has happened on every show I’ve done, so if you liked those, chances are that was a part of why. And the need to focus on the essentials of what makes this universe tick – and which wire to cut to make it stop – really does bring up our game. So we as a staff have gone from blinking like unhoused moles to delving in with the same relish we had when we started. The show is really coming together now, in a way that I believe excites us and satisfies the Network. Of course, I have no idea if anybody else will like it, but I have the same faith in the staff, the crew and the remarkable cast that I always did. More, in fact. And what’s more crucial:

Two: Nothing essential has changed about the universe. The ideas and relationships that intrigued me from the start are all there (though some have shifted, more on that), and the progression of the first thirteen eps has me massively excited. The episode we’re shooting now I wrote as fast as anything I have before, not because I had to (although, funny side-note: I had to) but because I couldn’t stop the words from coming. Because I can feel the show talking to me; delighting, scaring and occasionally even offending me. It’s alive. Alive! Which is a far cry from how I felt a month ago. It’s been hilarious trying to keep up with what’s in, what’s out, who’s met whom and when – we’ve shot all of the first seven episodes out of airing order – but it’s come together in a pretty thrilling way. My huge gratitude to our cast for their precision and patience. Which also includes…

Three: Eliza. Watching her on the monitors at two o’clock this morning I was reminded forcibly how much I wished I were in bed – but also how strong, radiant and unmistakable her presence is. She’s someone who could coast on talent and never ever does. I love to watch her work. In fact, I think I got myself into this mess for that very reason, and though I have this fall occasionally sworn never to eat lunch with an actor I like again, I’m pretty pleased and crazy proud.

Read whole post here.

One has to appreciate Whedon’s honesty, it’s rather refreshing.  Anyway, I’m gonna try to make sense of the information:

1) There have been differences of creative (and corporate) opinion between Whedon and the FOX suits. That’s hardly surprising, but It’s interesting to actually hear him say that FOX didn’t know what they were buying. Looks like FOX might have been expecting something less taxing, more stand-alone. More on that in a bit.

2) Some of the character names have been changed. Figured this might be the case after Tahmoh Penikett’s character was changed from Paul Ballard to Paul Smith, before reverting back to Ballard. What a dance.

3) The original pilot has been completely thrown out, which is a shame, as I was looking forward to seeing how Whedon’s organic creation compared to the second pilot (if you will) that FOX largely influenced. Perhaps we’ll get to see the original Pilot on DVD? (or streamed free on the Internet? )

4) Some of the characters have been thrown out or placed in different roles. This includes the character “November” (Miracle Laurie), who I was looking forward to seeing. Ah well, as long as “Alpha” is still in tact…

5) Despite the changes the fundamental premise, style and story of the show will remain the same. Thank goodness for that! I remember the day when I fell in love with this premise, I’d hate to ditch this site/show now because that has changed.

6) Despite having some depressing times, Whedon and his team are still positive, confident and excited about the project. We should remember that although FOX have good intentions, it must be incredibly difficult to have ones creative license restricted, especially when the folks who bought the show actually thought that they had bought something different. Ouch. Good to see them dusting themselves off and still believing in the story they’re trying to tell.

From a personal point of view, my one concern from this is that FOX want Dollhouse to be more stand-alone and less serialized. Dollhouse, from my perspective, is simply begging to be a serialized show with deep over-arching mythology and back-story. It involves memory-wiping and..heck, it involves ‘memory’. It needs to be accessible not only in terms of excitement and high stakes, but in terms of character development and importantly, allowing the audience to feel an attachment to Echo and her fellow “Actives”. That’s not to say some kind of story-telling hybrid can’t be formed – “Fringe” is doing it, although I’d love for that show to be even more serialized (like “LOST”). A stand-alone/serialized hybrid can work, if the over-arching mythology is continually respected. That said, I do appreciate FOX wanting the show to ‘storm out of the gates’, many viewers don’t have patience these days, so I guess FOX have to consider those folks. 

The thing is though, we all have our own expectations and hopes for what “Dollhouse” will be, but in the end we’ll just have to wait and see. I hope the show is packed with over-arching mythology and mystery, but even if it isn’t, I’m willing to give whatever they have a chance and judge it when it airs.

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)!

Fox have followed up on their previous photoshop-tacular Dollhouse cast images with two and a half ’new’ photoshop-tacular images featuring Sierra, Victor and the whole entire body of Paul Smith (the previous image only contained his head-shot)! Click to enlarge:

Great images, plenty of bare legs and feet (well, two pairs). But is it worrying that the background seems more alive than the characters? I guess that’s what they’re aiming for – the ‘doll’s blending into the earth tones of the Dollhouse, becoming one with their home (prison), having no soul or identity of their own? ..Yet they smile lifelessly. Poor, mind-wiped fools. Fight back against the system!

Hey, this could be an interesting show. I might watch.

Meanwhile, over in the forums, TruEcho has posted news of the Dollhouse theme tune.

Thanks Dukes for the pix!

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!

A few weeks ago casting slides containing spoilers for the new Dollhouse pilot hit the Interwebs. Charlie Jane Anders over at Io9.com has yet more spoilery delights from episode 2 of Joss Whedon’s new FOX TV series. Read on if you’re a spoiler addict:

We have a long noir-ish scene where Ballard tries to get information from an undercover agent, Keene — and we don’t realize until later that Keene is really Victor, one of the Dollhouse’s “Actives.” He’s just been programmed to think he’s an undercover FBI agent, to throw Ballard off the scent. When that doesn’t work, and Ballard gets hold of a photo of Echo, Keene/Victor feeds him some information that leads him to a meeting with Echo herself.

