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The Whedon Curse

We discuss the tragic Whedon curse that may or may not befall Dollhouse.

August 5, 2008

There is no denying Joss Whedon's indelible fingerprint in the pop-culture firmament. Whedon's story-telling sensibilities have earned him a well-deserved and steadfast following, due mostly to the monolithic runs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. In the straight math, though, Whedon's luck has been a study in getting it right the second time around - if you were to sum up the trend, it'd be hard to look at Whedon's latest effort to boggle the minds of the TVsphere, Dollhouse, without a bit of heavy hearted cynicism. Before you Whedonites get your pitch-forks from your closets and spark up your torches, let me explain.

Joss Whedon's history as a writer is mostly founded on high-concept enrichments of genre perennials. Vampires meet Valley Girl. Space Opera meets The Magnificent Seven. Frankenstein meets Alien meets The Exorcist. You get it. It's the type of story formulation that is tantamount to a chemist throwing random chemicals together hoping for an explosion. The difference between Whedon's efforts and the usual crop of "this plus that" cookie-cutter development in the 'wood is that Whedon is acutely aware of his audience and has remarkable taste in who he brings in to further extend his 'vision.' Oh, and some freaking remarkable casting too.

Strangely though, Whedon's creations rarely succeed the first time around, for one reason or another. Buffy the Vampire Slayer the movie is case in point. The line that Whedonites tow is that Joss's 'vision' was tampered with so heavily that the film cannot be considered an adequate representation of what he would later establish in the mythology of the series. There's no real reason to doubt that, Buffy the Vampire Slayer the series does extend from the universe of the original script, not the movie; but this isn't about the story. The idea that a flop movie, regardless of how well regarded the original script was, would be resurrected five years later as a television series is a bit... off.

Put away your filet knives. I realize Whedon himself has been very vocal about his dissatisfaction with the original film, and there is no denying the addictiveness of the Buffyverse. But it makes a great example of how Whedon's success seems to come in second chances.

Whedon's luck continued with Firefly. Well, not exactly Firefly. Firefly's overt obsession with being a series 'western' was somewhat offensive to some science fiction fans; especially those that figured the 'wild frontier' motif had already been done to perfection - making Whedon's crystallization of the combo superfluous. Fans and zealots (there is little difference when it comes to Whedon) are quick to point fingers at FOX, and despite the network's reputation for having a quick kill finger they did run eleven episodes with abysmal ratings. Enter Serenity.

Serenity jettisoned the more harsh contours of Firefly's Civil War/Frontier/Star Wars amalgam and became more of fan success. Despite failing to set the box office on fire, Whedon's second shot at his vision was relatively immune to the complaints of critics who found the series' attempt to juggle the mish-mash am exercise in boredom.

It's an inversion of the Buffy experiment. Buffy fails as a feature film, but succeeds - wildly - as a television series (and, oh, so much more.) So it would seem completely likely that Firefly, which failed as a series, would become a big screen success. The gamble surely rested squarely on Whedon's Buffy musk. But alas, it was not to be. Serenity wound up doing enough business to fulfill the cynical prediction that it would ultimately be nothing more than a costly thank you to a small, but mighty, fan-base.

Again, though, this has nothing to do with the merits - or lack of - in the story. It has everything to do with the fact that Whedon seems to get a second shot at everything, regardless of how severely his first round tanks. With his largest successes being based in mythologies that transcend any single contributor - let's face it, Vampires are a pretty rich foundation - Whedon's bag of tricks becomes a bit redundant and obvious. Whedon's career is marked with familiarity, themes that have existed a lot longer than he has and already been produced successfully ad nauseum, and deceptively powerful female characters. His deification seems more the stuff of Tiger Beat than the shock waves of a genuine groundbreaker touching down. Which brings us to Dollhouse.

Even before Dollhouse hits the air there is without argument a tremendous amount of Whedon excitement in the air. After much pomp and circumstance, Whedon's stab at Wonder Woman collapsed - but it was almost too much of an affirmation of Whedon's feminist mastery to stomach any ways. With that out of the way, the Whedon slate is full of promising projects. First, the notion of a big screen Buffy reunion was whispered at Paley, next is the forthcoming horror flick "Cabin in the Woods," co-written by Whedon and Drew Goddard. So if Dollhouse should fall to land big, Whedon has plenty of those second chances (and maybe a third, with Buffy) to fall back on. But will it?

