Whedon's World - Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain Interview Kansas City Star, May 2009

Though the future of 'Dollhouse' isn't certain, the show's KC-raised producers are planning for it

By AARON BARNHART
The Kansas City Star

We don't know for a few more days whether the door to the "Dollhouse" has been closed permanently.

Certainly last Friday's finale gave mixed signals as to whether Fox will renew the latest series from "Buffy" creator Joss Whedon.

On the one hand, the response from critics and Whedon fans has warmed considerably in recent weeks.

On the other hand, scaring up an audience on Fridays is as daunting a task as ever. Since it's debut, "Dollhouse" has lost half of its audience in the key 18-to-49-year-old demographic.

The ratings for "Dollhouse" bumped up 30 percent when people came home from wherever they were Friday night and watched "Dollhouse" on their DVRs.

Still, industry reports suggest the only way the show can come back is through "creative financing," like the deal with satellite service DirecTV that helped keep "Friday Night Lights" on NBC.

Fox had earlier annoucned that Friday's "Dollhouse" episode, "Omega" would be the 12th and final hour aired this spring. A 13th episode was filmed.

(Warning: If you haven't watched "Omega," there will be spoilers ahead.

In "Omega," we learned that Echo, the programmable sweetheart played by Eliza Dushku, is capable of amazing recall and feats of strength once she is given access to her backup tape, which contains memories of Caroline, the person she was before the dollhouse.

We also learned why the series baddie, Alpha (Alan Tudyk), is so violently off-kilter - he has the personalities of 48 peoople fighting for control of his brain.

And "Omega" produced a tantalizing storyline for a second season with the hiring of FBI agent Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) as a house detective inside the dollhouse.

Over the weekend I spoke with co-executive producers Liz Craft and Sarah Fain. They're a writing team who have known each other since high school at Pembroke Hill. Their 2008 young-adult novel, "Footfree and Fancyloose," just came out in paperback.

You said in January that you job as co-executibe producers wasn't so much to be showrunners as to help Joss carry out his vision. How successful do you think you were?

Craft: I felt that in the first few episodes we all figured out, "OK, this is what 'Dollhouse' is, these are the sweet spots," and the we kind of got there.

Fain: Also, the first half of the season was negotiating with the network about what the show was. After those first five episodes is where Joss' vision got to come through.

So "Gray Hour" (Episode 4), which was one of the episodes you two wrote, was a product of the conversation you were having with the network, whereas "Echoes" (Episode 7) happens after you're all on the same creative page together.

Craft: Yes. And what we like about "Echoes" and what the network liked is that it showed Echo as herself - as Caroline. She has flashbacks to Caroline, and we get little hints of who she was before the dollhouse, and that helped anchor her character.

I notice Alpha gets away at the end of the "Omega" episode, and it seems to me that's always what happens to the bad guy at the end of the season.

Craft: Alpha will be out there, but we'll have someone else in Season 2, I'm sure. We always wanted him to get away.

Why? Because he was the alpha product?

Fain: Well, on a practical level Alan Tudyk is fantastic. And on a storytelling level it took just so long to get to Alpha. We didn't get to him until the end of the season, so it's worth it just to carry him over.

I was kind of surpised at how Echo ended the season. We know that she has some awareness of being Caroline, but it seems a pretty risky move to present Echo as superficially very much like the Echo we saw at the beginning of the season.

Craft: I would say the key word there is "superficially."

Fain: Yes.

Craft: I think it will be very satisfying to fans how it plays out in the future. It's funny because we have another episode that was done after this...

"Epitah One"?

Craft: Yes. So to us, we don't think of this as the last episode of the season, even though it technically is, because this other episode gets into - well, I don't want to say too much about it.

Was that the busted pilot?

Craft: No, no, it's a whole different episode, it's a really fun, out-there...

Fain: Not only is it "out of the box" but a "broke the box and stomped on it" episode.

Craft: Hopefully, if we get a Season 2, we'll show that episode. It'll definitely be on the DVD.

I think my favorite line from Friday's show was when Topher (Fran Kranz) screams, "I'm smarter than anyone in this room, but less scary!" I imagine it's difficult to do a drama that is this intense and still give the fans their quota of Whedonisms.

Craft: Well, that's been all over the message board. Many people complain that "Dollhouse" isn't...

Fain: "-nesque" enough?

Craft: Yeah, "-nesque." It's a different show. You don't want to do the same show over and over. But as the show really kicked in to what it really is, people became more interested in that and less about how it wasn't "Buffy" or "Angel" or "Firefly." And keep the humor.

Ballard, to me, is the most interesting character because inside the "Dollhouse," he's like the sanest man in the room, but outside of it he's a total lunatic. It's kind of natural that he would be invited inside and given employment.

Craft: That was always Joss' plan. We worked toward that the whole season.

Fain: To me that's one of the richest things to explore in a second season. What happens when he finds the girl? What happens when that same guy gets into the dollhouse? Does he get corrupted? That's just fascinating to me.