Echo tells Ballard she’s looking for her missing sister, and she needs Ballard’s help. Ballard seems to buy it at first, but it’s too good to be true, an actual lead in his stalled case after so long. He’s all like, We’re a team now, and they share a tender moment — until Ballard pulls a gun on her and accuses her of telling him what he wants to hear.

Then Echo gets the gun away from him and puts two bullets in his chest, and we realize she hasn’t just been programmed to think she’s looking for a missing sister. She hasn’t even just been programmed to deal with Ballard. She’s been programmed to be a psychopath, which she proves later by trying to go into the hospital and finish Ballard off.

The more I think about it, the more Whedon’s decision to make a prequel episode seems like a decent idea. Personally I like a challenge, TV that makes you think and guess and second guess, but I reckon some viewers may need more of a gateway into this whole double-triple(?)-programming-deprogramming malarkey.

*I should point out that agent Ballard is actually now agent “Smith”. Ballard was the original name for Tahmoh Penikett’s character before it got changed for reasons unknown. Although maybe Joss is a big Matrix fan?

You can read more episode 2 spoilers here

Source: Charlie Jane Anders @ Io9.com

It was bound to happen..it happened last time, and it’s happened again. Casting sides for the re-written Dollhouse pilot (not the prequel, but the original pilot) have hit Internet-land. Please stop reading if you don’t like Dollhouse Spoilers. No really, this is big:

The casting sides confirm what Watching Dollhouse readers already knew- Echo will not just be imprinted with one personality at a time..but several. The pilot sees Echo go from sexy dinner date to Ellie Penn, a hostage negotiator and victim of child molestation – all in one episode! The contrast is no coincidence, Joss clearly intends to make a statement here. The real complicated part comes from the fact that Ellie Penn’s scarred childhood is actually a false memory implanted on top of her false memory, by the Topher Brink and his bosses at the Dollhouse. This instantly makes me wonder about the description given to Amy Acker’s character Dr. Claire Sanders: “She is scarred from a razor attack” – is she really scarred or does she just think she is? Heck, she could even be an active for all we know. Anyway, back to matters in hand.

We are also introduced to Tahmoh Penikett’s character, agent Paul Smith. Interestingly, it’s revealed that he didn’t choose to be on the Dollhouse case, but was assigned to it. He’s been on the hunt for 14 months, is something of a rebel and is divorced:

PAUL: “Am I being taken off the case?”

SPECIAL AGENT DETMER: “You are not”

PAUL: “Then no, I don’t know why I’m here”

SPECIAL AGENT DETMER: “You were assigned to case designate “Dollhouse” over Fourteen months ago. How would you describe your progress to date?”

PAUL: “Slow”

SPECIAL AGENT DETMER: “I’m actually impressed by what I see here. You’ve physically threatened a senator, disrupted a seven year human-trafficking investigation, been arrested — arrested! — for trespassing on Prince Amoudi’s yacht. The only legal actions you’ve successfully followed through on is your divorce”

WOW! After reading through these sides, that’s pretty much all I can say. Well not quite all. If this is anything to go by then Dollhouse will be the show that I hoped it would be - it will ask deep ethical and moral questions of society, it will be dark, it will be layered, it will be twisty, it will make you think, it will probably make you laugh (it’s Whedon after all). One thing is for sure, I will be Watching Dollhouse (heh) in January!

For further insight and opinion, you might want to check out io9.com – Charlie Jane Anders has done a brilliant write-up. To read all of the sides, head on over to Spoiler TV, if you dare.

Thanks:  Spoiler TV – Charlie Jane Anders (io9) – TruEcho – and Louise D via email!

Not content with giving us a rather refreshing Joss Whedon interview, io9.com also managed to catch a word with Tahmoh Penikett.

When Tahmoh Penikett talks about his Dollhouse character Paul Smith, I really get the sense that he will get to grips with the role and provide an air of intelligence and intrigue to the character. He speculates some interesting possibilities in this interview, including the notion that Smith himself might need to ‘forget’.

Click below to watch:

Thanks: io9.com

BlogTalkRadio has two interviews with Tahmoh Penikett and Joss Whedon. Tahmoh talks about Battlestar Galatica and gives us yet more good insight into his Dollhouse persona, Paul Smith. Whedon talks about Dollhouse, Firefly and Dr. Horrible. The Dollhouse stuff begins at apprx 5.47mins.

Worth a listen.

Source: BlogTalkRadio.com

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That’s the question that I’m left asking after watching this sneak peak of Echo arguing with FBI Agent Paul Smith over her “missing sister”. We know that the “actives” are ‘volunteers’ in the Dollhouse programme – at least that’s what we’re led to assume. Which means that they all had lives before they became ‘pure souls’. This begs the question of whether Echo really does have a sister who went missing before she became an active (was this the reason for her ‘volunteering’ to become an active – to forget the pain of losing her sister?)..or whether Echo has been implanted with ‘false memory’ by her employers in order to throw Paul Smith (who is on the hunt of this secret Dollhouse) off the scent..

It’s an interesting scene and is sure to lead to rabid speculation by fans the closer we get to January (are we there yet?). Hopefully FOX will be so kind and release more ‘sneak peeks’ like this one over the coming months.

The Underwire Blog has a brand new clip of Dollhouse. It features Echo (Eliza Dushku) in a fairly tense conversation with FBI Agent Paul Smith (Tahmoh Pinikett) over the disappearance of her ‘sister’. I know you want to check it out, so don’t let me delay you – catch it here

OK. Question: Echo has a ‘sister’? That can’t be right..right? Of course the ‘dolls’ are imprinted with ‘memory’ so it would suggest that her ‘wonderful employers’ have given her this memory for some reason. What I love about the scene, is that Echo totally believes in this memory..she’s not lying to Smith, she simply believes in what she remembers..or rather, what she’s been instructed to remember. For me this is a great concept, one which I am already invested in.

Is it January yet?