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Pilot Details: Welcome to the Dollhouse!
Categories: dollhouse
Eliza Duskhu, Joss Whedon
My job is always ice cream and chocolate syrup, but some days I get
sprinkles too! Today is one of those days, because I just got a major
treat in the form of a sneak peek at Joss Whedon's Dollhouse pilot.
Click in to pour some sugar for yourself...
What's the pilot episode called?
"Echo."
What's it about?
The logline don't lie: "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,
***ual 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, (just like Athena Inc.)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."
What's it like?
Dollhouse is like The Bourne Identity meets Stepford Wives meets
boarding school meets Los Angeles neo-noir meets the Whedonverse. In
short, it's rad, man.
If I was writing an eighth-grade book re****t about Dollhouse, what
would I list as the "themes"?
Identity, self-determination, free will is both a blessing and a pain
in the ass, The Next Generation's Data is a great TV character, Eliza
Dushku is hot. What? Those first three at least are almost certainly
themes.
Is Echo just a new name for Faith?
That's a negatory. Echo has a genius for contemplation and self-
awareness that Faith couldn't begin to approach. Echo also has about
48 different faces to show the world, which gives her a good head
start on Faith, who seemed to vary primarily between rage and
desolation. In the first episode, we are shown that Echo is
essentially like the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz—"If I only had a
brain..."—but she's otherwise fully equipped with a soul, a rockin'
bod, and a good, fearless heart.
Who's the new boss of us all?
Olivia Williams is going to rock as Adelle Dewitt, a Frigidaire
administratrix whose rare brushes with human empathy and compassion
are enough to make you suspect she might just be a good guy after all.
Where's the twist?
The Dolls are programmed to mix up identity and personality with a
splash of subterfuge and a dash of dementia—but they're not the only
ones. Tahmoh Penikett's FBI agent Paul Ballard is obsessed with
opening up the Dollhouse, but he may have more in common with—and
already be closer to—the Dolls than he even knows.
Where is the love?
Echo and Paul are going to be hot like fire, no doubt, but I predict
that cerebral Doll mechanic Topher (think Kevin Rankin's character in
Bionic Woman, but more evil) and blank-slate Kewpie-doll Sierra
(Dichen Lachman) might end up being the other pair of opposites that
attract.
Who's the Xander?
If I had to guess, I'd pick Victor (Enver Gjokaj).
What does the actress who plays Dr. Claire Saunders need to bring to
the table?
Visible facial scars from a razor-blade attack somewhere in her past
or a cooperative, calm personality and a willingness to sit quietly in
a prosthetic makeup chair for extended periods each day. Scars
notwithstanding, I'm kind of seeing Cynthia Watros or Kathleen
Robertson in the part...
Got questions about the residents of the Dollhouse? Email me at
tvdiva@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
and I'll do my best to conjure up some answers in
the next chat.
—Re****ting by Jennifer Godwin
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