Dort, dort, dort und dort.

Das erste Video sieht besonders interessant aus, mit Joss, Tahmoh und Eliza, aber mein Laptop mag grad nicht Ton ausgeben, also muss ich mir das wohl für heute Abend aufheben.

Hier ein kleines Interview mit Eliza zur Prämisse. Ich hab ja duch den Kurz-Urlaub hier die Mega-Berichterstattung vom Comicon-Panel verpasst, und versuch jetzt noch die spannendsten Sachen nachzuliefern. Hier und hier z.B. Joss himself:



Berichte gibt's en masse:

The fans are about to kill a person who goes up to the mic and dares to admit she's not excited about the new show, which doesn't seem "as much out there" as his other shows. Whedon makes a face, the fans boo, and then he replies:

"This show is a little different — there is a fantastical premise, but it is modern-day and it's people without vampires and spaceships. But you should know everything I do is about people. That's what I tell stories about. Echo has a removable personality, she's different people all the time, and she's trying to figure out who she is between times. Each time she meets Tamoh, she's a new person and their relationship is really twisted. Every relationship on the show is going to be really twisted. Questions of identity are going to be twisted in ways I never have before, and it's going to be really exciting."

"Take that, girl!" says Dushku.

Und:

Is there a common thread between Buffy and Dollhouse? "It's probably a search for the soul," says Whedon. "Vampires are considered unpeople, and so are Actives. So it's really about Echo's search for her soul."

Dollhouse is influenced by A.I., The World Can Never Let Me Go, and Collateral because Whedon thinks it's a great L.A. movie. He says, "This will be feistier than I'm used to. I go a little Ang Lee, but the way I'm filming it, it will be more visceral, a frenetic ride. That part is challenging."

Oder:

Whedon and Penikett joked about never knowing where Dushku would wind up. Including receiving emails from her from Peru or Iran. She joked that she was always somewhere weird, saying, “I was elk hunting, sorry PETA. It’s a part of life. I eat what I kill.”

Whedon was quick to correct her again, saying, “The proper phrasing is ‘I eat whom I kill.’”

Und der joke, der schon mir als running vorkommt, sollte hier auch endlich mal gepostet werden:

When asked about a ‘Dollhouse’ comic, Whedon said he didn’t see one in the future because, “It’s very interesting to see Dushku become these different people. I don’t know how exciting it would be to see that drawn.”

Finally, on the topic of ‘Dollhouse’ webisodes, Whedon said there would definitely be some. “And we’ll make dozens and dozens of dollars.”

Woanders:

The Buffy movie question came up again. Since he's doing the comic book he's "getting his Buffy fix" but won't completly dismiss the idea (though it's bloody unlikely. But "I'm going to start working on the Dollhouse movie now. And then the opera"

Und wieder woanders werden Nebenrollen-Typen gedroppt:

Some of the ideas we can expect to see will revolve around "the ridiculously unstable relationships between all these people...life in the Dollhouse, workers, lab techs, salesmen, personality sale issues", etc.

Der Bromance-joke:

One fan commented on Whedon's tendency to re-use actors he's worked with in the past, and asked what new faces we could expect to see on "Dollhouse." "Him," Whedon said, pointing at Penikett. "The first thing I did was say 'Get me Tamoh, nobody else,'" Whedon said. "I've had a man crush on him since the first season of 'Battlestar Galactica. Actually, I've been informed that's not the term anymore, it's known as a 'bromance.'"

Und schließlich:

Whedon and Penikett commented that Echo was largely inspired by Dushku, who gallivants around the world on a regular basis. She was recently in Peru, and before that, Iran. "I go on these little adventures and I bring them back to Joss," Dushku said.

"I didn't make anything up," Whedon said. "This is a documentary."

...gibt's hier. Besonders dings:

• Fillion on his penis: "Shaped like a hammer. (To Joss) You saw it." Joss: "That was a great day. The day I gave him the part of Mal."
• There will be another part of Dr. Horrible! No other details were given, but it will be continuing.
• Yes, there will be a Dr. Horrible DVD and soundtrack. There will be a contest online where fans can enter short clips, where the ten best will be featured on the DVD.
• And finally, Fillion gave us a cool tip: The remote control shown on the iPhone that Dr. Horrible uses is simply a website, and here it is.

