"Cherchez la femme."
The first trailer (download mp4) for Joss Whedon's new show for Fox, Dollhouse, was just released and...I'm excited.
What the look and feel of it most reminds me of are, first of all, the last season of Angel, about a bunch of "good" people who happen to be running an evil law firm. But also, perhaps even more strongly, ABC's La Femme Nikita, which was, looking past the "anti-terrorism" smokescreen, also a show about identity and truth, about losing your autonomy in a sinister corporation that treats you as simply "the material". Of course, Dollhouse is not going to be as unrelentingly bleak and monochromatic as LFN was, but take a look at Olivia Williams, who plays the woman who runs the Dollhouse in the picture above (second from right) - doesn't she remind you of Madeline in S1 LFN?
Echo (Eliza Dushku) is an "Active," a member of a highly illegal and underground group who have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas. Confined to a secret facility known as the "Dollhouse," Echo and the other Actives including Sierra (Dichen Lachman) and Victor (Enver Gjokaj) carry out engagements assigned by Adelle (Olivia Williams), one of the Dollhouse leaders. The engagements cater to the wealthy, powerful and connected, and require the Actives to immerse themselves in all manner of scenarios - romantic, criminal, uplifting, dangerous, comical and the occasional "pro bono" good deed. After each scenario, Echo, always under the watchful eye of her handler Boyd (Harry Lennix), returns to the mysterious Dollhouse where her thoughts, feelings and experiences are erased by Topher (Fran Kranz), the Dollhouse's genius programmer.
Despite being rather put-off at first when I heard about the concept of the show, I've gotten more and more intrigued about it as the cast was gradually assembled: English actress Olivia Williams (Peter Pan), whom I adore but who has never really got her "big break" (favourite onscreen moment: playing Phillipa Chaucer opposite Paul Bettany in a scene that was eventually cut from A Knight's Tale), maybe because she so rarely plays up to how beautiful she is; and Battlestar Galactica's Tahmoh Penikett, well, I'd follow those strong arms anywhere, don'tyaknow? There's also Harry J. Lennix (Matrix Revolutions), Amy Acker (Angel) and Fran Kranz as other members of the Dollhouse "staff". Enver Gjokaj and Dichen Lachman are relative newcomers, but I look forward to seeing what they can do as other Actives, Victor and Sierra.
HiRes promo pictures have been posted by shawnawitter at dollhouse_tv.