Dollhouse: new cast, casting sides, Buffy alum rumours

Posted by fanshawe

March 28, 2008

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Joss Whedon is definitely back in business: he recently finished writing the first episode of his new show Dollhouse, he snagged Battlestar Galactica’s Helo for one of the leading parts, the first pages of a casting script have made their way to the Internet and the series’ leading lady Eliza Dushku may be getting some familiar faces from the Buffyverse to keep her company.

Last week, Whedon and several actors from his cult series Buffy, the Vampire Slayer made an appearance at the Paley Fest Buffy tribute.

Whedon confirmed that he was considering a few well known mugs for some of the eight main characters on Dollhouse. TV Guide guys suggest that the actors in question are James Marsters, Juliet Landau and Charisma Carpenter. (And just how great would it be to see Spike and Drusilla reunite?) Other reports say that Tom Lenk (Andrew of the evil geek trio) has already been offered a part on the show. None of this has been confirmed yet, you understand, but it just sounds too good not to report.

The four new Dollhouse cast members who have been confirmed are Tahmoh Penikett, Fran Kranz, Dichen Lachman and Enver Gjokaj. They will join Dushku in the first seven episodes, which is how many Fox had ordered last year before the writers’ strike started.

To recap, Dollhouse is about a group of “Dolls” or “Actives” - people whose memories of their previous lives have been wiped clean and who can be reprogrammed to be anyone and anything that paying clients want them to be. When they are not on assignment, they live in a childlike state, with no memories, in the so-called “dollhouse.”

The show will focus on Echo (Eliza Dushku), one of the dolls, described as everybody’s fantasy, who begins to develop self-awareness, which in turn starts affecting her assignments.

SpoilerTV got their hands on some casting sides that feature some of the main characters: Dr. Claire Saunders who, judging from the script, has some say in the dolls’ well-being (psychologist possibly?) as well as where they get sent to, programmer Topher Brink, who imprints personas - memories, emotional makeup, even body memory - on the dolls, and finally two of the dolls themselves, named Sierra and Victor.

On to the new cast members and what gender they are (because you can’t really tell for sure from their names). Maybe somewhere down the line, we will also learn how to properly pronounce “Dichen” and “Gjokaj.”

Tahmoh Penikett, best known as Battlestar Galactica’s straight guy Karl Agathon (Helo), will play FBI agent Paul Smith (originally known as Paul Ballard when the list of the main characters came out) who is “obsessed with the urban myth” of the Dollhouse to the point where it hurts his career. He is also described as being “hardened by a cynical distaste for most of humanity” so that clean image and nice guy charm he sports on Galactica may not be around much longer once Whedon gets his paws on him. No word yet if this gig will affect Helo’s fate on the show. (This report says that production on Dollhouse begins on April 23.) And insert smooth segue to the reminder: Battlestar Galactica season four premieres on April 4 on SCI FI. Be there.

Moving on.

Fran Kranz, male, will play Topher Brink, the genius programmer who is in charge of imprinting personalities on the dolls and who loves his job a little too much. Kranz recently appeared in the CBS sitcom Welcome to the Captain, so that’s where you can catch him if you are curious.

Australian actress Dichen Lachman has been cast as Sierra, one of the dolls. Soap fans will remember her from Neighbours.

Enver Gjokaj is Victor, another doll, who can play “everything from Errol Flynn to young DeNiro when he’s active.” And he does have one of those interesting, memorable faces that make you believe he can pull it off so there’s another new actor to discover and hopefully enjoy. Extra points: when you do an image search with his name on Google, almost all you get are pics of him doing theatre.

That leaves us with the Dollhouse characters that have yet to be cast (and see how the Buffy crew may fit in here). They are:

ADELLE DEWITT -The fortyish iceberg who runs the Dollhouse where the human Etch-a-Sketches reside

BOYD LANGTON - Echo’s handler and father figure

NOVEMBER - The Tracy Turnblad of the Dolls

DR. CLAIRE SA(U)NDERS -The beautiful older woman with whom Topher is smitten

Hopefully it won’t be long till we hear more news on that front.

Battlestar Galactica: Caprica prequel, season four news recap

New staff, characters revealed for Whedon’s Dollhouse

Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku talk about Dollhouse