DOLLHOUSE REVEALED - THE FIRST DRAFT TELLS ALL
DOLLHOUSE REVEALED - THE FIRST DRAFT TELLS ALL

DOLLHOUSE REVEALED - THE FIRST DRAFT TELLS ALL

Dollhouse is very much in Whedon's power-zone in one regard. If you know your pre-Buffy history, you'll know that Whedon has a long relationship with the concept of the damsel becoming her own hero; the concept was alive before it became Buffy, and has lived on in one respect or another in just about everything Whedon creates. Whether Whedon continued to become more and more aware of the empowerment and feminist issues as time went on, it is clear to any Buffy fan (particularly male ones) that Buffy became a platform for such issues.

Not having seen the actual pilot, but having read the first draft of the script, I can safely say that Dollhouse is a continuation of that woman-power branding that Whedon does so well, yet this time the theme is a bit more universal; but will audiences be 'on' to Whedon this time around? I have to admit, I let out an audile groan when I found out Whedon was doing Wonder Woman. I'm not a big enough fan of Whedon to be utterly convinced, but I've always chalked up Whedon's grasp of feminine struggles to the presence of Jane Espenson and, of course, Marti Noxon. When the buzz of Whedon bringing his perfected brand of feminism to the comic book heroine began to circulate, I felt a bit bad for him.

Where Dollhouse exceeds, though, is in the unisexual nature of its message. For those who don't know, Dollhouse is essentially about a group of identity-less operatives who can be imprinted with a brand new identity and memories. Each week they go on an adventure, while an underlying mythos chugs along about just who (or what) they are and whether or not they are developing identities of their own. In a sense of symbolism, it is Whedon's largest canvas yet; the 'Dollhouse' of the title is just that, a life-size dollhouse where the 'Actives' (or 'Dolls') live when they are not on their missions. The series stars Whedon regular Eliza Dushku, who is also named as a co-producer of the show, as Echo - an active who begins to become self aware. You could easily decipher that the Dollhouse is representative of our own society, and Echo is representative of our own individual inner struggle to maintain a sense of self amongst a world where we are expected to fit archetypes that are decidedly not 'us.'

What Dollhouse lacks is extensibility. Paul Smith (played by Galactica's Tahmoh Penikett), is a Federal Agent out to discover the secret behind the Actives. How long can he go without making any progress before he becomes nothing but an incompetent foe, ala the Incredible Hulk series' Jack McGee? Spoiler: Smith winds up getting gut-shot by Echo in the pilot, so you can be sure he will be gunning for the Dollhouse. Evidence that great western motifs are still a part of Whedon's MO.

The episodic elements of the series, the missions, seem like, yet again, another high concept melding of themes. This time maybe a little Phillip K. Dick Total Recall (AKA We can Dream it for you, Wholesale.) meets The Equalizer, by way of Alias.

The success seems hinge on a sort of oblique proposition: building characters from who they are not, instead of who they are, and in the process perhaps casting a suspect eye on the modern-age view of identity. To do that successfully, the questions of who is behind it and why have to become uninteresting if the show is to appeal to those who lapped up the broad based mythology of the Buffyverse - which didn't rely on a static foundation to play its hand.

Whedon himself seems to be somewhat pre-apologetic for the series; always speaking in tones that only an industry insider would understand, and then maybe. Much of his commentary about returning to FOX and TV in general has been around giving the network what 'they' want and balancing that against his own vision, skirting the issue of what we all know networks really want, BIG numbers. It is a scenario that leaves Whedon off the hook should FOX's itchy trigger finger begin to twitch.

Already, there are signs and rumors and portents that the show may be on thin ice. FOX decided to book the show based on the strength of Whedon's pitch, investing what would have otherwise been pilot money into the shows signature set, the Dollhouse. In the time since then, Whedon has decided to push the pilot out to the second episode and create a prequel as the pilot, eluding that the original pilot, "Echo", is a bit too in-media-res for casual viewers.

With the scope of Whedon's career, though, would a cancellation really be such a bad thing for fans or Whedon himself? In the Whedonverse, the death of a concept is a sort of phoenix like event, that always finds the concept ascending from the ashes in blazing glory. Like the Serenity movie perfect the odd balance of motifs in Firefly, and the Buffy series achieved the hard-core stereotype smashing that Whedon had hoped for in the feature, a Dollhouse flop could easily lead to a more sterling iteration - when we least expect it.

See More: Dollhouse | Angel | Buffy | Eliza Dushku | Firefly | Joss Whedon | pilot | Serenity | Spoilers | Whedon