That’s all the Whedon fan-chilluns, freaking out, as Joss Whedon announces a new television series.
Echo (Eliza Dushku) [is] a young woman who is literally everybody’s fantasy. She is one of a group of men and women who can be imprinted with personality packages, including memories, skills, language—even muscle memory—for different assignments. The assignments can be romantic, adventurous, outlandish, uplifting, sexual and/or very illegal. When not imprinted with a personality package, Echo and the others are basically mind-wiped, living like children in a futuristic dorm/lab dubbed the Dollhouse, with no memory of their assignments—or of much else. The show revolves around the childlike Echo’s burgeoning self-awareness, and her desire to know who she was before, a desire that begins to seep into her various imprinted personalities and puts her in danger both in the field and in the closely monitored confines of the Dollhouse.
Better still is the interview that follows the announcement.
Eliza had her deal with Fox, and we went to lunch, as we sometimes do, to talk about her career and what her next step should be. Like, do I know writers, and what was the best way to protect herself, and what type of show. Eliza and I do this sometimes, because she’s a friend and a great talent, and that’s easily misused. She was trying to protect herself, and I was trying to get a free lunch. In the middle of lunch, I came up with the idea of this show and the title by accident.
Sweet monkey ass! :)
It sounds well and good (though … Fox?), and I look forward to it.
Is it anyone else, though, or does it sound like Joss is working through some ideas or concepts he had in mind for River Tam in the above. “… imprinted with personality packages … mind-wiped … romantic, adventurous, outlandish, uplifting, sexual and/or very illegal … burgeoning self-awareness, and her desire to know who she was before.”
Not that that’s bad, mind you.
I’ll be also interested to see who besides Eliza is in on this. One of Joss’s strengths is the ensemble, and the plot above is focused primarily or solely on Echo.
I see the “River” connections, certainly, but if you boil it down to ‘stories about people’, which is what Joss does (specifically stories about women people), this is “one woman’s search to find herself in a world of plastic and artifice.”
Sounds like “Buffy meets Hollywood” to me. :)
And re: Fox — a Whedon/Minear fan has ALREADY started a petition to convince Fox not to cancel Dollhouse.
I can’t watch it. I can’t get hooked on another wonderful creation only to see it destroyed by Fox.
Why do they keep pitching shows to them?
If it makes it to DVD I’ll watch it, but otherwise, why suffer the heartbreak.