FUTURE ON FOX

Joss knows his audience, and recruited some fan favorites for the new episodes of Dollhouse.

Here’s the press release for all the casting details and some scoop on Season Two:

Summer Glau (”Firefly,” “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”) reunites with Joss Whedon when the actress joins the cast of DOLLHOUSE this fall in a recurring role as BENNETT, a Dollhouse employee who shares a past with ECHO.

Additional guest stars appearing throughout the upcoming second season include Alexis Denisof (”Angel”), Jamie Bamber (”Battlestar Galactica”), Michael Hogan (”Battlestar Galactica”) and Keith Carradine (”Dexter”).

DANIEL PERRIN (Denisof) is a U.S. senator leading a witch hunt to track down the underground organization. Mysterious, charismatic businessman MARTIN KLAR (Bamber) is Echo’s new husband. BRADLEY KARRENS (Hogan) comes to the Dollhouse hoping to stop a psychotic family member’s killing spree, while MATTHEW HARDING (Carradine), a nemesis of Dollhouse leader ADELLE DEWITT (Olivia Williams), stirs up trouble. Additionally, DR. CLAIRE SAUNDERS/WHISKEY (Amy Acker) and MADELINE/NOVEMBER (Miracle Laurie) return this season in multiple-episode arcs.

It’s TCA time once again! Here’s what the men in charge — Fox Chairman Peter Rice and President Kevin Reilly — have to say about Dollhouse.

You guys made a difference, according to HitFix’s live recap of the executive session:

10:00 a.m. Reilly jokes that the “Save ‘Dollhouse’” campaign began before the show ever premiered. He adds that although he wasn’t scared of the fans, the devotion of fans impacted the decision to bring the show back.

Televisionary covers the executive session panel:

Reilly said that the Save Dollhouse campaign (”you mean the one that started before we made any of the show?”) “factored in from a more positive place… They nurtured the show and stuck with it. They are there with Joss and that’s what gave us such a positive cumulative rating…

“Joss is an incredible creator of TV shows,” countered Rice, “and the show got better and better as the season went on.”

As for what fans should expect from Season Two of Dollhouse this fall, Rice and Reilly were candid about the fact that things had greatly improved and that the series would just get better and better.

“Keep doing what he’s doing,” said Rice of what Whedon would do for Dollhouse’s sophomore season. “That is really the gift of Joss… he was open about those hiccups. In the second half, he really found the show and started having fun with it… It’s going to be much smoother sailing this year.”

As part of the Television Critics Association, reporters visited the set of Dollhouse.

(And you’ll understand the title of this post once you click through to all these links…)

Chicago Tribune has got spoilers, casting news and a video interview with Dichen Lachman and Enver Gjokaj.

Joss tells The Star-Ledger that both he and the network originally focused on standalone episodes, but then realized what worked better:

“(Fox) saw that when we liked it (ongoing storylines), everybody liked it, so they liked it. So they stopped going, ‘Let’s try this, let’s try that.’ They said, ‘You do your thing, it’s not for everyone, but the people who love it, love it hard.’”

Hit Fix asked Joss why he was so candid about his problems during the start of the series:

“(W)e were under a microscope. Every time we got shut down, people wanted answers, they wanted some explanation. And if an episode was nothing more than diverting and we hadn’t quite gotten inside the experience as much as I wanted, I wanted people to know that I knew that, that I felt like we were trying to get something out and the struggle we had defining the show was causing it to stumble a little bit. I can’t put something out there that is less than what it could be, without some kind of explanation and again, it was just a question of what stories can we tell and how can we please the network and all of those things we were going through.”

Zap2it quotes Joss describing the season premiere:

(It) will revisit that future and bring those who didn’t see “Epitaph One” up to speed. However, “the actual bulk of the show takes place three months after the events of ‘Omega.’ But we will be visiting that future every now and then.”

Eliza tells IGN how this season premiere episode is memorable for her:

“I am already sort of astonished by the emotions and actions and reactions just in the last eight days, just this episode. Yesterday, full on I burst into tears in the middle of the take. It was a giant scene with [Jamie] Bamber and there was something that happened and I haven’t had that kind of… I was just surprised at my emotion and hadn’t really had that. I was like, all right this is kind of a nice kick off for the season.”

TV Squad has Joss talking about the impact of “Epitaph One” on the second season:

So, yes, the events of the “hidden” season finale of Dollhouse will affect the goings on this year, but in an effort to serve the “two masters” of those who saw the episode on DVD and those who didn’t, things will be explained when the show comes back. “We will visit that future now and then.”

Access Hollywood has a video interview with Joss on guest stars.

Pre-order the special Comic-Con DVD now!

A special DVD package has been made exclusively for Comic-Con, but only 5,000 have been produced. Each one is individually numbered and includes a special letter written by Joss.

After you pre-order the Season One DVD HERE, you can pick it up at the San Diego International Comic-Con. Photo ID is required or you can indicate at checkout someone who will pick it up on your behalf.

The Season 1 set has every episode PLUS 2 that never aired - the original pilot and “Epitaph One.”

Check out what Joss has to say about it…

Pre-order the special Comic-Con DVD now!

Airlock Alpha announced their nominations for the 2009 Portal Awards, which recognizes the science-fiction genre and is voted on by fans. Fringe, Dollhouse and Terminator are all up for nods in the TV categories!

FRINGE - Best Series, Joshua Jackson for Best Actor and John Noble for Best Supporting Actor.

DOLLHOUSE - Best Series, Best Episode (“Omega”), Eliza Dushku for Best Actress, Olivia Williams for Best Supporting Actress and Alan Tudyk for Best Guest Star in “Omega.”

TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES - Summer Glau for Best Supporting Actress and Thomas Dekker for Best Young Actor.

The full list is here. Voting begins June 25th!

Dollhouse returns! And, along with the multitude of fans who commented/emailed/called, we’re excited!

The big guys at Fox explained to reporters this morning why they decided to stick with it:

“We think we can grow the show,” Fox Entertainment Chairman Peter Rice said. “The show became much stronger creatively during the course of the season. Joss feels very energized about it, and we believe in him as a creator. We feel he can build the show and grow in the new season and that Friday is a good place for it to do that.”

Joss Whedon talks about its renewal with THR’s Live Feed:

The last few episodes we got to play “the man behind the curtain” a lot. We did less of, “And this week, she’s a neurosurgeon!” Which we’ll still do to an extent, it’s part of the fun. But we got into what makes the place tick, what makes it wrong. It was less, “Murder She Was Imprinted to Write.” The episodes were more satisfying and the network responded to that. And we also responded to their ideas about pacing and it being more of a thriller and a conspiracy so they were seeing what they were hoping for when we got the aspect we were looking for.

And he even teases about the new episodes in a comment at Whedonesque:

But oh, the terrible things my brain is brewing… Just wait. We’ll make it worth it.

Before they even got word of the official pickup, Co-EPs Liz Craft and Sarah Fain give some hints about Season 2 to their hometown paper, the Kansas City Star:

Craft: Alpha will be out there, but we’ll have someone else in Season 2, I’m sure. We always wanted him to get away.

Watch the Dollhouse panel discussion from Paley Fest 09 here.

We always love when Joss gives us more info. He chats to TV Guide about the original pilot, sustaining serialized television and how much you’d have to spend to hire Echo.

Watch him now!