Joss Whedon Talks Dollhouse's Future

Why this week's episode is key, and where the show goes from here.

by Eric Goldman

US, March 19, 2009 - Creating some of the most acclaimed and beloved television series of the past decade can sometimes make it hard to live up to expectations, which has been the case for Joss Whedon and his new series Dollhouse. The show got off to a rocky start, with many feeling it lacked a lot of qualities they've come to expect from Whedon's work, such as Buffy, Angel and Firefly.

Friday, March 20th sees the sixth episode of Dollhouse, "Man on the Street", air. It's an episode we've heard about since before the show debuted, with Whedon, the cast and others involved in the series touting it as the episode where the show really began to come together.

Whedon did a conference call this week IGN participated in, to discuss "Man on the Street" and where Dollhouse goes in the weeks following it - not to mention where it could go in a potential second season and beyond.

Note: The following questions came from a variety of different journalists participating in the call. Those I asked have "IGN TV" at the start, instead of "Q". I've cut out a few of the questions and answers that went into detail about events from "Man on the Street" (or later episodes).

Question: One thing that the Whedonites keep coming back to regarding Dollhouse is they're still looking for the wit and the humor, for the winks, for the snappy dialogue. Is that something that Dollhouse is necessarily going to have?

Joss Whedon: There is humor in the show. There's a lot in the episode after "Man on the Street." But the fact of the matter is this is not a comedy. If there is a typical Whedon show, this is not it. It's not the lighthearted romp that the other shows were. The fact of the matter is there's definitely funny stuff coming up. There's always moments of funny, but it doesn't buil like a comedy. It wasn't designed to be a comedy. It's not going to play that instrument. You have to do different things at different times. If people are feeling like it's too serious, then either their expectation has to be changed, or we need to lighten up a little. But, yes, I don't think they're ever going to see the same sort of long, six page runs of just pure humor. This is not that show.

Joss Whedon the set of Dollhouse.

Q: Could you talk about the process of building up and hyping this particular episode and whether you think there might have been some negative side effect to all the interviews you did where you emphasized that episode six was the one where you wanted people to really get hooked?

Whedon: You know, there may have been a negative side to it because we may have said, "The first five episodes are crap," which I don't believe. There's also the negativity of somebody saying, "Well, now he's blaming the network for the other episodes." No, no, no, no, we did out best to try and figure out how to put the show over with a new paradigm under the gun while we were in production or occasionally out of production. And then what happened with "Man on the Street," was really, it just came to me as a concept really quickly. I pitched it to the network and for the first time, there was a real simpatico. They went, "Oh, yes, we get that," and it was a very simple thing.

And then I wrote it faster than anything I'd ever written. It just poured out of me. It was like all of that brewing that we've been doing become the soup of that episode and so it really was a game chapter for us on set and in production. The staff and the cast read it and a lot of tumblers fell into place. Thats how we felt about the episode.

There may be a negativity associated with hyping it, but for all of us episodes like episode eight and a lot of the following episodes really work on the model on "Man on the Street" more than anything else. So it was a big moment for us. It was a moment that we felt like we found a level and we were really proud of it. So I figure that other people may feel differently, but we walked away from shooting that episode going, okay, we just added a layer and we feel pretty excited about it.

Q: Following up on that, could you talk about what the tumbler was that clicked, what the other layer was that you feel like you found?

Whedon: I think it was doing an episode that somebody who had never seen the show could walk in on because it explains very clearly the premise. In fact, it's kind of about explaining the premise and at the same time really getting under the skin of the dollhouse and of Paul's character and of what's going on with everybody and the workings of the place and coming at it sideways rather than just showing an engagement and flipping in some information around that engagement. This was one where we really got to look at the cogs of the clock andthat's what gave it such momentum for us.

Q: Are we going to learn how Paul Ballard came to be so obsessed with Caroline and the dollhouse? I sthat something we would learn in a season one?

Whedon: We don't really go back into his story in the first season... That's because we are about to send him forward in ways he doesn't expect.

We feel like there's a thorn in his side and we feel that we can push it further and twist it and possibly hit a vital organ. His obsession with Echo is -- rather than circling back to find its origin -- we want to just make it really challenge him and make it as hard for him as possible to explain himself, why he's doing what he's doing.

Q: You had mentioned that episode six is where things start coming back to what you had envisioned the series to be in the first place. I think you also had mentioned that the original [discarded] pilot came at things more sideways and that the reconceived pilot was a little more head on. It seems like the show is getting better by doing the sideways thing rather than the head on thing. I'm just wondering how much of that was you finding the show and how much of that was the network relenting and letting you get it to the place that you wanted.

Whedon: I think it was both. ["Man on the Street"] definitely contaings elements that were pitched or developed by people at the network in terms of the motivations of the dollhouse and the feel of the politics of the thing and what's going on, the thriller aspect. It was not, "Oh Dave, shut up and now I'll do it my way." It's very much full of the stuff that they were pitching. But it also is storytelling wise, much more how I had envisioned coming at it to be, only in a sense that is clearer than my original pilot. My original pilot was deliberately obtuse and you had to come along and stay with it and figure it out.

