Salon.com > Dollhouse

Joss Whedon takes on Shakespeare

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:15:00 +0000

Maybe it's atonement for "The Avengers." On Sunday night, actors Nathan Fillion and Sean Maher, along with costume designer Shawna Trpcic, cryptically tweeted a link to a Web page featuring a photo of Fillion toting a martini glass, somewhere in the middle of a lake. The image announced the completion of a new movie from Joss Whedon, the genius whose "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Angel," "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog," "Firefly" and, to a lesser extent, "Dollhouse" are the very definition of awesome to nerds everywhere. According to the clues, the film stars a veritable who's who of Whedon alums. And it's "based on a play." A Shakespeare play. Oh God. Ohmigod. Then on Monday, Bellwether Pictures officially announced Whedon's "Much Ado About Nothing." That thud you heard was everybody in America with a liberal arts degree fainting dead in excitement.

The evil savior of “The Hills”

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:05:00 +0000

We accept substitutes all the time, just to keep ourselves going. We substitute a glass of wine for a feeling of inner calm, we substitute pornography for a fulfilling sex life, we substitute the novelty of daily media for personal growth, we substitute poignant televisual entertainments for meaningful long-term relationships.

If you start to look closely enough, you have to wonder what purpose that chocolate bar serves, what those extra hours at the office are for, what those numbers in your checking account add up to, really. Is power a substitute for love? Is money a substitute for happiness? Is happiness based on hedonism a substitute for the more meaningful happiness that comes from helping others?

But we need our substitutes to get through the day, a day littered with reminders that we don't have everything we want. Or at least, we tell ourselves that story, as a substitute for really knowing what we want in the first place.

Them thar hills

Critics’ Picks: The Holy Grail of “Dollhouse”

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:16:00 +0000

"Dollhouse" Season 1 DVD

Much as we worship Joss Whedon, we're still not fully on board for "Dollhouse," the "Buffy" creator's drama about a covert organization that traffics in mind-wiped hotties programmed to be whomever its clients want them to be. As wary "doll" Echo, Eliza Dushku can fill out a tank top like nobody's business, but she's less capable as an actress who has to morph into a new persona every episode. Still, we're encouraged by the show's ambitious exploration of exploitation and consent, and the explosive, late-in-the-season appearance of Whedon vet Alan Tudyk.

The Season 1 DVD offers all 12 episodes, as well as selected commentaries by Whedon and Dushku, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and deleted scenes. But the Holy Grail here is "Epitaph One," the never-aired episode featuring America's biggest geek crush, Felicia Day.

I Like to Watch

Sun, 24 May 2009 18:22:00 +0000

When things in your life aren't working, how do you respond? Do you make a fort out of couch cushions and hide in there with a loaded bong and some high-quality Swiss chocolate until the storm blows over? Or do you pledge to reinvent yourself from the ground up, taking on a brand-new regimen of diet, exercise, meditation and expensive closet organizers? Do you troubleshoot your problems, searching self-help books and consulting therapists for solutions to the major troubles that have plagued you? Or do you drink a four-pack of peach wine coolers, then take the phone off the hook and go back to bed?

At this week's Upfronts, in which the five networks present their fall lineups to advertisers, network executives revealed very different approaches to these challenging cultural and economic times for televised entertainments. Some networks reinvented themselves, others sent out pot-smoke signals from the confines of their forts. Some networks meditated and consulted their gurus, while others got fall-down drunk on 40-ouncers of malt liquor and wandered off to sleep in the gutter.

Finale wrap-up: “Dollhouse”

Sat, 09 May 2009 17:58:00 +0000

The Dollhouse is under siege! Alpha, a former doll (i.e., brainwashed human for hire), has broken into the underground facility, imprinted their most popular doll, Echo, with a new personality, and kidnapped her!

"He took her!" Topher, the head scientist in charge of brainwashing, runs over to tell his boss, DeWitt. "And he went into the system and severed the biolinks, I can't see her vitals, she's just ... gone."

Topher (Fran Kranz) is a little shaken and cranky, but don't misunderstand, he's a trained professional, albeit something of an oddball who tinkers with computers and has a stoner-geek sense of humor. You know, he's that funny, all-around great guy -- we all know one! -- who erases women's memories just so they'll be the most carefree, fun-loving high-class hookers available.

But when Topher starts to panic, his boss, Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams), stays focused on the bottom line. "I want to know what she's imprinted with!" she barks at him.

The sleeping beauties of “Dollhouse”

Fri, 08 May 2009 17:52:00 +0000

Editor's note: Read Heather Havrilesky's review of the "Dollhouse" season finale here.

"Did I fall asleep?"

It’s the oft-repeated phrase on Joss Whedon’s troubled Fox series "Dollhouse," which concludes its season (and possibly its life) tonight. For a long time there, that phrase could pretty well have summed up how many of us, devoted fans of everything from Buffy to ”Dr. Horrible,” have responded to the ambitious if highly erratic show itself. Lately, however, the series has shown promising signs of life, taking its own Sleeping Beauty metaphor and knocking it right on its pretty ass.

Trapped in the Dollhouse

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:30:00 +0000

"I can't remember what fell on me."

Echo, the heroine of Joss Whedon's much-anticipated new drama "Dollhouse" (premieres 9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 13, on Fox) sounds more curious than troubled when she utters her first self-aware statement. But from this moment forward, we sense that Echo is in for a rude awakening from her previous state of ignorant bliss.

Echo is an "Active" or programmed specialist of Dollhouse, an illegal organization that provides a wide range of services to the very rich. Having abandoned her former life and agreed to do penance for some crime or mistake -- we're not sure what yet -- Echo has had her memory wiped. New personalities and skills are implanted in her head depending on a client's particular needs. After each job, her memory of the experience is wiped from her brain completely -- or that's the goal, at any rate.

Joss Whedon just wants to be loved

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:40:00 +0000

Joss Whedon looks rough and rumpled, as if he just tumbled out of bed and into his hotel lobby. Is this what a great television auteur looks like? The man who created "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Angel" and "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" has earned a zealous cult following with his special blend of giddy fantasy, brainy humor and beautifully constructed narratives.

Wearing an unbuttoned shirt covered in tiny retro TVs, Whedon doesn't resemble a Hollywood icon so much as a guy who spent part of the previous day at New York's fanboy festival ComicCon. Where he was, by the way, the star attraction. Along with the various fantasy worlds that he has conjured on big and small screens, Whedon also writes comic books, contributing to hugely successful series like "X- Men" and "Runaways," as well as penning comics based on his own TV shows.

I Like to Watch

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:21:00 +0000

It takes about a week to adjust to being on vacation. At first, the mind can't relax. It makes lists. It gets fussy over dinner, or obsesses over college savings plans. By the middle of the second week, the mind finally loosens up. That's when you find yourself flipping through catalogs for hours, or picking lint off your sweater in a semi-hypnotic state, until you forget who you are, where you are and what you were doing.

In this cruel modern world, just as the stress of your work life finally subsides, just as you start to feel happy and numb like an overfed donkey, it's time to get back to work. I need four weeks of vacation time, minimum! I want to wander aimlessly, nibbling on clover, in a daze. Instead, just as I get the laundry done and sit down to read a book, my holiday break is over.

And it takes about two weeks to adjust to being back at work. I tried to explain this to my husband yesterday: The mind doesn't want to do a job. The mind wants to go to the mall and gaze at the intricate, almost balletic movements of the hot-dog-rolling machine at Orange Julius. The mind wants to take a nap. The mind wants a doughnut.