Im dollhousetvforum sind Notizen für etliche Charaktere aufgetaucht, die sehr Drehbuch wirken. Dass das spoilert, brauch ich nicht zu erwähnen. Allerdings muss ich sagen, dass nach der Lektüre meine Vorfreude auf Dollhouse ungefähr doppelt so groß wie davor war. Nach etlichen Bejubelungen anderer habe ich nun auch wirklich das Gefühl, dass Whedon hier etwas ganz gewaltiges vor hat. Die haben nicht übertrieben. In diesen Notizen sind Sachen, Sätze, Ideen die bisher kein Pilot einer Whedon-Serie annähernd erreichen konnte. Und das so gekonnt und geschickt zusammengeschraubt. Das ganze wirk auf mich mittlerweile wie ein Touchdown, dieser Moment wo du's einfach heimbringst. Diese Serie kann nicht mehr schief laufen, von dem, was am Bildschirm passieren wird, her betrachtet. Natürlich kann Marketing, Quote und Geld immer noch alles nach den 7 Folgen enden lassen. Aber von dem her, was sich Joss hier überlegt hat, ist das einfach einwandfrei, perfekt, spannend, aufregend und way out.

SPOILER (mark it to read it)

Man kann trotz so wenig Info, wie diese Notizen sie bieten, irgendwie die semantische Dichte dieser Serie absehen. Es gibt diesen Anschluss an Serenity (via dem "making people better"), es gibt einen Spiritualismus-Twist, der bisher nie so explizit bei Whedon war (auch nicht bei Firefly), es gibt unglaubliche Einzeiler ("We all of us walk."; "We're both teaching her to turn on us."; "They're eating lunch. Thank God you called."...) und derlei sogar außerhalb des Dialogs ("His accent is boarding school British. [Casting Note: Unless it's not.]"). Dies hier wird ein sensationeller Pilot. Kein Zweifel mehr übrig.

Nach ihrem Review, einer darauf folgenden Diskussion bei whedonesque.com und einer weiteren vier-Akt-Erwähnung gibt's nun eine Antwort von Jill:

Hour long TV shows are usually 5 or 6 acts. Six is the more traditional structure, I think — teaser, four acts and a tag or short final scene that wraps up emotional lines. Last season we saw quite a few 5 act pilots with very long first acts to really give the story time to hook the viewer before the first commercial break.

Four acts is pretty unusual. Also unusual is that the Dollhouse acts are almost even in length.

I am not going to give away any plot details here. This is a terrific story. I read it knowing nothing about the premise or characters. The pilot is full of turns and suprises and I was completely fresh to everyone of them. Which is the best way to encounter the story. If you want spoilers check elsewhere.
I will tell you about the shape of the story. With only three act breaks to worry about, Whedon doesn’t have to force the drama up into unnatural cliffhanging pre-commercial moments. He gets into the story quickly and rolls it in out in four virtually equal-length segments.

By eliminating the short final scene or tag, Whedon can play out the real story right to the end, weaving together the final beats of the story with the final emotional moments, rather than playing them in separate scenes. This works really well for arced series like this one will be, where a single story is parsed out over the duration of the series.

Sie sagt auch: Das war ein "early draft", also es ist durchaus möglich, dass Fox Whedon noch zu einer sechs-Akt-Struktur zwingt.

...davor, dass Whedon Summer Glau für Dollhouse wegschnappt:

IGN TV: With Joss Whedon coming to FOX with Dollhouse, is there a little part of you that thinks he's coming to take Summer Glau back?
Friedman: (laughs) Yes! I will say that some of my more uncomfortable moments as executive producer of this show involve me, Joss Whedon, and Summer Glau at Comic-Con standing together. I felt like I'd gotten into the middle of a very intense relationship that I shouldn't be a part of. So I just had to walk away. I'm kidding, but you know – he's been very supportive. She uses him as a mentor and I know that she called him before auditioning for the part to ask if he thought it was good for her to do it. And he was very supportive of her being involved in this.

Yeah, Josh, you better run...

Auf imdb gibt es nun ein paar neue Namen für den Piloten:

• Reed Diamond als Laurence Dominic (bekannt aus Good Night, and Good Luck, Homicide und als der Typ, den Amy fast geheiratet hätte)
• Stacey Scowley als Bride (we knew that one)
• Clayton Rohner als Marc Dreyfuss (Gast bei Angel)
• Aisha Hinds als Loomis (war bei The Shield)
• Giovanni Lopes als Thug
• Jenni Fontana als Friend

Reliable?

Joss Whedon fans will find his newest creation "Dollhouse," which premieres in November, to not only have a few of the same faces, but the same writing style and sci-fi feel as past Whedon projects.

Ich würd sagen, das macht Laune. Und er hat es tatsächlich als "whedonesque" bezeichnet.

Man begebe sich bitte hierhin und unterstütze mich.

Tropf, trop, tropf:

Peter in Cardiff, Wales: What's this scoop about a Dollhouse location shoot that you buried in the Lost Redux?
Oh, what? That? You guys don't care about Dollhouse, do you? Hee. Late last week, there was a two-day-long shoot at a Spanish Mission Revival-style duplex in L.A.'s Miracle Mile area—mostly night shots, I believe—and if I had to bet money, I'd say it was serving as Paul's (Tahmoh Penikett) apartment, where Echo and Paul have their meet-cute/meet-complicated and their very first fight scene. Awww...

Wer's nicht glaubt: Es steht ganz am Ende. Vorsicht, Spoiler für alles mögliche bis dorthin. Und schön zu sehen, dass auch andere Leute aus Ländern, die Dollhouse womöglich nie, womöglich erst viel später ausstrahlen werden, mitfiebern.

