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Joss Whedon Says No Dark Horse Comic Tie-in with Dollhouse
by Troy Rogers
 After garnering huge fan bases with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel in the 1990s, and a loyal cult following for his short-lived Firefly series, writer/creator Joss Whedon returns to the Fox airwaves on Friday, February 13 with Dollhouse. Bringing his sci-fi game into Dollhouse, Whedon has created a world where people's minds are wiped clean for the purpose of using the new human "Dolls" (aka: Actives) to carry out various jobs, fantasies, missions, and even crimes while their "handlers" watch over their every move. Starring Eliza Dushku in the lead role of Echo, a woman who begins to become self-aware after having her mind rebooted, Dollhouse looks to tap into the magic that Joss Whedon gave his fans on a weekly basis with Buffy and Angel, with a bit of sci fi that some of his fans related to in Firefly.
With Dollhouse set to air, we wiped our slate clean to join a conference call with Joss Whedon where we had the chance to get "active" about how the audience will connect to the characters and whether we'll see a Dark Horse comic tie-in.
THE DEADBOLT: How will the audience connect with any of the actives? Are they supposed to be like empty vessels that get filled up each week with new information and missions?
 JOSS WHEDON: Well, they’re supposed to be empty vessels, and the constant struggle in the Dollhouse is that they’re not quite. Echo and Sierra have formed a kind of bond and that Echo is clearly evolving in a way that they’ve not programmed her to do. So the ideal is to create people that people can relate to, because they were so helpless and so innocent, and then let them have these nascent senses of identity and of their surroundings. And create sympathy through that as well as through, obviously, the characters that they become.
THE DEADBOLT: Will there be a Dark Horse comic tie-in for Dollhouse?
WHEDON: There won’t. You know, the science fiction of this is much more fiction than science. Ultimately it’s actors acting differently, which is not that - Something you really need to see drawn. There is, however, CSI comic books. So I guess everything could be a comic book. But I don’t feel it lends itself in the same way that my other fictions have.
Other Conference Call Highlights:
Joss Whedon on the fans starting save the show campaigns before it even airs:
 "Usually, words of calm in these situations lead to panic. If you say there's nothing to panic about, somebody says, 'He said the word panic.' Basically, we found the show. My concern isn't whether the show gets saved. It's whether these fans who are panicking about it love it. They may get over their panic. They may see it and go, "You know, actually, we're OK." The network should do what they think is right.
"Ultimately, the support is very sweet, and the fact that people care and they want to see the show get a chance. That's important to me, too, because it really is a show that finds itself as it goes along. But, at the end of the day, my biggest concern is that I give them something worth panicking over."
Whedon on the show's Friday timeslot and being paired with Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles:
 "Honestly, I really do see the opportunity there, because the deal with the Friday night timeslot was you don't come out, bang, opening weekend, and it's all decided. It's about growing a fan base, both for Dollhouse and [Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which will lead into Dollhouse]. I think Terminator is a remarkably good show, and the kind of show that makes sense to be paired with Dollhouse, so I feel great about that.
"Ultimately, this is a show where people will hopefully become intrigued and then hang in, that really builds, so it needs the 13 weeks, and it needs the 13 weeks of people paying attention. But not so much attention that it gets burned out in the glare of the spotlight. I've always worked best under the radar. Most of my shows people have come to after they stopped airing, but I would like to buck that trend."
Joss Whedon on topics he would like to address in future episodes:
"Well, the constant topic of identity is one. And, you know, there are ones that were originally on the slate that didn’t quite fit the venue and had to sort of stand back. We had an episode about Rwandan boy soldiers that was really about how we imprint people now, how we literally brainwash people and sort of contrasting that with the Dollhouse.
"There’s an episode, really, about perversion. It was about sort of sexual shame and people’s ability to deal with real people that was I thought ultimately very heart and very strange and very beautiful. But again, didn’t make the cut for the first thirteen. So those are some that would be coming up."
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