A Joss Whedon Valentine's Day Special

Along with a delicious homemade dinner from my boyfriend, I received another Valentine this week - the opportunity to meet two of my personal heroes. Yippee!

On Monday, February 9th, I began work at a new full-time job in mid-town Manhattan. It just so happens that one of my coworkers is friends with Chris Baty, the crazy man who began National Novel Writing Month, and Chris was in the city that very day, taking a tour of my office before attending the Tools of Change for Publishing Conference. When I heard that Chris was in the office, I had a real geek-out moment - which was even geekier than usual because no on else had even heard of, much less participated in, NaNoWriMo. My coworker was kind enough to introduce me, and the three of us conversed for 10 minutes on novel writing, word counts, George R.R. Martin, and Phillip Pullman. In my experience, all of the best writing-related discussions involve at least one of the above four topics, so it was quite a lovely chat.

Of course, 24 hours later, my hero-meeting on Tuesday would completely blow Monday's out of the water ... no offense, Mr. Baty.

On Tuesday evening, my BFF Alicia (a fellow die-hard Whedonite) and I went to see Joss Whedon speak about his new series Dollhouse at the Apple Store Soho event in NYC. We were only expecting to see Joss, so we were pleasantly surprised a few times that evening because ...

• Joss was there, and so was Eliza Dushku, Dollhouse's ass-kicking heroine, best known for kicking ass as Faith in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

• The opening act of Dollhouse was screened, with promises that it only gets better from there. The series "simmers before it boils", really kicking into high gear halfway through the first season's thirteen filmed episodes. Episode six has been guaranteed to blow our minds.

• Best of all, despite the protests of douchy Apple Store employees, Joss was kind enough to stick around for an hour after the event to sign posters and other fandom as well as take pictures with his adoring fans. Including me! Yippee!
  

I didn't bring any of my DVD sets for Joss that night, but I did get a free mini Dollhouse poster which he happily signed. Of course the best part of meeting Joss was being reassured that he is not a Hollywood diva. He is a genuinely nice, brilliant man, who surrounds himself with genuinely nice, talented people, whom he respects. There's a reason why Whedon alumni keep popping up again and again in new Whedon projects, including Amy Acker (Angel), Alan Tudyk (Firefly) and Felicia Day (Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog) as Dollhouse special guest stars. He likes them and they like him, and together, magic happens.

Dollhouse premiered on Friday night (Friday the 13th, exactly 5 years after the WB announced Angel's cancelation), and while critics and fans are unsure of where this will fit on Whedon's top ten list of best shows ever, I'm definitely willing to give it a shot ... and my fingers are crossed that the big-bad FOX executives will too, despite it debuting with an unimpressive 4.7 million viewers.

Dollhouse is a futuristic, sci-fi drama that revolves around Echo (Dushku), a young woman who has willingly subjected herself to being pimped out as an "active", an agent of a shady organization who can be imprinted with false memories and skills to use on highly covert missions. When her missions are complete, Echo is returned to the "Dollhouse" where her memories are wiped and she becomes, once again, a complacent and vulnerable human doll.

Even without a stellar pilot to reaffirm our commitment, most of Whedon's fans are trusting that regardless of how commercially successful the series is, we will not be disappointed. If the series is anything like its predecessors, Dollhouse will establish a uniquely inventive world with an ensemble of compelling, morally-grey characters (heroes and villains), whose struggles will unfold across a story arc that explores themes of faith, sacrifice, friendship, love, and humanity.

That, in essence, is a Whedon show, and that is why I have been a fan since I was eleven years old when Buffy premiered on March 10th, 1997.


Couldn't make it to the Apple Store event on Tuesday? Pretend like you were there too by replacing my head with your own in the picture provided above. Ah, memories. :)