After watching ‘Buffy,’ ‘Angel,’ and ‘Firefly,’ it’s not hard to tell that Joss Whedon’s latest, ‘Dollhouse,’ starring Eliza Dushku of Buffy fame, and which airs on Friday nights on Fox, is not his best work. I’ve faithfully watched all Whedon’s shows, and I’m a cult fan of Buffy, that’s for sure, so I have to admit, ‘Dollhouse’ has been a bit of a disappointment. While it’s true, the show has grown on me now that it is well into season two, it has (almost) none of that awesome, wacky humor mixed with angst and action that really marks Whedon’s other three series.
That’s why I wasn’t surprised to hear that ‘Dollhouse’ has been canceled.
On the bright side, in an extensive interview posted on the Chicago Tribune’s “The Watcher” blog, Joss Whedon discusses in depth his original vision for ‘Dollhouse,’ which was supposed to involve “what we get from each other in our most intimate relationships, be they sexual or whatever else,” and “particularly sexual” fantasies. Whedon explained how the show strayed from this original vision, though: “The idea of sexuality was a big part of the show when it started and when that fell out, when the show turned into a thriller every week, it took something out of it that was kind of basic to what we were trying to do.”
As it turns out, it was the sexy stuff that got the show canceled by Fox, and Whedon incredibly “frustrated” about how Fox got all “twitchy” about the sexual themes, urging him to focus more on espionage and much less on the sex.
While, in theory, the idea of exploring sexuality in depth via ‘Dollhouse’ is an interesting idea, in reality, it’s pretty creepy–to the extent that they do explore it on the show. Also, central to all of Whedon’s other shows are their mythologies, and ‘Dollhouse’ is sorely lacking in one of these–which Whedon comments on as well.
So once again, that’s it for Joss Whedon and television for now. You can catch the last episodes of season two on Fridays on Fox, which is airing double episodes of ‘Dollhouse’ for the next few weeks until the end of January, and you can find out about all other upcoming projects-Joss-Whedon through the very, very long interview. My absolute favorite thing I found out? Joss Whedon will be directing an episode of glee! Yippee. I can’t wait.