Playing with Dolls: An Advance Look at Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse" Pilot Script

I am still trying to catch my breath.

I'm talking about my reaction last night after reading Joss Whedon's brilliantly evocative script for his new seven-episode drama series for FOX, Dollhouse.

If there's one thing that Dollhouse has been this development season in Hollywood, it's been THE script to try to get your hands on. After weeks of conniving, begging, and bartering, I finally managed to get my greedy mitts on the script and hungrily devoured the 54-page script in about fifteen minutes, seemingly without pausing to breathe.

While I had extremely high expectations for Dollhouse (I always trust in the Joss), I was worried that, after all of the hype and hoopla, it wouldn't quite live up to my preconceived notions about the project. I am happy to say that not only were those expectations matched but they were exceeded. This isn't latter-day Alias by any stretch of the imagination: while there are still costume changes and choreographed fight sequences, it delves into bigger issues of morality and mortality and asks hard questions about the ethical ramifications of science and technology.

Yes, there is much more to Dollhouse than meets the eye and Whedon succeeds here by filling his script with a multitude of morally grey characters engaged in one of the most sickening and intriguing displays of human trafficking ever devised. I don't want to spoil anything but I will say that there there's an unexplained back story (referred to as Alpha) that will likely come into play down the line and the power structure within the Dollhouse is a fluctuating, living thing unto itself. As for the Dollhouse itself, it certainly didn't "look" anything like I expected it to based on the information that was trickling out during casting: it's not a draconian prison nor an icy SD-6-type operations hub; instead it's more like a serene, Japanese-influenced, high-tech spa for the Actives.

But there's a real undercurrent of danger lurking here and the staffers--from jokey and amoral tech Topher and gruff handler Boyd to the physically scarred Dr. Claire Saunders and manipulative overseer Adelle DeWitt--engage in a high-stakes game of human chess, with the Actives little more than expendable pawns. Or, well, dolls.

As for Dollhouse's lead character Echo, this is quite a role that Whedon has written for Eliza Dushku, allowing her to play a variety of personalities and moods in a single episode. In fact, we get to see Echo in no less than five (off the top of my head anyway) identities in the pilot episode alone. As we all know, Echo is struggling with self-awareness, as she begins remembering things from her previous "engagements" that she shouldn't, things that should have been wiped clean from her memory by Topher. Things that her "captors" don't want her to remember.

So is it an action-adventure yarn? A story of science gone mad? A tale about a cop determined to get at the truth no matter what the cost? Or a metaphysical drama about the nature of memory and identity? Why can't it be all of the above?

In the gifted hands of Joss Whedon, Dollhouse is a beautiful enigma wrapped in a riddle, a gripping conspiracy story for the ages filled with urban legends, memory tampering, and long-buried secrets coming to the fore. It's a Shakespearean story of hubris and likely vengeance, filled with sound and fury and signifying, well, lots.

I'm hungry for more.

Joss Whedon's seven-episode drama Dollhouse launches this fall on FOX.