Die ersten Videos tauchen auch schon auf...

Feat. Interview-Schnipsel mit NPH und Joss:


(Direktextra)

AfterEllen.com und AfterElton.com haben Joss zu Homosexualität in Dollhouse befragt:

AfterElton.com: Joss, with Tara and Willow, you created probably the best same-sex relationship. Is there anything in Dollhouse that a gay man can look forward to?
Joss Whedon: The thing about Dollhouse by its nature is the relationships are rather ephemeral. Having said that, sexuality is part of what the actives were created for. So exploring different kinds of sexuality is going to be part of the show inevitably. We don’t have long-term relationships set up because they forget who they are at the end of every day, but same-sex encounters is part of the mythos. It comes with the territory.

Scheint so, als ob sie nicht lange auf sich warten wird lassen:

AE: Is there anything gay in the works fairly soon or is that likely to happen later in the season?
JW: There will be something within the order we have, for sure, the first 13. It’s not something anybody has asked us to shy away from. It’s not something that has made the network twitchy at all. They get it. And they’re not asking for it with a lascivious grin, either. They’re just like,This is just about what humans need from each other. And that’s not all sexual; most of it’s not. But when it deals with sexuality, they know that some time they’ll be from each other that is sometimes what humans need from each other they may not admit is in themselves.

Die nicht enden wollende Besuchsberichterstattung:

"Every time, I'm like 'Here it comes. This is the big miss. This is where I fail. This is where they tear me down. This is the one that they don't like,'" he says. "And you do feel a little bit of pressure. You do start, once people have recognized that you have done something. But at the same time, you learn to let go off that or not one word can you write. So you have to sort of swing. You have got to swing. And you are going to miss, it's going to happen. But it doesn't necessarily mean, again, not black and white. It could be that not everybody related to it or that one episode, or it could just be 'Wow, America hated my show.' It could be that bad, but if you live in fear of that..."

He says, "The only thing I really live in fear of is that I'll put something out there that I really didn't do my best on. That's all, and that doesn’t mean that it wont be something that, it could be something that I did quickly. It could have been something that I slaved over for a long time. It doesn't matter. If I am putting out less than my best, if this is me running the show then people will know and that is something to be ashamed of. If I believe in the story and the rest of the world ends up not, that's a blow that I will have to take and can live with it."

Dort. Eventuell also auch vor der Premiere.

Comicon wirft erste Wellen ins Netz. Felicia Day redet über Dr. Horrible, ihre House-Rolle in der neuen Staffel und mehr:


(Direktlink)

Auch 'ne Lesart:

Just as Buffy inverted and played on the ceremonies of the Horror genre, Dr. Horrible subverts the super hero world. There is a perfect sense of anguish and irony that serves as an undercurrent throughout all three acts of Dr. Horrible, arguably resurfacing from the sort of dubious way many of us, as children, must have viewed super heroes. Batman was an obvious capitalist cheerleader (independently wealthy, kicking the shit out of petty criminals). Superman was the personification of the American Dream (the ultimate immigrant, rising to success and heroism in the new world). Often the lines between good and bad were not only drawn, they were bolded and made to carry giant flashing billboard size marquees, "Joe Chill bad, very very bad!" Sure, there was serious socio-political subversion in the comic world, especially into the twenty-first century, but the majority of super hero worlds were full of democracy-wielding-might-as-well-be-slave-traders dressed up in capes and masks. Even as children we knew that this wasn't how the world worked, and we became aware of the pacifying nature of most media.

Dr. Horrible is the result of all this skepticism we have for our heroes (which includes capitalism, democracy, love, and charity), and because of this we immediately relate to him. His frustration is our own. His pain is not just a plot device or character motivation, it is a real and honest discontent that we all have with the world, and the "powers that be." This is why Dr. Horrible's arch nemesis, the so-called hero, Captain Hammer is such a prick. Captain Hammer is the embodiment of all that is wrong with the world: unmitigated egoism, exaggerated masculinity, bombastic idiocy, and malicious deceit. This is the most immediate inversion within Joss' new creation; Dr. Horrible, the villain, is truly our savior while Captain Hammer, the hero, is truly the bad guy. This point is obvious, but is necessary to establish before pushing this tale to its iconoclastic end.

