Oh ye of much faith! Joss Whedon, even after such a devastating experience the director/writer had with Fox during his “Firefly” sci-fi series, is returning to the network famous for clipping SF projects after only 2 or 3 episodes.
He will also be returning with a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” alum, Eliza Dushku. Together the two will bring “Dollhouse” to Fox, which has committed to at least 7 episodes, and for Fox that’s like an entire season.
The plot behind “Dollhouse,” (named for a special location housing operatives) which is penned by Whedon, follows a group of top-secret people that have been programmed with different personalities, abilities and memories — the programming being determined by the particular mission. After the completion of the mission they have all remnants of the programmed personality traits, including the emotions experienced during that time, wiped-clean from their memories.
One character, named Echo (Dushku), begins to develop signs of self-awarness, even after the memory-wipe, which begins impacting her missions.
It seems that it was actually Dushku who got her old boss to come back to network television after Whedon swore to never return again to the small screen, and particularly to Fox. She told Joss of her new contract with the network and asked for his help in making something good happen as he had done for such shows as “Buffy” and “Angel.”
“He’s my favorite genius,” Dushku said. “And my favorite friend. He’s been like a big brother … and the only person out here I’ve ever wholeheartedly trusted, because he’s never let me down.” Whedon relented and is cautiously returning to television this one time.
“I sat down with her to talk about her options,” stated Whedon. “…and acted all sage, saying things backwards like Yoda and laying out what I thought she should do. But in the course of doing it, I accidentally made one up. I told it to her, and she said, ‘That’s exactly what I want to do.’ ”
From that one meeting “Dollhouse” was born. Whedon will write and executive produce the series and act as overall showrunner. Dushku not only stars in the project, but will also be its producer. Fox is looking at Spring 2008 to begin production on the series.
I’ve been lamenting the lack of a Joss show in active production. But damn, dude. FOX? Is one infanticide not enough?
Trepidatious does not begin to describe.
Ah, the return of Joe 90 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_90)
Never thought Whedon would stoop to re-imaging anything, especially a 40 year old program.
Still, could be worth a watch.
Obviously Joss has never heard the phrase “Fool me once: shame on you. Fool me twice…”
With any luck I’ll be proven wrong.
And at the end of the day, Pooh wandered over to his favorite thoughtful spot, and began to think. He thought and thought and thought, then finally sighed.
“We shall have to see what becomes of this,” Pooh said. “For now however, I do believe this to be a most wonderful day.”
This is the very first encouraging news about programming for 2008 that I’ve heard so far.
Darn beaten to the Joe 90 punch.
I’m humming the theme tune now.