Joss Whedon's latest project, Dollhouse, has made quite a lot of buzz over the many months since the project was first announced.  And it's quite a mix, too: some are excited to see what the guy behind Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer had to offer next, while some have wondered why Fox placed the show on a Friday night time slot, best known for being home to shows that are being slowly killed off.

And then, there are some who, on the basis of the previews and the descriptions and all that, have dismissed the show as something that sucks—and, perhaps, deserves the Friday night time slot, because it will die off anyway.  As news came in about reshoots, a scrapped pilot and problems with the entire production, more people have started to doubt whether the show will come out intact, if at all.  For Whedon, who's no stranger to starting a new show, the buzz impacts him too.

“You do [think about it],” he said.  “I mean, you notice things.  The fact is, it's not a seamless birthing process.  But … it seldom is. … And the only difference is now everybody in the world knows everything about everything.  But that doesn't really change what's going on … [and] ultimately, it has nothing to do with whether or not you will respond to the TV show.”

What about the bits we've heard about the show being doomed to fail before it even premieres this month? “All the business speculation is just that,” he thought.  “So when people start saying, ‘Well, clearly this is an attempt to ... ,' and they actually start deconstructing the show before they've seen it, and I kind of go, ‘Well, wait a minute.'  But ... it's just part of how it works now.  You notice [the bad buzz] just to make sure that you know what people are thinking, and then you shove it down.”

Despite the doubts, however, production for Dollhouse is up and well.  “We're shooting the tenth episode [now],” he said.  “We have the last three [episodes] … we're actually going to shoot it simultaneously.   It's a very weird production thing that we're doing, partially because we junked the pilot, so we're creating these other episodes.”

And, after all that, he feels very good about the show. “I'm happy with it,” he said.  “It's been hard for me, too. There was a point where I literally was, like, ‘What show am I making?  What's going on?' … But now it's gotten really exciting for us.  We feel like it's found itself.  You know, all the pieces are there, because the ensemble is extraordinary, the premise is really challenging and fun, and now, as we're working on the episodes a little further in, those episodes are becoming more than the sum of its parts.”

Dollhouse finally hits screens beginning February 13 from 9pm on Fox.  Then we'll be able to talk about it without having to, err, guess or anything.



-Henrik Batallones, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: Sci Fi Wire
(Image courtesy of Collider)