This, we go right up front. Here's the situation. It's a myth. This guy is looking for it and all that stuff. We lay it out as simply as we did in the first five, but because we get to get inside the dollhouse more and have the events there take on much more resonance, it has got what I had hoped to bring to the other episodes that I didn't really have the opportunity as much. So I felt like it was really finding the code to a show that I can do my best work in that the network still really can get beghind. So it was a meeting of the minds.

IGN TV: Boyd definitely seems more sympathetic and to have higher morals than most of the characters who work for the dollhouse. We did see the flashback to when he actually started working there, but I'm curious if we'll learn a little more about why he is working there, because it's hard to understand why he does this job in the first place.

Whedon: It is hard and we keep asking the question. I will tell you without reservation that in this season, we don't answer it.

Eliza Dushku in the "Man on the Street" episode of Dollhouse

IGN TV: But you have thought about it?

Whedon: Yes, way before we had it cast or even writen, I had a feeling - I knew what had happened with Boyd. There was a line from an episode that was filmed, but was tossed, where he talks to Saunders, "None of us in here were next in line for pope. Everybody has a reason." Rolling out how people came to this place is part of something we wanted to do a little bit later on when we had people invested in the characters enough to be asking just as you have, but we still have to wait on that. We'll see.

IGN TV: I've seen a lot of fans speculate online whether any of the people we know as Dollhouse staff members could possibly be dolls. Obviously, you can't tell us yes or no, but is that something you've thought about yourself - about if the employees of a place like this would all be who they seem to be?

Whedon: Yes, we talked about that and the different possibilities that we could tweak and the pasts that people have. How many layers of unreality can you have in somebody's identity? And to an extent, we get very excited. We have to pull ourselves back and say it we make this a lie within a lie within a lie within a lie, people are just going to start slapping us. We're like, "Now we're not invested in anybody." So we've talked about it, but we've been very restrained with the concept because you have to have some touchstone of reality, even in this world.

Q: I think the resistance that a lot of viewers have been feeling has been that they get the part about the sleeping with people, but they're not exactly sure, for instance, why you'd hire a midwife or a safe cracker or whatever. Do you really think you've made that argument yet or are you still working on it?

Whedon: You know, we do work on it. Again, it's one of those things where because it makes sense to us on some levels, we look back and go, "Are they with us?" But we finished shooting it before any of it aired, so it's a little dicey there. There were times we talked about why [with] some of the engagements. It seemed a little bit like you could find somebody who might be that person. [Our thought was] that for a lot of the rich people [dolls] have just become a status thing. It's just become, "it's they way we do it." But we never spent too much time with that because we were never sure how much of an issue that was going to be. It's the one thing that's difficult about making a show when it's not airing, is you don't have that feedback yet and you know don't know what is the thing they need to hear? So it gets addressed, but probably not as much as people would like.

Q: I read that you're intending to leave TV for online media exclusively.

Whedon: I never actually said that. Definitely, the new media is very attractive to me. It's an open field. Theres a lot of freedom and I'm very afraid that that freedom will be taken away before the artistic community has a foothold in it. So for reasons both artistic and political, I wish very much to pursue new media.

But it doesn't mean that I'm never going to do television. Everybody knows I had a rough time getting Dollhouse up-to-speed, but that doesn't mean I'm never going to do television. I love television and I love it in a different way then I love the Internet in a different way than I love movies. It's a kind of storytelling that is just, the scope and the breadth and the depth that you can get from a TV show is unlike anything else and I love it.

I have to admit I'm shooting a movie right now, producing a movie that really went from script to preproduction in a matter of weeks. I did Dr. Horrible in a matter of days. The television process is a grind for me that I'm not as used to as I was, but that doesn't mean that I'm turning my back on it as a medium. I adore it. And the people I've dealt with have been honorable and honest. It's just getting a TV show off the ground is rough waters, no matter what. And sometimes you feel up for a swim and sometimes you don't.

The problem is that we have two completely opposing models, regular television, which is made of a lot of money, has a lot of crews, employs a lot of people. You can make a good deal of money in that business, and so can the networks and whatnot. And then there's the internet, which is not that at all. Although with Dr. Horrible we made money, we didn't make the kind of money that would make a studio stand up and prick its little ears up. Nor were we paying people the kind of dollars wher ethey can just do that for a living.

With things like Hulu, all that means is that shows are going to be shown on the Internet probably insead of reaping reruns on television, which means no residuals for the artists, which means that there's almost no money model on the Internet and a lot of money, but also a lot of waste model on TV. They're trying to bring them together, but nobody knows how they're going to mix, how they're going to meld, where they're going to meet.

At some point it would be great if they met, of we could have fast, well made, but not slow moving productions on the Internet that employed enough people to keep the community in a good place, but at the same time, cut some of the fat out, so that everybody was able to do more work and still feel secure in their making a living. But, right now that model doesn't exist, and none of us have figured it out. Believe me, we've been talking about it - how to mix the two.

Q: I wanted to get back to the choice of engagements again. It seemed to me, when I heard the idea, that obviously the big mark for the dollhouse is weird, weird sexual engagements. But the first five episodes only just touched on that very little and even then, it wasn't nearly as dark as one would expect. I was wondering if that was a choice because you're on network TV or if you just want to wait to get the show to that place later.