...obwohl ja da was mit Geld im Weg stand, damals:

CMix: Now that Battlestar Galactica is winding down, what's next for you? Will you have anything to do with the Caprica series, for example?

JE: Is Caprica a series? So far it's just a pilot. If it gets ordered to series then I would certainly be interested. Joss also has a new series, Dollhouse -- also interesting. But right now, neither is certain so I'm just waitin' and wishin' and hopin'…

Link

... der von Whedon grad die Astonishing X-Men übernommen hat, mag Dr. Horrible. Zwar nicht sehr, aber doch:

Most interesting to me, though, are the guts of the idea. Joss Whedon blowing his savings account on staging a 45-minute serial for the internet (that will doubtless prove to be i2dvd — internet to dvd — apologies once again to Bill Cunningham for perverting his "d2dvd" coinage).

I was crapping away here the other day about the ratio of linkblogs to people actually
producing original content. And then Joss blows a couple hundred grand on not only producing a bit of original content with unusually high production values, but also an Internet Event. It was free to view if you attended within a stated time window. It was in fact Appointment Internet. That is not something that many people have ever managed.

And while there are elements of the project that only someone of Joss’ position could pull off — the money, the cast, the values, etc etc etc — I think there are still lessons to be taken from it that apply broadly. Not least of which are, Be Short, Be Bold, and Get It Done.

Ein sehr ausführliches Making-Of gibt's hier. Neu für mich: NPH hat für Simon Tam vorgesprochen!

Neil Patrick Harris, Dr. Horrible I'm a huge Joss fan, professionally but also personally. We travel in the same circles. I am very close friends with Amy Acker, who was on Angel for many years, and of course the connection with [Buffy alum] Alyson Hannigan [who stars with me on How I Met Your Mother]. I even read for a part as a regular on Firefly, for the doctor, and it almost happened. So when the phone rings and it's him, I'm quick to pick up. He said, ''I am doing a Web musical —'' and I said ''yes.'' And then he got mad and said ''Wait a second, let me pitch first.'' And then he told me the name of it, and the idea behind it and the reasoning behind it and I said ''Hell, yes.''

Auch super, für alle, die zur Comicon gehen:

Fillion That is my friend PJ Haarsma. I called him up and I said ''Can you make me a thing? That looks like a thing?'' Twenty minutes later he says, ''Check out this website. You can call it up on your iPhone and you have a Dr. Horrible van remote.'' At Comic-Con, I'm going to release the Website that has the Dr. Horrible van remote.

Die Chair-Frage:

Tancharoen Our assistant director Otto [Penzato] knew a guy who had a supervillain house, a mad scientist's house, in the valley. We didn't have to change anything.

Joss Whedon We did not bring a chair increaser. He has that chair.

Und die DVD-Extras-Frage:

Joss Whedon We're not sure that we can accomplish it, but we want to have languages: French, Spanish, Japanese translated back very badly into English, classical Latin, and panther noises. That's what we're hoping for. We'll definitely be doing an original musical commentary.

Nur eine von vielen derzeit spannenden Ideen/Analysen zu Dr. Horrible:

Yeah, it would be cool if she had whipped out an uzi and mowed them all down, then stood atop their corpses and said, "And that's what happens to jerks who mistreat women!"

Except that's not how it goes. That isn't how it goes at all. Women get torn apart over stuff like this. Their lives get destroyed. That's the sucker punch with this piece. If it didn't make you mad, then you missed the point.

This is, of course, entirely what I am reading into it. I don't know what Joss' intent was. If this is what he was trying to say, then go me, I rule. If not, well we watch and we take away what we take away. This is what I took away from it.

