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EXCLUSIVE: The creators of polygamist series Big Love are developing another unconventional family drama for HBO. Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer are behind China Doll, a show in the works at the pay cable network about a mixed-race family and their humanoid robot. The project combines Scheffer’s passion for technology and Olsen’s interest in Chinese history and politics. “It is about China, Chinese Americans, robots, the effect of technology on our lives and the China moment in American consciousness,” said Olsen, referring to China’s current economic ascendance that is changing the dynamic in the U.S.-Chinese relationship. China Doll centers on a successful California construction subcontractor, his Asian American wife who is a university professor, and a robot as they straddle both sides of the Pacific with extended families on two continents. Despite the presence of a robot, “this is not a sci-fi show,” Scheffer said. “It is ambitious but is set in the present day.” China Doll stems from CAA-repped Olsen and Scheffer’s overall deal at HBO for their Anima Sola Prods, which has been ramping up development in both TV and film. Last year, the company brought in Lisa Bellomo as a development executive.
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i miss small wonder.
Ha! Small Wonder! I was thinking the same thing as I read this post.
Small Wonder – now with Simulated Relevance®!
This sounds so very un-HBO. The story sounds interesting, but then again, so did Big Love’s, and I hated that show.
“China Doll centers on a successful California construction subcontractor, his Asian American wife, a university professor, and a robot”.
…and the nosy neighbor kid.
How long into the series before the husband humps the robot ?? Cmon we all know that’s where it’s gonna go sooner or later….
Gee, what a surprise, a white guy with an Asian wife. Developed by two white guys no less.
Well, it’s only natural that art would imitate life. I see more Asian women with white guys than Asian women with Asian men. T.V. should reflect such trends in society more often. You act like the producers are doing this to be controversial or to push the edge on cultural taboos. Sorry, but they’re not, they’re just mimicking what they see in the real world. Get out more. White male-Asian female relationship are probably the most common interracial relationship. I’d like to see Hollywood create more roles for mixed race families of all varieties. You, however, seem to be stuck with a “racial purity” mindset that is more fitting in a more primitive, backward era. Try evolving your bigoted beliefs like the rest of us.
Oh please. If that were the case why is it always white male asian female relationships that are shown on tv when the maority of Asian women marry Asian men? Why don’t they show the reverse when there are many asian men who have married white/black/latino women? Come on.
Why are you being so defensive? I think he was referring to the fact that you don’t see a lot of white women, asian guys on television. The majority of Asian women do marry Asian men by the way.
Exactly. Thank you. Both you and Nice try got my point. Rysta appears to have missed it entirely. Major reading comp fail. I don’t have a problem at all with interracial relationships. In fact, I welcome it on film/TV and in real life. I do, however, have a problem with fetishism. A story with a white guy and his Asian girlfriend/wife is NOT “pushing the edge”. This has been done ad nauseum. If they really wanted to push the edge, they would have created a show with an Asian guy and his white wife as Nice try had suggested. All the themes and ideas they want to explore would have been intact. Why don’t they? For people with reading comp problems, that’s a rhetorical question. The answer is clear.
Let me check my reading comp here; you’re saying, if I’m reading this correctly, that the two **WHITE AMERICAN MEN** who developed the series are both projecting their hidden sexual fetishes on the fictional family they created by creating a **WHITE AMERICAN MAN** who is married to an **ASIAN WOMAN** because, if I didn’t make it clear enough, **THEY WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH ASIAN WOMEN AND PROJECT UPON THEM ALL MANNER OF ORIENTALIST ATTITUDES THROUGH THEIR WRITING**.
Was that about it? I’m hoping I got the gist of it down right.
Now that we have that out of the way, do we actually have any valid evidence beyond “common sense assumptions” that this is in fact why the series depicts this particular arrangement of race-gender marriage, or that the intent of the arrangement was to actually “push the edge”? That’s not rhetorical since I actually have no idea and it would appear that the anonymous commenter has information on the decision that the rest of us are not privy to, as indicated by the phrase “the answer is clear”.
I would like to introduce a few other options that perhaps do not have the advantage of being “clear” like the previous one, but do work as explanations given available information presented to me at this time.
The **WHITE MEN** who created the series used the particular arrangement they did because:
- One or both of them are familiar with this particular arrangement through personal experience (friends, family etc) and wanted to use familiar material when doing their writing.
- The arrangement, which is common in media depictions of this subject matter (I am not certain that I am yet convinced of the truth of this but will maintain the assumption for the sake of argument) is used specifically because it is well-tread, and either it served the purposes of the series to use an arrangement that needed very little setup (because it is culturally perceived as common and can take advantage of the series of common assumptions held about to it to make it instantly familiar to viewers) or because the **WHITE MEN* writing the scripts intend to deviate sharply from that very same familiarity and use that as a means to unbalance the viewers and create an interesting plot.
- Writing a **WHITE AMERICAN MAN** is easier for two **WHITE MEN** than writing a man from another background and thus the arrangement was selected out of a desire to minimize the effort needed to envision the **WHITE AMERICAN MAN**’s character, leading to less work for the writers.
