The Sly Oyster | culture & entertainment on the sly

For those few readers that stick it out around here day to day, you probably have an inkling about my anticipation for anything and everything Joss Whedon. And when you throw in Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion into the mix for a superhero musical, well, my anticipation gasket just about blew.

We finally have a trailer for Joss’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. If you remember, “It’s the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to,” Whedon says.

The goggles on NPR are perfect and as someone who has been to one of those Buffy “Once More With Feeling” sing-along musical episodes held at a theater (yes, dear internet you’ve taken my last shred of dignity), I can attest that Joss knows his musicals.

Look for this to hit the internet sometime this summer, broken up into three ten-minute chapters.

The damn is starting to break on Joss Whedon’s upcoming FOX show Dollhouse, which was conceived alongside star Eliza Dusku.  The idea for the show came during a lunch meeting between the two, according to an interview that Joss gave with the LA Times.

“But I was trying to get a movie off the ground, “Goners.” “Wonder Woman” had already crashed and burned. “Goners” they had already lost control of the instruments, but who knows? So things were not that auspicious, but I was working it. Not shunning television but not intending to come back. But as we discussed Eliza’s predicament, I started giving her some ideas about what I thought she would need: a genre show so she could be political without being partisan; an ensemble show so she didn’t have to be in every scene. And I thought about it for a bit and then literally went, oh, curse word, I just came up with the show and the title. And it was the title that I knew I was doomed. Because if you have the title, you know it’s right. And that’s just bad,” said Whedon.

“When we really discussed the whole thing, she said, ‘You’re talking about my life. In my life, everybody tells me who they want me to be while I try and figure out who I am.’ And that spoke to me. I agreed that I’ll write and maybe oversee the pilot. So I went home and said, ‘Honey, I’m sorry, I accidentally agreed to a Fox show at lunch.’”

The show is set up as a midseason replacement that will air as the lead in show to 24, probably as good as any time slot as you could hope.  It’s just dependent on how fatigued the audience is for 24. The past two seasons have been pretty poor quality wise.  Regardless, it’s a good slot for Joss and Eliza’s new show.

What’s interesting though, is that FOX is going to try a new advertising model with Dollhouse and the J.J. Abrams produced Fringe. According to the Hollywood Reporter, FOX has decided to show only five-minutes worth of commercials during the hour-long shows, which is significantly less than the standard 15-20 minutes.

“It’s a simple concept and potentially revolutionary,” Fox Entertainment Chairman Peter Liguori said. “We’re going to have less commercials, less promotional time, and less reason for viewers to use the remote. We’re going to redefine the viewing experience.”

But ultimately that depends on the quality of the shows.  Whedon and Abrams are two of the best in the business and now FOX needs to stand by them and support the shows by guaranteeing a full season order.  That’s one reason why people don’t become invested in shows right away, because there is no guarantee that the show will air for more than five or six episodes.

So, what can you expect of Dollhouse? Here’s the press release:

Joss Whedon, creator of groundbreaking cult favorites “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly,” returns to television and reunites with fellow “Buffy” alumna Eliza Dushku for a thrilling new drama, DOLLHOUSE.

ECHO (Dushku) is an “Active,” a member of a highly illegal and underground group who have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas. Confined to a secret facility known as the “Dollhouse,” Echo and the other Actives including SIERRA (Dichen Lachman, “Neighbours”) and VICTOR (Enver Gjokaj, “The Unit”) carry out engagements assigned by ADELLE (Olivia Williams, “X-Men: The Last Stand,” “Rushmore”), one of the Dollhouse leaders.

The engagements cater to the wealthy, powerful and connected, and require the Actives to immerse themselves in all manner of scenarios romantic, criminal, uplifting, dangerous, comical and the occasional “pro bono” good deed. After each scenario, Echo, always under the watchful eye of her handler BOYD (Harry Lennix, “Commander in Chief,” 24), returns to the mysterious Dollhouse where her thoughts, feelings and experiences are erased by TOPHER (Fran Kranz, “Welcome to the Captain”), the Dollhouse’s genius programmer. Echo enters the next scenario with no memory of before. Or does she?

As the series progresses, FBI Agent PAUL SMITH (Tahmoh Penikett, “Battlestar Galactica”) pieces together clues that lead him closer to the Dollhouse, while Echo stops forgetting, her memories begin to return and she slowly pieces together her mysterious past. DOLLHOUSE revolves around Echo’s blossoming self-awareness and her desire to discover her true identity. But with each new engagement, comes a new memory and increased danger inside and outside the Dollhouse.

Sounds intrigueing and the premise leaves lots of room for Whedon to balance the mythology of the show with stand alone episodes.  Something he did to great effect with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Given the time he no doubt would have done it superbly with Firefly.

Update: Seat42F has an exclusive clip of the show.  I’m at work so I haven’t been able to watch.  The clip appears to be a finished scene and is, in all likelihood, out of context.  Take it for what you would. 

Zap2It has script reviews for two highly anticipated television projects. The first is for Fringe by JJ Abrams, starring Joshua Jackson (Pacey) and the second is Dollhouse by Joss Whedon, starring Eliza Dushku (whom I attended high school with when she was there and not filming some movie or whatnot).

Both series will air on FOX in the fall season.

