SciFi Weekend: Dollhouse; Time Travel and Romance

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Joss Whedon has some comments on the upcoming second season of Dollhouse (with little specific information):

What exactly does one do for an encore after the series virtually everyone had written off gets a renewal so unexpected that Whedon called it “the biggest surprise of my career”… and you’ve already revealed how it’s all going to end.

“Had I known episode thirteen wouldn’t be our last, would I have done something different?” he pondered during our recent chat with him. “Maybe. Because we really did tease out a lot. But I didn’t think we were necessarily done, I just thought the best thing we could do is just take a baseball bat, swing as hard as we can and leave nothing to for the ride back, because who knows?”

That said, Wheton assures us that, “What happens next is really exciting.”

Fortunately for us, he went on to elaborate beyond that rather coy tease! “We’re trying to do something that’s much more cinematic and visceral and really live inside the story,” he says in previewing the new season, which debuts September 24 at 9PM on FOX (Global in Canada). “This season, I’ve really ratcheted up the way I work. We’re shooting in HD, so we’re able to move faster, do more, and make the second season more like the latter half of the first season.”

In other-words, “Epitaph One’ is just the beginning. “The insane unaired thirteenth episode will inform what we do the whole season. It really helped give us a direction and understanding of what we want from the actors, and what we think the audience wants to see from this ensemble.”

Direction? Understanding? Yes, yes, that’s great and all… but how about some answers dammit!

Not surprisingly, Whedon is somewhat tight-lipped when it comes to how in fact himself and his merry band of writers are going to live up to the ridiculously cool post-apocolyptic future that was painted in “Epitatph One.” But did offer, at a DOLLHOUSE set visit during the recent Television Critics Association Press Tour that the series will pick up exactly three months after the events of last May’s season finale, fans can expect more three-dimensional dolls and — best of all — a special guest appearance by BATTLESTAR GALACTICA’s Jamie Bamber.

Who won’t be the only familiar face this season.

“Last year I had to be careful that it didn’t seem the show was a party for my friends,” explained Whedon, who ultimately changed his tune after a weekend spent at San Diego’s Comic Con, realizing that, yeah, it sort of is a party for his friends (see: Felicia Day, who will be back in the second season premiere) “Ultimately it also saves time if you have someone you know who can get the job done.”

Time Traveler Wife

Time reviews the movie version of The Time Traveler’s Wife staring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams. ABC is also interested in a television version of the novel:

ABC executives believe the complex plot of the original novel will work well in series form, since Kauffman will be able to explore the romantic relationship at the core of the story over the course of several seasons.

Individual episodes will likely feature self-contained storylines as well.

ABC has given Warner’s TV a pilot commitment for  “Time Traveler’s.” It’s not yet clear whether Brad Pitt’s Plan B banner, which produced the movie version with New Line, will be involved.

First published as a novel in 2003, “Time Traveler’s” revolves around a man named Henry (played by Bana in the movie) with a genetic disorder that results in spontaneous time travel. He ends up falling in love and marrying Clare (McAdams),  an artist who patiently endures his frequent disappearances.

If anyone is interested in another recent love story disguised as a time travel story, I recommend The Little Book by Selden Edwards. This is anything but a little book, dealing with time travel, a love story, Vienna at its intellectual height, anti-Semitism and World War II, and a family saga.  Other books  in the genre include Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson which the move Somewhere in Time was based upon and Jack Finney’s Time and Again, which is probably the best of them all.