The blogosphere - Jeebus I hate that word - is all abuzz over news that Joss Whedon has shut down production on "Dollhouse" for a couple of weeks to spend work on scripts. You can read the ZAP2It and TV Week stories that started the alarm, and check out some of the cooler heads' blog react here, here and here. No surprise that people are freaking out over the news - Whedon is a creative saint of the television business, rightly revered for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and martyred when Fox cut short his series "Firefly." His little writers-strike diversion, "Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog," only increased his popularity. And the fact that he is a kind of average-looking, mildly slobby, flannel-shirt wearing dude who actually likes his fans and communicates with them no doubt contributes to his belovedness.
"Dollhouse" is one of the few new shows this season about which fans have high hopes. But already this spring there were rumors that the network was going to fuck things up again, to the point that fans started a "Save Dollhouse" site on Facebook. In part that was because Whedon re-shot the pilot after the network saw the original version. When we visited the set during press tour, a relaxed Whedon swore up down and sideways that the changes were as much his idea as theirs and will help to introduce the show's rather complicated premise to viewers.
Now even a good guy like Whedon is not about Hollywood spin, but what was clear from that tour was that he and Fox are really going big with this show. I mean big - you should see the sets, which must have cost a gazillion dollars and take up two giant soundstages at Fox. And he only called a production halt after directing the first two episodes consumed so much of his time that writing took the hindmost. Plus everything has been screwed up since the writers strike - pilot season, production schedules, everything. So, unlike "24," I don't think this delay is necessarily a sign of huge problems behind the scenes. We should all just chill about the delay, and trust in Joss.
(Top right, star Eliza Dushku. Left, Whedon and Dushku on the set.)
