io9 
Enter your username and password.
San Francisco, 2:32 PM
Sat Nov 7
20 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors: tips@io9.com
Editor-in-Chief:
Annalee Newitz | Email
News Editor:
Charlie Jane Anders | Email
Associate Editor:
Meredith Woerner | Email
Assistant Editor:
Lauren Davis | Email
Weekend Editor:
Graeme McMillan | Email
Contributors:
Joshua Glenn
Stephen Goldmeier | Email
Ed Grabianowski | Email
Austin Grossman
Paul Hogan | Email
Lauren Davis | Email
Chris Hsiang | Email
Lynn Peril | Email
Ann VanderMeer
Alasdair Wilkins | Email
Graphic Designer:
Stephanie Fox | Email
Interns:
Tim Barribeau | Email
Julia Carusillo | Email
Alex Eichler | Email
Cyriaque Lamar | Email
Caitlin Petrakovitz | Email
Mary Ratliff | Email
Josh Snyder | Email
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/06/09
11/06/09
11/05/09
I want to believe he doesn't just have one movie in him because I loved Donnie Darko so much... #richardkelly
11/05/09
[en.wikipedia.org] #richardkelly
11/05/09
11/05/09
11/06/09
11/05/09
11/05/09
11/05/09
"Still, it was more than what I had to work with when shooting 2012. The director just threw us all on a trampoline in front of a green screen and handed us a note that said 'Earth goes boom'."
11/05/09
/Michael Bay #hottubtimemachine
10/28/09
Let's hope it stays that way #dollhouse
10/28/09
10/28/09
10/28/09
If it wasn't for my curiousity about their relative production costs and the underlying economic conditions that led to Fox keeping the lower rated show on the air (briefly, Fox own Dollhouse, it costs $650,000 (!) to $1.3m an episode and Fox's DVD division picked up a big chunk of Season 2's costs for Fox broadcasting), I would never have bought the DVD (S1 has only started showing here this week).
I'd never warmed to the Dushku (despite her being the best thing in Bring it On) primarily because she came across as being personally and professionally unhappy in Tru Calling (Not an insult. She just made me sad.)
But it would have been a mistake to miss it.
Despite (like everyone else), thinking "Damn, this thing is broken!", until 'Man on the Street' and Joss Whedon getting into his stride (alright, not exactly a stride, more like a hop, skip and a jump) I stuck with it, until it finally clicked.....
This is perhaps the most explicit example of an autobiographical allegory, ever to make it to broadcast TV.
Briefly (hah!):
Coming off quitting (with others) an off-Broadway production in early '06, amid allegations of abuse by its producer, a couple of unbroadcast pilots and a handful of so-so movies, in August '07, Dushku signed a seven year development contract with Fox Broadcasting and 20th Century Fox, under which they were supposed to develop projects tailor-made for her together and offer her existing pitches and scripts.
Two years later, after a four hour lunch, during which she layed out her situation to and "used her womanly wiles on" (her words) Joss Whedon, they come up with the idea of Dollhouse on the spot, pitch it to Fox, who accept and give them 2 (!) months to go into production.
It's about a politically active woman, who makes a series of terrible mistakes and then signs away her life, for five years (do the math), for the promise of protection and a lot of cash at the end, to the quasi-evil subsidiary (Rossum Corp. LA) of what turns out to be a wholly-evil megacorp (Rossum Corp. Centre) that seems to want to destroy the world.
All she has to do, is to have her personality erased, forget everything she knows and everything she believes in, be dressed as a manequin, to suit the trivial whims and transient desires, of those too rich to be tramelled by anything as ephemeral as practical consequence or moral boundary and be sent out into the world to be fucked over (literally and figuratively) by anyone her 'owners' let.
Despite herself, she can't do it.
It can't be done.
She's still in there.
Somewhere.
So is everbody, she's ever been, or wanted to be.
Caroline is Dushku.
Topher is Whedon.
Ballard is......
DeWitt is.....
Sierra is....
Alpha is...
It's fun.
In a horrific kind of a way.
Now that I understand, why Dollhouse is so broken. #dollhouse
10/28/09
10/28/09
10/27/09
10/27/09
10/27/09