Of course, the “Dollhouse” event was a love fest. Actually, a mega-love fest.
That’s absolutely no surprise if you know anything at all about the kind of admiration (both lusty and talent-wise) aroused by star Eliza Dushku (“Tru Calling,” “Bring it On”) and the Bono-esque stature of multi-hyphenate series creator Joss Whedon (“Buffy, the Vampire Slayer,” “Firefly“) across a huge swath of Geektopia — a swath recently made even larger by the net-success of his second acclaimed genre-blending musical, “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.” Add to that the appearance of Dushku’s excessively handsome costar, Tahmoh Penikett of “Battlestar Galactica” (a show with a few gazillion ardent fans of its own) and you have fanboy and fangirl critical mass.
And, indeed, the first three quarters of the panel was loaded with silliness, over-the-top praise, jokey-silly putdowns (a Whedon trademark) and flirtatious asides between the three folks onstage as well as with the audience. Topics early on included the peripatetic Ms. Dushku’s trips to such locales as Iran, where she survived a “terrorist attack” from some errant Persian rugs.
Moving to a Q&A, the first question was about the source of the premise of “Dollhouse,” in which Dushku will play an “active,” a sort of human blank slate who is downloaded with a new personality and skill set for each new assignment, with jobs that range from from pre-tailored love/sex object to hyper-skilled operative. The show appears to take place in a world much like our own, and this sort of thing sure sounds highly illegal, not to mention extremely immoral, and BSG’s Pennikett will play a cop wondering just why this beautiful woman he keeps meeting never seems to be the same person twice. The show is currently set to premiere this January.
The inspiration, as Whedon has recounted numerous times basically came from “looking into the eyes” of Dushku during a lunch meeting, when Whedon took one of the more productive bathroom breaks in recent TV history and returned with the show’s character driven sci-fi premise. (An apparent problem for some Whedon fans longing for more overtly fantastical characters and surroundings — perhaps more vampires, but this time…in outer space!)
A second questioner brought down the house, noting that “There are already websites dedicated to saving the show” — a reference to the frequently endangered status of all of Whedon’s various past properties. The response was that it might just be in the nature of Whedon’s shows to be loved intently by a relatively modest number of viewers and have a certain number of issues with being absorbed by a wider audience.
Of course, topics touched on Whedon and Dushku’s past work together and a question asked about the actresses more memorable appearances as Faith, Buffy’s darker-edged co-slayer. (Dusku mentioned a “dancing and killing” scene in a bar, while the pathos-loving Whedon mentioned crying while editing her uttering the line, “I’m bad, kill me” while reprising the role on the “Buffy” spin-off, “Angel.”) More comments touched on differences between the characters of Faith and the active, Echo — which might not be so obvious as some might think, since Dushku promised more “Feist and fury.” (“Feist”?) And her work on the show as a “personality playground.”
But still innuendo-reigned supreme as, when asked about casting possibilites from among other actors associated with Whedon, Dushku expressed an interest in working between Pennikett and frequent female lust object, Whedon-regular Nathan Fillion (last seen as low-rent superhero Captain Hammer in “Dr. Horrible”). When the actress brought up the word “sandwich” in connection with the men, Whedon chastising Ms. Dushku: “I thought we said ‘no spoilers’!” Getting back to business, the ‘net-friendly Whedon also discussed a series of planned webisodes, perhaps involving a story arc.
The final third of the appearance took on a more thoughtful turn as one visitor asked about some fairly extensive reshoots that had been undertaken on the initial “Dollhouse” episodes, with Whedon reassuring fans that this was in no way a repeat of the early troubles on “Firefly,” though he did manage to work in a dig or two regarding a previous Fox regime’s well-known maltreatment of the show. He also joked that one of the mistakes he corrected with the reshoots was a failure to include any shirtless scenes for Pennikett, leading to the predictable outburst from female audience members.
A question Whedon no doubt enjoyed answering a great deal more involved the significant amount of academic study his shows have inspired. Whedon, who was famously a TA for noted film professor Jeanne Basinger during his student days, is not just appreciative of the attention, but he respects the results, finding it “extraordinarily gratifying,” commenting that scholars occasionally find things he didn’t know were present in his work, but which he believes are certainly there. The famed showrunner also took a characteristic moment to acknowledge the contribution of some of his best known writers from previous shows, and expressed delight that many of them would be returning to the Whedon fold for “Dollhouse,” including the widely admired Steve DeKnight and “Firefly” co-creator (and frequent top writer for quickly canceled programs) Tim Minear, who has an almost Jossian cult of his own.