Fringe is “going to be sold as FOX’s attempt to reclaim the X-Files demo that the network has jeopardized with the swift cancellation of too many shows from folks like Whedon and Tim Minear. The script lends itself to a large-scale pilot and it should leave viewers knowing exactly what to expect in the episodes to come, which is more than can be said for.” Also, getting into the JJ Abrams business is a good thing. His track record is fairly spotless and his following is very loyal.

The same thing can be said about Joss Whedon. His following is not so much loyal as it is messianic. But his track record with FOX is horrible. They’ve canceled every good show he’s done and not just his shows, but shows from Whedon’s acolytes like Tim Minear.

“While recognizably Whedonesque, Dollhouse finds Joss going in different direction, one that may be less quippy and less plot-driven than some might expect. The fans will still love it, I suspect, but will Dollhouse be able to find an audience beyond the Whedonverse? I’m not sure. So this could be one of those “Enjoy it while you’ve got it” gems.” That doesn’t sound good. Well it does, it just sounds like it will get canceled too soon.

In case you’re wondering how these could potentially play out as pilots, the article goes on to expound on what makes a compelling pilot.

A good pilot should do one of two things: It should either lay out the blueprint for the rest of the series or it should intrigue you so much that you can’t wait for the second episode. Fringe falls into the first category. It leaves almost nothing to the imagination in terms of what’s coming next. Dollhouse falls into the second category.

Uber geek Joss Whedon has given us another reason to want to bear hug him, as if giving us Buffy, Angel, and Firefly weren’t enough.

Seems that during an interview with AICN, Neil Patrick Harris (Is his resurgence one of the better things in life and proof God may actually exist?  It’s like he’s become the Roy Hobbs of Hollywood: a young promising start, fading away to obscurity and then getting one last chance in the big leagues.  We fully expect for him to figuratively shatter the field lights sometime soon.) revealed he was shooting a superhero musical titled Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog.

Joss then chimed in at his website Whedonesque:

“The bag is catless. During the strike I started writing a musical intended as a limited internet series, 3 episodes of approximately 10 minutes each.”

The interest spread and shooting began this week with NPH as Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer and Felicia Day as Penny. Day starred in Season 7 of Buffy as the young slayer Vi. So what’s it about yo?

“It’s the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to.”

Sounds perfectly geeky. Though it woulda been nice to get Alyson Hannigan, because the FCC says it’s okay for her to get naked, we’ll settle for Day. By the by, I miss being able to go to Coolidge Corner to watch the Buffy musical episode sing-a-long. They should get that going in Stumptown.  Also, if this is as good as it sounds, then yes, we’ll concede that NPH just hit one so freaking far that lightening struck as he rounds the bases and glass rains down from the light poles.

There is a free online novel that takes place in the Firefly universe being put out by sci-fi author Stephen Brust. I confess I am not familiar with him, but those who are seem very appreciative of his talents. I can’t tell you how good it is, because after reading the first couple of pages, I had to drop everything to make sure that I got the news to everybody in Oysterland.

If you’re like me, and find the best thing about the Whedonverse is the way he crafts dialogue, I think you will not be disappointed.

The novel is My Own Kind of Freedom, which can be downloaded here.

There’s a big rhinosaurus in the room for a lot of my friends. Many of them don’t quite no how to react when I admit my undying love for all things Joss Whedon. Sure, there’s probably a few of them who get it, but the majority of people don’t understand just how wonderful Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly truly are. I suspect this is the same for a lot of Whedon fans, because I suspect that we are a vocal majority on the internet and find comfort in people from across the globe that share that love. Out in the real world we are viewed as something akin to lepers.

I won’t bother with the histrionics of Whedon acolytes or with trying to convert the unconvertable. But I will say, that I have no shame in loving his television programming, his sense of female empowerment, his sense of verbal foreplay, or his deft blend of action and humor. His voice is unique in the same way that Judd Apatow’s voice is reshaping the scope of what a comedy can be. Both manage to make geek chic, in their own identifiable way.

And for that we say welcome back to the small tubes Joss. Hopefully, your next series with Eliza Dushku will be more of a success than your last venture with FOX.

Dushku will star in the Whedon-penned series “Dollhouse,” which has been given a seven-episode order by Fox. News came as an extra-big Halloween treat for Whedon fans, considered some of the most passionate in all of TV.

Produced by 20th Century Fox TV — the studio also behind “Buffy,” “Angel” and Whedon’s late, lamented “Firefly” – “Dollhouse” follows a top-secret world of people programmed with different personalities, abilities and memories depending on their mission.

After each assignment — which can be physical, romantic or even illegal — the characters have their memories wiped clean, and are sent back to a lab (dubbed the “Dollhouse”). Show centers on Dushku’s character, Echo, as she slowly begins to develop some self-awareness, which impacts her missions.

Sounds like an interesting concept, one that won’t see the cathoray tubes until Fall of 2008. Apparantly, the show started as a germ when Whedon and Dushku sat down for lunch to discuss her options after signing a talent deal with FOX. Tim Minear, a long time Whedon collaborator, is also involved with this project.

“It was a mistake!” Whedon said. “I sat down with her to talk about her options, 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.’ “

It should also be noted that Eliza Dushku went to high school with me, not that we were friends or anything but it was a small enough high school and she always seemed like a good person. I once acted in a few plays as a young lad. So you know, I’ve got that going for me.