Home AboutYour Face on the IMDb Twitter Page « Winners Announced for the 25th Annual TCA Awards Farewell, John Hughes » TCA Quick Hits: Set visits to “NCIS: Los Angeles,” “Dollhouse” This post was originally going to be titled “Quick Shots of False Hope,” in both homage to comedienne Laura Kightlinger’s entertaining essay collection, and in acknowledgment that even good TV news amounts to so much dust in the wind when one takes the industry’s 80 percent-plus failure rate into account. But pretty much all of what you’ll read here is good news, or at the very least interesting, so we’ll save the false hope for this week, when the broadcast networks present. Let the good times start a-rolling with…
– Pauley Perrette is guest starring on the second episode of “NCIS: Los Angeles,” in a cameo that executive producer Shane Brennan characterized as being “directly involved in helping us solve the case. Pauley is very excited to be joining us, and I think it’s something that the fans are going to absolutely really enjoy.”
On a side note, Brennan delivered this news from the ground floor of the “NCIS: Los Angeles” set, built to resemble an old Spanish mission but, to TV viewers, looks all too much like the courtyard on “Melrose Place.”
Brennan explained that since the original ops center was compromised (in part 2 of the “NCIS” crossover episodes) they had to find another undercover location. So from the outside it looks like a charming piece of old California, but inside and upstairs is state-of-the-art equipment specially built for the unit (and actually, the series itself) by technology giant Lockheed Martin. This includes a gigantic touch-interactive screen that critics were allowed to play with by waving are hands across it and pretending we were in Minority Report. We discovered fake identification for one character in an upcoming episode, to be played by former “Six Feet Under” star Mathew St. Patrick.
– On the same day we visited “NCIS: LA” we headed over to the Fox lot to see Joss Whedon in the “Dollhouse.” This may be a comfort to “Dollhouse” fans: Whedon shared that when season two opens, Echo (Eliza Dushku) will be deeply impacted by Alpha downloading all of her personalities into her at once, which means she’ll actually have a persona instead of being a passive blank slate. Although lacking a personality is central to being a “doll,” that feature made it nearly impossible for viewers to connect to Echo. When I brought that up during the session, Whedon acknowledged a major correction was due.
“We will see that she has a cohesiveness and a mission that make every engagement mean a great deal more to her and she has, as Echo, her own agenda which is something she didn’t quite have,” Whedon explained, “and we did sort of build to that in Omega where she had been dumped with all the personalities and we heard her say her name. At the end this episode we are going to see how far she’s come and it’s a little further than the people around her know.”
So, I asked to establish complete clarity, even after each episode’s wipe she is going to have a distinct personality?
“We are going to see her as we know her, and then we are going to see something very different,” Whedon said. “And that is pretty much all I can say.”
–After the main session Whedon confirmed to me and a few others that Alan Tudyk would be returning for several episodes over the course of season two. Whedon said he couldn’t confirm an exact number because Tudyk does not like to be pinned down in any particular series. To wit: He has a fairly substantial role in the two-hour pilot for ABC’s midseason series “V.” Whedon also hinted that this season would head outside of the main Dollhouse to, perhaps, visit other branches. Hmm….
– While walking out a Fox publicist dashed past and told us the big “Futurama” news we hope you already know, which is that all of the original cast had signed on for its resurrection.
Up next: CBS.
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