The fact that it's all wrapped up in something that is, in parts, genuinely hilarious is masterful. This isn't me swooning over the awesomeness that is Whedon. As I've stated before, he is not my hero. But Joss, if this is what you were aiming for? You nailed it. If you were trying to do something else and I missed it? Well, this is what you should have been doing, and if you want to nod and say you meant it all along, I won't tell.

What I hated about it is what I loved about it, and there aren't many works in any medium where I can say that and mean it.

And that's me, taking silly fun and making it dreadfully serious.

Zu einer anderen, der Innocence-Debatte, werd ich später vielleicht etwas selbst sagen. Es gibt da grad echt viel aufzuarbeiten.

Wie Joss durften Fans auch NPH bei der Washington Post anchatten, und neben ein paar netten Dr. Horrible-Erwähnungen, kommt ganz am Ende der Brüller:

Damn: I'm straight and I think I'd go out with you. Probably upset the wife and kids, though. So what do you think happened to Doogie? Did he grow up, buy a Porsche and start a family practice in the suburbs?

Neil Patrick Harris: He probably developed an addiction to painkillers and wanders around with a cane at some hospital somewhere...

Bin grad auf kleinem Verschnuafurlaub in Salzburg, und daher nicht dauernd up-to-date mit Dollhouse. Sorry für die kurze Pause. Ich verweise mal auf dollrific für eine gute Zusammenfassung der bisherigen Whedon-Interviews bei der press tour, und schließe mich dem besonders wichtigen Verweis auf das Maureen Ryan-Interview an:

“The fact is, there are echoes of what happened before [with ‘Firefly’], so some people are worried,” Whedon told me. “My response to that is, first of all, thanks, I’m glad you care. And also, you can be worried. The show could have all the support in the world from Fox and still not [be successful]. There’s no guarantees in this business. The fact is, their support hasn’t wavered, but they did sort of view what I’d done as a little bit different from what I’d sold.”

“I looked at [the first pilot] with a very cold eye, an executive’s eye, and said, ‘OK, I know what they want that they don’t have,’” Whedon said. “I asked them, ‘Do you want [a new pilot]?’ earlier, and they said, ‘No, no, no, we just want to figure out how to make this work.’ I said, ‘Here’s how you’re going to make this work. I’m going to write you a new one.’ They were very grateful.”

Besonder in-depth wird's dann später:

MR: How conscious of herself can she become? This is one of my biggest questions about the show.

JW: It’s a two-step, back and forth, back and forth at the beginning, because she’ll get a piece of self-awareness, that’ll be the crux of the episode, and then it’ll be wiped away. Whether or not she still has it… because after every engagement her memory is completely wiped and her personality is removed, and she waits for the next [engagement].

But she starts to collect little bits. Whether or not she gets all those little bits together and starts forming a coherent person or plan to become a person or whether they all get taken away from her is her constant struggle.

MR: I have to ask the Fox question.

JW: Yes, Eliza is a fox.

Details über den neuen Piloten?

I’ve just finished the script of the new first episode, and I’ve really used the opportunity to really amp some of the characters and their introductions. [Cast member] Tahmoh [Penikett’s] going to do some Muay Thai. He’s going to be unhappy about the Muay Thai. “Do I hafta? Darn!” [Whedon was joking -- Tahmoh’s very into martial arts]

Und die wunderbare Frage nach Dr. Horrible oder Dollhouse:

MR: If you had to choose a way to make stuff, would you make it the “Dr. Horrible” way, or the “Dollhouse” way?

JW: You know, [gesturing to the lavish, two-story “Dollhouse” main set] it doesn’t suck to have a set. I like to live in both world. Sometimes I go to McDonald’s, sometimes I go to [surely the name of a nice restaurant that was obscured on this recording when I got up from the table].

[The last questions concerns the last act of “Dr. Horrible,” so don’t read on unless you’ve seen it.]

MR: Did you have to go to the dark place in that last act?

JW: I’ve taken a huge amount of flack for that. People are like, “Joss has run out of ideas. All he can do is be mean.”

MR: But I guess, if you’re constructing an evil supervillain, he has to have a tortured backstory.

JW: I’m just sayin’.

