Dollhouse Television Program

If you were going to be held against your will in an underground asylum, where beautiful people would pamper you, erase your memory and imprint you with different personalities, you'd probably want your captor to be Joss Whedon. The TV scribe-producer-director and filmmaker, known for his keen ability to draw female characters, has created a sanctuary on Stage 19 of the Fox lot that is so impressive in scope and detail that it hardly seems like a set for his new Fox series, "Dollhouse."

The rocky road of Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse" series has been well-documented, but Whedon is very excited about Friday's episode, "Man on the Street," which he wrote, and the fact that his audience grew by 21% last week to 4.3 million viewers. The following are excerpts from a conference call with reporters Wednesday. -- Viewers have complained of the "ick factor" of the premise.