It took me me maybe fifteenminutes to come up with those three alternate scenarios (one of which branches into two possible applications) and write them down. Why is the implied reasoning given by the Anonymous commenter more plausible given what it currently known to be true about the situation? It seems to my mind that each of these presented scenarios serve as equally plausible explanations until additional information is gathered and more complete pictures of the series and its writers’ attitudes/motivations are formed.
Where am I wrong in my reasoning?
Or how about a show with a, get ready, Asian (American) guy with an Asian (American) wife. I know it’s a stretch, but..
This is beyond pathetic! we don’t give a shit about Olsen’s interest in China or Schaffer’s interest in technology…is HBO actually serious they bought this piece of crap???
Doubt they will be able to cast this with actors at the HBO caliber. Maggie Q is on Nikita already. That leaves….Kristin Kruek, Jamie Chung, and Brenda Song, none of whom are actually Chinese.
Yeah, because those are the only Asian American or Asian (who can play American) actresses in Hollywood. And HBO only casts actresses who are somewhat recognizable. And Maggie Q, and Jamie Chung, and Brenda Song are “at the HBO caliber.”
What would make you think they would cast Brenda Song or Kristin Kruek? The part is for a university professor. Those actresses are, or at least look, in their early or mid twenties. They’re probably looking for a man and woman in their mid thirties to late forties. They’ll most likely cast relatively unknowns. The casts of other HBO shows like the Soprano’s, Sex and the City (barring SJP), True Blood (barring Anna Paquin), Eastbound and Down, Curb your Enthusiasm etc all hired virtual unknowns at the time. No one really knew who James Gandolfini, Kristin Davis, Stephen Moyer, or Cheryl Hines was before their shows aired.
how about ming na?
A successful California construction contractor? Is this a sci-fi series?
Wait!!! This will WORK, I tell you – it will. You see, the Asian Wife, is actually a “Nutty Professor”, because she crazy about the White Man. So Crazy, that she wants him to have a Robot, who also happens to be “Asian”, and called, “China Doll”. It’s like, “Three’s Company”, but “Asian Style”. Our modern day, “Jack Tripper”, will just fumble through life and the furniture, tossing sexual, innuendos here & there for all the audience to enjoy – WOW. I probably couldn’t be more wrong, but wtf – the idea sounds insane, anyway.
Just make sure you cast the wife with someone who is very exotic, gorgeous, pure looking, classy, sexy as hell and with a body to die for…..since she is Asian American and grew up here, it should be that she and her husband learn and discover the differences of the Chinese culture verses America together when they get there…..that’s where the humor comes in….since the relationship is ” opposite attract “….he’s a successful construction business owner, perhaps she should teach engineer at the university where she designed the robot….and she’s also a painter, since the chinese culture is so much into academics, to show the contrast would be interesting…..the first episode….opening scene…inside their house the robot is picking up a bucket of paint and carrying it into the room where you see only the back of a naked woman’s body….on a white canvas sheet type….she’s covered in red, white paint as she’s rolling and throwing paint to create abstract art….the robot puts the bucket of paint down for her, and she continues to immerse herself in her painting….a car pulls up in the drive way, a handsome hurries in with bags of groceries, he comes and calls out for her, to find her naked dripped in paint on the floor, he puts down the groceries and asked to help her paint, as she turn to look at him, the most gorgeous, angelic face you’ve ever seen, she smiles and encourages him to join her….they begin to kiss, as he picks her up she wraps her legs around him and let him carry her into the shower….as they water runs, they begin to you know…….he tells her , it is the ” best sex of his life “…..and this chemistry is crucial for the relationship….for their adventures ahead to China….their chemistry, bond, connection, love carries them through adversity and obstacle and learning and adventures of discoveries together….they teach each other things and learn from one another…
Lisa Bellomo is the best. They are lucky to have her.
That sounds like the whole show
If you claim to be interested in Chinese history and politics why not make a show about Chinese history and politics as opposed to a show about white people that has a Chinese person in it?
Also,’Despite the presence of a robot, “this is not a sci-fi show,”’ is not a particularly inspiring narrative philosophy for the show.
Pretty sure it sounds like the white dad is the ONLY white person in it, brah.
Oh gawd here we go again. White guy with an exotic Asian wife. Hollywood has a phobia about casting leading Asian male actors who aren’t doing kung fu. Asian females are always relegated to being the exotic sex kitten on the arm of their big strong white man. Hollywood seems to believe that the biggest white supremacists are Asian females. Olsen and Scheffer obviously know nothing about Asian culture if they don’t realize that we’re sick and tired of seeing this over and over.
Agreed. This story might take place in the exotic lands of the east, but in the end it’s still ego stroking the white man with the reassurance that the Aryan race is still superior. Heck, even the asian girl prefers the white man over the asian.
this show sounds gay. what did you expect from the hollypeckerwood industry
Sounds more like a short story than a whole series.