“Joss came to the realization that there was a better way to start the show,” said a Twentieth spokesman. “After he wrote episode two, he asked the network to use that as episode one.”

Whedon’s decision to rework what episode comes first could be a good sign, if his “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” is any indication. Whedon's original “Buffy” pilot never aired and was replaced by a show that better repped his vision for that show.

Link

Just from a content perspective, what Dr. Horrible lacks in production value it more than makes up for in terms of plot, humor, and lyrical complexity. For example, musical theater aficionados will note that a few of the Dr. Horrible numbers feature two distinct countermelodies. It’s difficult to parse a melody and a countermelody lyric in real time, much less two distinct countermelodies being sung along with a melody part. To get it all (and rabid Whedon fans will want to), you’d have to listen to it at least three times. So Dr. Horrible seems specifically engineered to be watched again and again. This means that people (like me) who use iTunes and own (multiple) iPods but have never purchased a video on iTunes (because of onerous DRM restrictions, etc.) might now feel compelled to purchase the video. They’d do this even though they’ve already seen it for free — because they want to watch it again, they want to share it with people who missed it the first time, they find Felicia Day’s overbite adorable and find themselves thinking about her in the shower, etc. It’s premature to think of Dr. Horrible to be the birth of a genre or a business model for online content (and ultimately, who knows whether reruns of “Two And a Half Men” are doing well on iTunes), but if the business behind Dr. Horrible works, it could signal the beginning of the end of television as the medium of the least-common-denominator and the beginning of the profitable niche market.
Link

Dazu Joss:

This was a sensible article on a subject that will, if we beret-wearing artistes have our way, will matter very much. And the guestimates were not far off, as far as I noticed. I would, however, like to clarify two things:

The Actors agreed to do this because they wanted to do this. When I finally laid out my plan for gross profit sharing, Nathan said "I think you mentioned that somewhere at the beginning. And I think we all agreed that WHO CARES." I hope they, and the writers,and the me, make scads, but we all showed up for more or less the exact same reason you all did, and I won't have my peeps thought mercenary.

Second, let go of the "Doogie". The man has a name, for God's sake. It's "Barney."

...hat ne Homepage:



...und ne Email-Adresse für Bad Horse!

Holy crap, bei all dem Trubel völlig untergegangen:

"We are planning to do a series of webisodes -- literally a full season of them," Whedon says. "We're planning to do one for every episode produced. Whether we pull that off remains to be seen."

Für jede Folge eine!

Every night the five current "actives" wander into the round sleep room and settle into below-floor bed chambers arrayed like spokes of a wheel, each with a plexiglass top that slides over and closes them in. A little too coffin-y for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" creator Whedon, who ordered some of the stone taken out and some nice soft cushions and fabric put in. But Dushku said that setling in for the night "was like really pleasant, like a kinda weird slumber party."

Everything on the sets is both highly modern and zen, with some Frank Lloyd Wright touches. The design scheme, as Whedon put it, is "spa, spa, spa," with a lot of dark wood, slate floors in the shower and part of the sleep room, and a pond with a bridge over it in the middle of the Staples Center. At the end of the tour, he and Dushku settled into directors chairs in the middle of the bridge and took questions for half an hour.

Whew. And after that we had to attend a cast read-through of the upcoming 250th episode of "King of the Hill. Which would have been hilarious any other day, but...

Link

Nach Audio, nun auch Video:



Auch der Beitrag selbst hat interessante Details:

The new first episode, Whedon says, will allow him to select from previously shot footage to figure out “the most iconic way from what we had to introduce each character.”

Adds star Eliza Dushku, “And I didn’t get to wear my leather pants in the pilot, so that was a deal-breaker.”

...und...

"I live to subvert [an audience's] expectation," he says. "There's a part of me that was clearly born for this and a part of me that will never be right for it. I live to do the episode of 'Murder She Wrote' where nobody dies. Because the greatest joy is to be genuinely surprise by human behavior or narrative structure. "

That said, “Every time I’m here, I worry that this show is a big mess, that this is the time I will fail. At the same time you learn to let go of that or not one word you will write.”