Whedon: There were two things. One is, yes, some people at the network definitely said, "Well, wait a minute. This idea that we've bought is illegal and very racy and frightens us." There was definitely an element of should we tone this down that for me was frustrating because of what I was telling them was dangerous ground and was meant to be.

That is not to say that the only thing I pictched them was Echo had sex. The idea was always that she would be doing different things. I had a structure that the first few episodes was supposed to take us into, whereby the type of engagement would always be shifting. That she would be solving crimes, that she would be helping people. That she would be commintting crimes, that sexuality was a big part of it and the most sort of edgy and possibly titilating part of it, but not in any way the only part of it.

When I pitched, you always do it; it's a blank meets blank. Mine was "it's Alias meets Quantum Leap. I thought of her more than anything as kind of life coach, as kind of the person you absolutely need in your life at a certain moment who will either change you or comfort you or take you life to the level that you want it to be. And that could be something nice, evil, sexual. It oculd be any number of things. It was never just meant to be the one. The one sort of took over because it's the one that frightens people the most and also obviously interests them the most.

So, yes, I think we ended up not going there as mcuch as we would have in the first few episodes because we were still in that dialog with some of the people at the network. You end up doing a disservice if you just sort of gloss over it and never hit it head on.

Having said that, I still have no problem with the idea that somebody very rich and very far off in the mountains would hire the perfect midwife because the birth of my child, you don't want a thinker.

Q: It seems like the Echo/Boyd relationship is an interesting mirror to the Giles/Buffy relationship in that Echo intrinsically trusts Boyd, where Buffy was constantly railing against the boundaries and the parameters that Giles set up. Are we going to see more of that? As Boyd becomes more and more attached to Echo, is he going to become something of her life coach?

Whedon: What he has the opportunity to do with her is going to shift. It's definitely very much that same kind of de facto father figure. He definitely cares about her more than his job requires, but at the same time, he doesn't have the same opportunities in these first 13 to really do anything to help her in that same sense. Their relationship is also going to have to shift a little in ways that I'm not going to descrivbe. But for us on the staff, that was sort of the bedrock place of no matter what happens with these guys, we know that he wants to protect her and it's the only truly safe place in the dollhouse is his paternal feeling toward Echo.

Q: You always had really great emotional stuff in Buffy and Angel. I was wondering if we were going to see more of that at some point in the series. Is there something set up with Victor and Sierra or even Paul and Echo?

Whedon: The emotion of the thing is really why we're there. It's the only thing that really interests us. If we have to figure out a caper, that's work. But to figure out something that caused one of them to be in pain, that's fun! So, yes, as the show progresses, we are able to get further with the emotionality because the dolls are actualizing more and everything is going to get much more tense for everybody.

Q: Do you think it could evolve in romantic directions then?

Whedon: For certain people, there could be some romance, but it's never simple. I would say probably, I guess, Victor's feelings about Sierra are probably the closest thing to simple that there is in the show right now. Even those are not, well, we're not not going to mess everybody up.

Q: This goes back to what someone else was asking before about how we're going to be left wandering if any of the employees are actually dolls themselves. Is that going to prevent us from seeing what Topher does outside of the dollhouse? Is he ever outside of the dollhouse or do we just assume he lives there? Does he have a girlfriend that he goes to the movies with? Are you handcuffed as far a showing that stuff?

Whedon: We're not handcuffed. It's just that at this point, we're still interested in how they relate to our actives and particularly Eliza. So we don't spend a lot of time with people in their outside lives, although we do spend some. We will learn a little something about the private lives of some of your employees, but something we're threading in lightly. That's really something you would come to later in a season.

Our first 13 are basically, just take the baseball bat and keep on hitting and then later on if you have people hooked, those threads are easier to weave in because people, they're more invested. But at this point, we're just swinging for the bleacher emotionally in the second half and so some things we will get to show because it will give us insights into the charaters, but not everybody as an apartment set there.

Q: Amy Acker's character, Dr. Saunders, seems so sad - she's a cloud of misery. I don't understand why she's so sad and has this horrible job. Are we going to learn more about this very intriguing character?

Whedon: Yes, we sure are. I love that character, not just because it's Amy Acker, but because she wears misery and torture on her face literally. We will definitely learn how she came to this fabulous career. In the last few epiodes, we get to turn the Acker up pretty hot and it's very exciting.

Q: Will we see some Buffy alumni on Dollhouse?

Whedon: Well, I did mention that Felicia Day was going to appear in an episode and that's pretty much it for Buffy. Most of them are, I'm happy to say, working, but I do like to see the gang. But we have to establish the reality of this world before we can bring in somebody without it being too jarrig. Although we have one episode with a guy who looks a lot like Nick Brendan and his character's name is Nicholas and that was a terrible idea. We should have never named him Nicholas because every time I see his footage, I go, "Hey, wait a minute. Oh, I'm confused."

Dollhouse: "Man on the Street" airs Friday, March 20th at 9:00pm ET/PT on FOX