Dollhouse brings sex kitten super-spies to the Sci Fi Channel, 9pm

The man behind Buffy and Angel returns with a new series

by: Sarah Hughes | 19 May 2009

MEET Echo. She's a hotshot hostage negotiator, a spy catcher, a cult infiltrator and both hunter and prey.

She's a serious, sensible girl who thinks before she acts - and a scantily clad sex kitten with a love of fast cars.

In fact, for the right sum of money Echo can be anything you want. There's only one catch: she doesn't know it, and if you bump into her the next day she won't remember you at all.

This is Dollhouse. It's Charlies Angels meets The Bourne Identity, and the sort of high-concept drama you might dismiss out of hand were it not for one thing - it's also what Joss Whedon did next.

In truth, Whedon, the genius behind Buffy, Angel and, most recently, internet sensation Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, is the last person you'd expect to see returning to network TV, given his outspoken comments following the premature cancellation of his space opera Firefly.

Whedon lays the blame for his return at the feet of his leading lady Eliza Dushku. "Eliza snared me in her web," he laughs. "We went out for lunch and she looked at me with her big eyes and talked at me until I agreed. It's no secret I had a bad experience with Firefly, but the people I worked with on that were no longer at the network and it was like a fresh start."

Not that work on Dollhouse was plain sailing. There has been controversy over the fact Dushku's character, Echo, has signed not only her life but her personality over to the sinister corporation for which she works.

After each assignment her mind is wiped clean of all memory, making her a blank slate upon whom her predominantly wealthy, mainly male clients can imprint their desires. It is, Whedon admits, an uncomfortable scenario, but one integral to the show.

"I wanted to explore what you would do it you could fulfil your every fantasy, what boundaries could be crossed," he says. "There are issues of consent which have made peoople uncomfortable - and they should, that's the point."

Not that this was the only problem. "It was a real issue trying to work out what I wanted to do and what the network wanted and how it was all going to work out," admits Whedon.

All of which is a polite way of saying that Fox believed Dollhouse would work best as a straight drama featuring cases of the week rather than the mythology-heavy kind of show with which Whedon made his name.

"People were a little freaked out by the first episodes," he says. "They were like, 'Who are these people? Where's our dysfunctional Joss family? We don't like this.' I understood why the network felt it was best to start with standalone episodes - the casual viewer is turned off if they're expected to know the back-story."

That said, the later episodes of Dollhouse, where tentative alliances are formed and the issue of the "dolls" level of consent is tackled, are easily the strongest, and the series was recently renewed despite low ratings. "It's been a tough year but I think eventually we cracked it and the last few episodes have been among the best that I have done," Whedon said. I'm just glad that [in contrast to Firefly] we're getting to tell the story we want to at the pace that we want to."