The set is impressive. A huge and rather tranquil living space that would be listed for about $9,000 a month on Craigslist. The Dollhouse includes coffin-like sleeping pods, a Koi pond, doctor's office, massage area, a drawing room, a gym, a co-ed shower and a couple offices.

Critics, naturally, are obsessed with the shower.

“The whole idea was to show how innocent they are," Whedon says. "It’s like the Garden of Eden, with Eliza either the Eve or the snake. We originally were only going to use the set for the pilot but the writers kept finding uses for it. As innocence falls, other things become more noticeable.”

“I’m not the most modest person in the world,” adds Dushku, who did a wardrobe change halfway through the critics' set visit.

Critic: “Where do they hold the soap?”

Whedon: “That’s a sweeps episode.”

Nach Joss' eigenem Monster-Beitrag gibt's auch ein Audio-Interview bei TV-Barn. Weil ja grad alle zu Besuch waren.

Zumindest aus dem Schreiber-Zirkel. Zumindet im Scherz. Erinnert ihr euch noch an die Idee mit dem Schach-Großmeister?

"In some forum I expressed I would love to be imprinted with the skill of being a grandmaster chess player," said Dushku, whose character in Dollhouse has her personality wiped clean and subsequently can become anything.

"Josh (Whedon, the creator of Dollhouse) went completely pale. He was like, 'That is not an exciting story arc. You are not allowed to pitch stories any more. You are out of the writers' room.' So that was my idea."

Ich glaub allerdings, sie meinen Joss, und nicht Josh.

...in Dr. Horrible:

Which bits didn't live up to what you wanted? Or didn't work?
There were a couple of jokes that don't really get laughs. I'm proud to say I wrote both of them.

Name one.
"Is that the new catchphrase?" It's a little throwaway thing that I wish I had thrown away. But you know what, it has the purity of being … well, pure, for one thing. Not having a ton of compromise involved. It's as if our ids wrote a musical.

Ich schätze mal, der andere könnte der legendäre "Bait and Switch"-Joke sein...

Erm:

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Maurissa, 90's dance/pop sensation (you can see her most clearly at 1:56 and 2:50, rocking a sweet hat.)


(Direktmaurissa)

Und in Michael Jacksons "Moonwalker" soll sie ja auch sein.

Welcome (back) to the Dollhouse. A New Pilot? A New Hope? A Prequel? A Nyquil? What's the skinny on DOLLHOUSE and why doesn't this link to anything?

Hi guys. Well, it’s been an eventful week. While all of you have been enjoying (and in some cases, suddenly NOT enjoying) our adorable little musical romp “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” (exclusively available on iTunes!) (And I lied about some people not enjoying it!) I’ve been busying myself with a little something I like to call DOLLHOUSE. Finishing a new episode. Finishing a new… here’s the headline… FIRST episode.

What’s that, you say? A second first? How can such a thing be? Does it defy the laws of all physics? Well, I sat down with Rutherford D. Actualperson to do a quick Q&A and give you all the skinny on the progress of my new series (Available on iTunes at some point one would assume!)

Rutherford D. Actualperson: Joss. You are a legend in the industry, and your forehead is a normal size proportionate to your face. Tell me about the idea behind doing a new first episode. Didn’t you already shoot one?

Joss: Yes, Ruhthie, I did. And it was grand, simply grand.

R.D.A: Then why shoot another? Also, your teeth are whitish.

Joss: I said it was grand, I didn’t say it was comprehensible. I showed some scenes to David Lynch and he’s all, “whuh?” Bad sign. But I kid.

The fact is, I’m very proud of the ep we shot and the series is making me crazy with the excitement. But I tend to come at things sideways, and there were a few clarity issues for some viewers. There were also some slight issues with tone – I was in a dark, noir kind of place (where, as many of you know, I make my home), and didn’t bring the visceral pop the network had expected from the script. The network was cool about it, but not sure how to come out of the gate with the ep.

R.D.A.: So they made you do another. It’s Firefly all over again! Run! For the love of God, HE’S CALLING FROM THE HOUSE!!!

Joss: Wow. Good panic.

