Joss Whedon's Dollhouse

Eliza on her character's storylines: "...they surgically implant cameras into my eyeballs and send me into a cult compound as a blind woman...Then I'm playing a 50-something-year-old woman in my own body in this next episode. There are just so many stories."

The idea is those with the money or connections can access this secret highly illegal facility where they can basically fulfill their greatest fantasies.

Most people assume that means sex-and on an occasion it does, because that is a lot of people's fantasies-but it's basically scenarios. They can basically reenact scenarios of romance, adventure or anything perfectly, because they become the person that you want them to be-they become that person. They don't act like that person, they are not a robot pretending, they become that person, and then they forget all about it.

The problem is the character of Echo, Eliza Dushku's character, stops forgetting. She doesn't completely remember, but she does realize she is a person, and that she might have been a person before she did this, and she doesn't know what that is.

Yes, we've had to make adjustments. Yes, it's been hard and I've been depressing to be around for awhile.

Basically, the Network and I had different ideas about what the tone of the show would be. They bought something somewhat different [to] what I was selling them, which is not that uncommon in this business.

Their desires were not surprising: up the stakes, make the episodes more stand-alone, stop talking about relationships and cut to the chase. Oh, and add a chase. That you can cut to.

Nothing I hadn't heard before on my other shows (apparently my learning curve has no bendy part) but frustrating as hell given our circumstances - a pilot shot, scripts written, everybody marching together/gainfully employed... and then a shutdown. Glad I was for the breathing room, but it's hardly auspicious.

So back into the writer cave I went, wondering why I put up with this when I can make literally dozens of dollars making internet movies. Why I do put up with this is divided into three parts.

Read the blog post

"We're planning to do one [webisode] for every episode produced. Whether we pull that off remains to be seen."

Update: Fox has indicated that the webisodes are now unlikely to be produced.

"FOX understands what it is we're trying to do. I understand clearly what they want. And while there's definitely a back and forth, there's a collaboration. Not just people glaring at each-other.

"I feel really good about how they plan to position it, and their feeling about it as a concept and as a show."

I love the effort, but do think it tends to put us in the cheap seats.