Den beiden Dollhouse-Produzentinnen verdanken wir schon dieses Interview mit Fans, hier hab ich ein Video, in dem sie sich lang und breit auf einem Podium vorstellen. Nicht seeeehr Dollhouse-spezifisch, und offenbar noch bevor sie bei Women's Murder Club gefeuert wurden, aber trotzdem 'n gutes Kennenlernding. Was sie über Dollhouse preisgeben, ist dass sie seit WMC die Action-Szenen nicht selbst schreiben, sondern den Stunt-Leuten überlassen. Das wäre dann wohl Massas Job. Außerdem gibt es Clips und Analysen von ihrer Zeit bei Angel, The Shield und WMC, und das erste was sie taten, als sie von Whedon für Angel engagiert wurden, war ihre Mütter anzurufen. Fair enough.

Bei Ask Matt gibt es eine spannende, elaborierte Frage, ob alte Helden wie Whedon überhaupt noch eine Chance haben in der heutigen TV-Welt. Ich finde zwar bei allen drei genannten Personen die Bezeichnung "One-Hit-Wonder" etwas übertrieben, aber lesenswert ist die Frage und Matts Antwort alle mal:

Question: This is in response to someone who wrote about the large number of sci-fi shows with impressive pedigrees coming to Fox in the next year or two. You pointed out that the expectations will be very high because of the attachment of names like J.J. Abrams, Ron Moore and Joss Whedon. I certainly think this is a problem, particularly since I'm not sure that these producers will live up to expectations. You've remarked before on a phenomenon that I've noticed, too: TV is much better at making new stars than it is at repackaging old ones. Actors who have starred in hit shows and have then gone on to do a show of equal or greater success are few and far between. But I've noticed that the track record for superstar producers hasn't been that great either in the last 15 years or so. Once upon a time, it seemed there were producers (Donald Bellisario, Steven J. Cannell, Aaron Spelling) who had a lock on creating successful shows. But now a lot of the superstars seem like one- or two-hit wonders. Whedon had Buffy and Angel, but when he moved beyond that universe with Firefly, it never really caught on with wider audiences. J.J. Abrams had Alias, and played a role in the creation of Lost, but his role on the latter now is essentially nothing, and he's had other small-screen flops like Six Degrees. Ron Moore had success with Deep Space Nine and has created the remarkable Battlestar Galactica, but let's not forget that he is also responsible for Bionic Woman. I wonder if it's too much to expect lighting to strike twice or three times for these guys. The most successful serial producers now are probably Dick Wolf and Jerry Bruckheimer, who are essentially cloning a successful format to other shows. Producers like Abrams, Moore and Whedon seem unsatisfied with that approach. They want to take new creative tacks, and sometimes, perhaps often, that doesn't work. — Jeff

Matt Roush: Intesting topic, and while I won't refute the specifics of your arguments (except to say that Firefly was only a failure because of Fox's short-sightedness, not because of anything on-screen), I will just remind everyone that TV is a brutal business and the failure rate is spectacularly high, especially for those who try not to repeat themselves. (Those who keep making the same show over and over again, with minor variations, are to me contributing to the death of TV.) These guys you're talking about are also, for the most part, producing in genres that traditionally are the riskiest. We're lucky that they keep trying, and in Joss's case, that he's deciding to return to the medium again. But it's also true that every so often (Six Degrees, Bionic Woman), one of their shows even actually deserves to fail. But unlike so much of the industry, I'm not of the mind that you judge a talent only by what they've done lately as long as they pick themselves back up and keep trying something new. The fact that the media now force them to operate under a microscope of relentless scrutiny makes the process harder, I'm sure, but when a miracle like Lost or Battlestar Galactica or Buffy comes along, isn't it worth it?

*lohmar*

I've got the Dollhouse Pilot Script.

If anyone wants to trade for it just email me.

Petman88@gmail.com

Go ahead!

Sets: Brown is the new black.

Auch mal ein Grund, das in die Link-Liste links aufzunehmen. Ich mag braun.

Bisher nicht aufgefallen:

Dushku plays Echo. All the blank-slate Dollhouse agents have Whiskey Tango Foxtrot phonetic alphabet names.

Was da unter "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot phnoetic alphabet" firmiert ist natürlich das NATO-Alphabet. Es ist mehr als aufregend, in wievielen Details Whedon schon mögliche Mythologien angesetzt hat.

Damals war sie noch auf der "Ich mag, Joss!"-Liste, heute dreht sich alles nur um Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Seit die zweite Staffel bestätigt wurde, bleibt für Joss-relatede Projekte kaum Zeit, wie sie in dem Interview erklärt. Auch erwähnt wird The Serving Girl, ein mir bisher unbekanntes Projekt, bei dem Joss Whedon Regie und Musik eines Ballett-Films macht, und Glau die Hauptrolle tanzt.

Lang hat unser Rätseln ja nicht gedauert, langsam tröpfeln Details zu Castle ein:

Fillion, who's had a recurring role on "Desperate Housewives" this season as Dana Delany's husband, will star in a presentation called "Castle," according to The Hollywood Reporter. The "Drive" and "Firefly" star will play a mystery novelist who consults with the NYPD on difficult cases.

Besagter Hollywood Reporter:

"Castle," from ABC Studios, is a comedic procedural about a famous mystery novelist (Fillion) helping the NYPD solve crimes.

Und noch IGN:

The project is called Castle, and is a procedural in which Fillion will play a famous mystery novelist who helps the NYPD with their cases. The Reporter notes the project has a comedic tone to it, which should work well for Fillion's talents.

Was sie nicht sagen...