R.D.A.: I try. But I am genuinely concerned. Also your smooth skin and elegant hands are making me bi-curious.

Joss: Well, the idea to do a new first episode wasn’t the network’s. It was mine. I understood their consternation, and saw the gap between my style and their expectations, and I suggested I shoot a new ep and make the one I’d shot the second. It isn’t going to be buried, like the pilot of Firefly. It’s simply coming after another, slightly cleaner ep. And because unlike Firefly, it isn’t a two hour epic which introduces everyone to each other, the onus isn’t on the new ep to explain a million things.

The fact is, Fox ordered the series before we shot a frame and then, after the strike, I had literally two months to write and prep the whole thing. Which means simply that the network has to figure out what they might want to tweak AFTER it was shot, unlike a pilot. Buffy didn’t make the fall sched, Angel got shut down when they saw the second ep outline… it’s birth pangs. The network truly gets the premise (this is a whole new crew, as you know), loves the cast, is excited about the show – but they’re also specific about how they want to bring people to the show and I not only respect that, I kinda have to slap my forehead that I didn’t tailor my tone and structure to the network’s needs, since that’s something I pride myself on.

R.D.A.: You’re not just being the good soldier?

Joss: We both know from years of experience that I’m a crap soldier, though I am an accomplished fan-dancer. No, this is a very cold look at what’s going on, and it’s not an Us vs Them. The truth is, I’m in love with this world, and I don’t care how people get into it. I have a million things to say about (and through) all of these characters, and I don’t mind which ones I say first. I think I just turned in a pretty cool pilot script. [Editor’s note: that means someone TOLD him THEY thought it was cool. He has no judgement of his own. This is sad, but on the plus side, it was probably one of his writers, who actually ARE cool. So rest easy.]

R.D.A.: So what does this mean for production?

Joss: We’ve pushed an extra few days so I can prep this bitch within an inch of its life, i.e., read it once more.

R.D.A.: But how will this affect the foundation of the very turning of our precious earth, and by that I mean Comiccon?

Joss: Yeah. Unfortunately, we won’t have a new teaser to show, since we’ll start shooting after the con. People will have to settle for chatting with Eliza and Tahmoh. But they’re likeable folk. (Sadly, Tahmoh only speaks Canadian, though he has a lovely translator at his side, like Isabella Rosselini in “White Nights”.) We’ll still rock the panel, but showing clips is kind of a tradition, so my emoticon doth frown.

R.D.A.: And the first first episode?

Joss: I’ll reshoot a few scenes, but it’ll basically air as is. When I was given seven episodes, I referred to them as “the Seven Pilots”, ‘cause you always have to lay out the premise one way or another in those early eps. So instead of Grumpy, this particular episode will be Sneezy. (Seriously. Eliza fights POLLEN! Sooo sexy.)

R.D.A.: So Eliza’s still a different character every week?

Joss: Often several.

R.D.A: And in the Dollhouse, the amazing-looking facility where all the beautiful people whose memories have been wiped live in a state of unselfconscious innocence, the showers are co-ed? [Editor’s note: the showers are co-ed?]

Joss: The showers are co-ed. [Editor’s note: HOT damn.]

R.D.A.: So nothing of substance has been changed. Shower-wise.

Joss: You are a sad, lonely actual man, Actualman.

R.D.A.: So true, so true. Thank you for talking/fan-dancing to me. Anything else you’d like to add?

Joss: Available exclusively on iTunes! Oh. About Dollhouse? Only that it’s going to be a funhouse ride of excitement, fear, existential angst and co-ed showers. That I love it. Love the writers, love the cast, and already blissfully live in the strange, compelling world of the removable self. Hmm. When I pitched it to Eliza, she said “My God, it’s my life!” But after that sentence, I think maybe it’s mine.

R.D.A.: I guess we’ll have to wait till January to see what you’ve cooked up.

Joss: And I’ll probably keep cooking till the moment I serve.

R.D.A.: Would you hold me?

Joss: Yes, Ruhthie. Yes I will.

[Editor’s note in Strongbad’s voice: IT’S OVER!]

