Dollhouse at Comic Con

Warning: Spoilers ahead for “Epitaph One”!

Joss Whedon, as Adam Baldwin put it on Saturday, is “a Comic Con god.” I don’t think that’s an understatement given the reaction to Dollhouse’s thirteenth episode, “Epitaph One”, and the way everyone reacted to the forty-five minutes that followed the episode. Without a moderator, the panel took the form of questions from the large crowd in Ballroom 20.

At the start a fan yelled, “Can we get answers?” before Whedon gave a cryptic reply about not really wanting to answer that one. The first official question asked if either Victor or Whiskey/Dr. Saunders would ever be “fixed” from their less than perfect states. Whedon confirmed that it will happen at some point, and added that he’d like to hire the questioner to the writing staff.

Dichen Lachman, Joss Whedon, Eliza Dushku and Fran Kranz on the Dollhouse panel / photo by Genevieve

Next Whedon joked “I met him” when someone asked why he cast Alan Tudyk as Alpha, before giving a longer answer about Tudyk’s  Shakespearean readings that cemented the role.

Another fan asked what Whedon was reading, and he replied back with “Julie and Julia”, before going into a Julia Child impression.

Dushku was asked which character she liked playing the most, and she responded with a few of the characters from various points in the season.

Still inspired by his past cast members, Felicia Day’s appearance in “Epitaph One” came from a suggestion of Sarah Fain, one of the Dollhouse writers/producers. Whedon went on to say that Alexis Denisof will appear in an episode this season, and “if the stars align, a little Glau.”

A male fan asked Dushku what sort of person she might have been if she weren’t an actor, but Whedon beat her to the punch by responding with “ a missionary”, cueing much fan applause.

Following that a fan complained about how Whedon has a tendency to kill off her favorite characters. Whedon wanted to know who her favorite Dollhouse character was, but she declined to comment for fear of losing him/her. He finally answered that he either didn’t like people, or that he kills characters because of the story (or, in some cases, as the contract allows).

Issues of ethical treatment of the dolls will be addressed, at some point. Since the dolls, as property of each house, and can die, the issue of what happens to that original personality is germane. Whedon revealed that Inara, in Firefly, was in fact dying, but that wasn’t why she had the syringe.

Whedon cautioned that the future as seen in “Epitaph One” is not necessarily what we will see happen on the show. The memories from those imprints might not be true, but the future from that episode will inform the show. On a related note, the three remaining characters at the end of “Epitaph One” will be in the premiere this season.

When one fan asked about the planet names in an episode of Firefly had any reference to The Tempest, Whedon called himself “the laziest man alive” in part because he also created an Illyria.

Whedon confirmed that there will be a Dr. Horrible sequel at some point, though no date was given.  Dushku then segued nicely into Dichen Lachman and Fran Kranz coming up on stage for the remainder of the panel.

Whedon’s writing process was hard to capture from his quote, but he did mention a large board with broad comments about each character – such as “is whipped”, “is a doll”, etc. –  as well as little heads of each character for the dart board.

The context has been lost on my audio recording, but there was a very fun jab at Heroes for the feudal Japan storyline from Book Two. That received a good laugh from the audience. [Melissa’s note: I believe the quote was, “I think that as long as we don’t send anyone to Feudal Japan, we’re pretty much okay.”]

The next question went to a little girl who asked “Echo” if she was going to be in season two of Dollhouse after talking about a movie Eliza is planning to shoot. Joss quipped with a “talkie” joke, after Dushku explained that the movie will not conflict with shooting Dollhouse.

Towards the end a question was asked about the similarities between the Reavers and the controlled zombies from “Epitaph One” before talking about other similarities between some aspects of Serenity and Dollhouse. Later, the final question asked about the theme of big corporations and their intents. Whedon came back with a long answer about the way in which these companies manage to get everyone to want what we might not need.