Dollhouse Reshoot Explained

Joss Whedon, creator and executive producer of the upcoming midseason
Fox series Dollhouse, told SCI FI Wire that he will shoot a new first
episode of the show in part because of Fox's reaction to the show's
pilot.

"It definitely has to do with the network and what I presented to
them," Whedon admitted in an interview at Comic-Con International in
San Diego over the weekend. "It was one of those situations where we
were all very enthusiastic about the world we were building, but they
loved the pilot when they read it, and then they saw it and they said,
'OK, this feels a little different than we thought it was going to.' I
began to suspect that they wanted something from the first episode
that that episode didn't have. They [were] sort of wishy-washy about
it, and I don't say this against them, because what they were trying
to do was not rock my boat. So I was like, 'I think I can give them
exactly what they want.' It will make the show better, because
everything I do in this episode will only have more resonance."

Dollhouse revolves around a secret organization that uses programmed
humans called "Actives" or "Dolls" to fulfill the requests of their
clients. When their missions are complete, the Actives have their
memories erased and become someone new for the next client--that is,
until one named Echo (Eliza Dushku) starts to retain her memories.

Whedon seemed relaxed about his decision to start over. "Since we are
coming into the series at the middle of the story, it's easy to take a
step back," he said. "It's as easy to figure out what happens before
as to what happens after--in fact, it's something I have to do all the
time when a show comes in short or something like that. It's all a
part of executive-producing, and I actually kind of love [it]. It's
like solving a puzzle."

Whedon added that the new first episode "will be a lot more kinetic
and a lot more iconic in certain ways. The second one ['Echo,' the
original pilot] I'm going to reshoot some of it, but since it's the
second one, I won't have to reshoot as much. It still will have all
the questions and all the cool stuff that I loved and that [the
network] loved, but people will have already been introduced to the
world and feel more comfortable there."

Whedon confirmed that the series will go back into production on the
new pilot Aut. 4. Dollhouse premieres on Fox in January 2009.