Wish I was in Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse meditation room right now.
Tuesdays tour of the enormous set–one of five studio production visits crammed into the final day of press tour–was both cool and cruel. After a grueling TCA, with three weeks of network sessions crammed into two, it would have been nice to kick back and relax in that teak and stone setting, if just for an extra hour or three.
The Toronto Star today picked up my CP piece on the Dollhouse set visit, you can read more about it here.
Whedon and Dollhouse star Eliza Dushku (above) walked critics through four sets ups spread over two giant sound stages on the Fox lot. Later they sat and answered questions. Whedon’s introductory remarks addressed a lot of details about how the Dollhouse setting plays out. Here is what he had to say:
Obviously this is the main space of the Dollhouse. Up here gazing down upon us, as what we refer to as the Staples Center, this is Topher’s lab. That is Fran Franz’s character; the programmer. He watches over everything all the time from in there. Next to it is the imprint room, where we have the special chair, or we will have the special chair after it has been redesigned to work. Over there, obviously the gym. They spend a lot of time working on their bodies. They are basically like children in here. Very enthusiastic, very optimistic, very slow. They eat fine food in the excellent dining area and it is delicious spa fair. They have a crafts sort of meditation center, over here, where they do some finger painting and what not. This behind in here, is the lab of Dr Saunders. You’ll notice that it is the one sort of enclosed and darker area. This is next to the massage area.
Apparently a lot of this came to Whedon in a dream, including details about how the “puppets” in the Dollhouse are controlled. I’m pretty sure all of this will be the model for press tour in a year or two, as soon as the networks work out a few bugs.
