Dollhouse

Dushku Defends—And Spoils!—Dollhouse

Eliza Dushku, who stars in Joss Whedon’s upcoming Fox SF series Dollhouse, offered SCI FI Wire some spoilers for her adventures—that her character portrays a blind cult follower and a 50-year-old woman in early episodes—and defended the show against the negative buzz building around it.

On the show, Dushku plays a woman who is imprinted with different personalities, several per episode, as each of their missions require.

"Last episode, they surgically implant cameras into my eyeballs and send me into a cult compound as a blind woman," Dushku said in an interview on Dec. 2 in Culver City, Calif., where she was promoting the film Nobel Son. "I was playing this tripped-out blind woman. Then I’m playing a 50-something-year-old woman in my own body in this next episode. There are just so many stories."

Since it’s Joss Whedon, of course, these dolls kick some butt, too. "I did a six-page Muay Thai fight scene last week with a 6-foot, 5-inch man, and I kicked his ass," Dushku bragged.

The star, who developed the show with Whedon, also offered a positive take on some of the perceived troubles facing Dollhouse. If critics call its Friday 9 p.m. timeslot the "death slot," Dushku reminds them that appointment television is old news anyway. "Dude, we’re in the age of DVR," she said. "People watch what they want to watch."

Dushku’s also high on Dollhouse’s lead-in from the low-rated Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. "I know Terminator is Joss’ favorite show on Fox, and it’s going to be female-empowerment night," she said.

News that Whedon had to reshoot the original pilot also caused concern. But Dushku assured that it was Whedon’s creative decision. His original vision was for a film-noir tone, and he decided that straight-up action works better for the series, she said.

Likewise, any retooling Whedon did for the first 13 episodes was in the interest of making a more exciting show. "I think [the way] he also originally had outlined it, we had the 13 episode pickup, but he wanted to gradually play out stories and do a lot of setups," she said. "[The network] wanted more payoffs early on to hook people, I think, so we made that adjustment. I think it’s been really successful. The scripts are tight, solid, fast, action, drama, comedy. It’s really great." Dollhouse premieres Feb. 13 2009 on Fox.