Watching Whedon’s Dollhouse

One of the many perks of running Whedonesque.com, is…

Hang on. There aren’t a lot of perks, really, other than the pleasure of being boss of a site that’s well respected and much quoted. Yeah, we got invited to the Serenity premiere in Los Angeles. But I live in Amsterdam. Which means I never get to go to premieres, conventions, screenings or other meetings. When the Paley Center in New York invited us for a panel discussion on television and online fandom, one of the USA based mods got to go, but I could not. And unlike many of our members, I’ve never met any of the actors, or Joss.

All of this is perfectly fine with me. Yeah, I run the site, but I also run U2log.com and a couple of other sites. I’m not the biggest fan, I don’t keep up with all the news, I don’t know episode titles by heart, I couldn’t tell you which of the writers wrote what. I like communities, but I don’t get too involved. (My pet theory is that people who like to run online communities are actually all mysanthropists deep down.) I consider this a good thing. A little distance from the subject matter is essential. It helps keep me objective. And possibly sane.

I do receive a fuckload of annoying PR in the Whedonesque inbox, all about stuff that means nothing to me, not being American, not living in America. And probably wouldn’t mean anything to me if I were American, living in America. But I digress.

Perks. I has one. A kind soul gave me access to the Dollhouse screener, which contained an unfinished version of ‘Ghost’, the first episode. In case you’ve been living in cave, Dollhouse is Joss Whedon’s new television series for Fox, starring Eliza Dushku and Battlestar Galactica’s Tahmoh Penikett. You can read a synopsis of the show on Wikipedia. It is set to premier on February 13.

I remember catching my first glimpse of Buffy on TV (it was the sixth episode of the series’ first season: ‘The Pack’) and feeling compelled to keep watching it, unable to flip to another channel. Like being drawn in by Bob Ross’s hypnotic voice.

Continued after the jump, contains spoilers

Welcome to the Dollhouse

Probably the best news of the week (though in terms of geekiness perhaps Google’s OpenSocial thing kicks its ass) is Joss Whedon’s imminent return to television for the first time since the unfortunate demise of his Firefly series. Whedon ‘had lunch’ with Eliza Dushku (Faith in Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer), to talk about her development deal with Fox – as friends do – went to the bathroom and came back with a fully fledged idea for a new series for her.

‘Dollhouse’ will feature Dushku as ‘Echo’ who is literally every person’s fantasy. An empty vessel who is filled with a personality and abilities to satisfy a customer in some way, then reset and formatted for a new assignment. Whedon’s old buddy Tim Minear (Angel) will be on the team too. Naturally, this all caused a bit of a storm on Whedonesque.com, with a large dollop of squee on top.

Fox have ordered seven episodes to be written and filmed. That doesn’t mean they’ll actually air, but we’re hopeful and can’t wait to have more Jossy goodness on our screen. Eager fans have already set up a website, forum, MySpace, Facebook and LiveJournal community for the series. Begrudgers are already putting money on the show’s early cancellation, seeing that once again, the network involved is Fox.

As for myself, I’m happy for those of us for whom comics don’t really cut it. I think this new series will be a kind of Dark Angel with better dialogue and better, well, everything and I am confident Whedon will once again manage to put together a wonderful supporting cast for what I hope will be another great ensemble show.

Tru’s on the up

Tru Calling, the Fox series that lured Eliza Dushku away from a projected Buffy spin off, was so bad (badly written, badly acted) I, and a lot of other people who came in on this show from watching BtVS, stopped watching after a handful of episodes. Nobody understands why Fox kept it on air, when they seem so eager to pull other, better, shows like Firefly and Wonderfalls, but apparently Tru Calling did better than expected in a certain demographic (average 4.5 million viewers).

tru.gif

The first 13 episodes that Fox originally ordered have all aired. If you stopped watching mid-season, like I did, now is the time to give it another go. Don’t bother catching up to Epi 13. Start with 14. The new scripts are much better. The difference is striking.

They’ve added Jason Priestley to the cast and while he looks washed out and acts like a dish rag, his character – though predictable – is shaking things up a bit. A story arc of some sort is developing and they seem to be keeping Tru’s creepy looking sister off camera. Eliza — girl needs acting classes, if she isn’t already taking them — still isn’t leading lady material, but you can see the beginnings of an ‘ensemble’ happening, with David, Harrison, Tru and – insert ominous music – Jack.

Maybe the folks at TWOP can be persuaded to start recapping the show again.