Ich liebe Joss!

Okay... *dealing*... also "Echo" wird zu Episode 1x02, während eine neue zur #1 wird. Dazu auch der Kommentar:

But back on topic, I'm kind of confused by this. I don't recall being confused by the pilot script. That said, I'm extraordinarily curious to see how it could possibly work as a second episode, because right now I can't see it working as a second episode, at least not a particularly strong one.

I get that this sounds contradictory. How can it be a not particularly strong second episode if it would have been a strong first episode? But I don't know how to answer that without spoiling the script.

Darauf später gossis Antwort (der ja damals "Echo" gucken durfte):

if anybody is wondering, when I reviewed the original pilot I gave it 8/10. I deducted one point because I didn't understand what was happening at certain points. (my forehead isn't big enough) (okay, that's a lie).

I deducted the other point 'cos Topher didn't play with his hair. Which, I'm sure you'll agree is the sign of a ten episode. That and stuff happening.

Das Transkript davon gibt's übrigens schon.

Unter anderem, hier die Antwort auf die Penny-Frage:

But, yeah, Penny is not the feminist icon of our age. And yes, she does exist in the narrative as part of Doc's fate -- but everyone in the story is there to move the story. Is she less real than Hammer? (Is ANYTHING?) We gave her a cause so she wouldn't JUST be the Pretty Girl but the fact is, neither Doc nor Hammer gives her the attention she deserves -- Doc's crush comes before he has the slightest idea what she cares about. Which is not uncommon. It reminds me of "Sweeney Todd," the Judge and Sweeney singing "Pretty Women" -- a beautiful duet with no insight whatsoever. Just images.

But we shoulda gave her more jokes.

CD/DVD von Dr. Horrible soll vor Weihnachten kommen. Other hilarity:

RE: Sequel: Okay, if no sequel, perhaps a spin-off with "Fake Thomas Jefferson"?

Joss Whedon: Fake Thomas Jefferson is so difficult! He demands to design and build his own trailer. He has an entourage he calls "Congeress" that is HUGE! And his wig kinda smells.

Übder den Humor in Dollhouse:

Atlanta: What will the humor/drama ratio look like in "Dollhouse," compared to Buffy or Firefly?

Joss Whedon: Less overt humor -- "Dollhouse" is more a real-world piece. But asking me not to make jokes is like asking Monet to lose the lilypads. We've all got our tics.

Nach Dollhouse, jetzt Dr. Horrible, aber mit etwas mehr Nachvollziehbarkeit:

And naturally, in a story with three characters, two male and one female, there is a love triangle at work, and as is often the case, the woman in that story becomes more of a prop at play in the interaction between the two men. The real relationship struggle, the real competition is between Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer. The reason Penny has lasting appeal to Captain Hammer is because it’s one more front on which he can assert his superiority over Dr. Horrible - while the scene where Captain Hammer assures Dr. Horrible that he will be having sex with Dr. Horrible’s crush was admittedly hilarious, due mainly to Nathan Fillion’s delivery, it depended entirely upon playing out their battle with one another using a woman’s body as a way of scoring points. Worst of all, Penny dies at the end, in exactly the kind of death scene we’ve complained about several times on this site - one that serves almost exclusively to progress the character development of the men in her life. She dies as a result of the competition between the two men, accidentally, by getting in the way. Despite the fact that immediately before Dr. Horrible arrived on the scene, she seemed to be recognizing her boyfriend’s incredible arrogance and selfishness, with her dying breath, she sings “Captain Hammer will save us”. Not only does this show her as the woman to be rescued (if unsuccessfully), the main point of having her say it was to take away that last thing that made Dr. Horrible want to be…not horrible, and cement his commitment to proving himself as the most evil person alive.

Sowohl die Kommentare dort, als auch die bei whedonesque sind diesbezüglich auch höchst spannend. Endlich mal wieder coole Diskussionen. Hier gibt's noch eine.

(In der Reihe "Whedon und der Feminismus" ist der Klassiker natürlich diese Analyse von Firefly. Diesmal aber mit nada Nachvollziehbarkeit.)