As we first reported Wednesday, Fox has started a viral marketing campaign asking its viewers to save a fictional character named Hazel, who is trapped inside a container of some sort.

Now Fox has opened that website up to further exploration — and more importantly for Dollhouse fans — interaction!

The basis of the viral marketing campaign — surprise, surprise — is to save Hazel, and now we know how to go about doing that.  The website asks users to set up their webcams and send in video questions that Hazel will be able to respond to.  Your goal is to ask her questions that help you figure out where she is and how to get her out.

For example, one of the early threads on the site dealt with where Hazel is and what she is trapped in, (and ActiveDollhouse.com took part in the discussion!)  One user thought maybe Hazel was on a train of some sort.  That user and others also had very good ears and picked up on the fact that you could hear the sound of seagulls before the door slams shut.  That led Hazel in one of her subsequent videos to tell us that she is on something simliar to a train, referencing the early user comments, but it’s different — maybe a ship?

Location of Hazel?

The “scans” page hints at the fact that Hazel is in Massachusetts.  Given the fact that Hazel is dressed in a Catholic schoolgirl outfit (nice choice Fox!), it’s likely she’s from Boston.  You have to remember that Eliza Dushku is from Boston, as well, and a diehard Red Sox fan.

Users of the site are also dissecting a number of things from the videos and posting relevent pictures online.  Here is a link to what I’m talking about as one user discusses the images of brains in the photo.  (Also, see picture at right.)

What is R Prime Lab?

That’s the next big question.  Fox states on its Dollhouse wiki page that during the late 1990s, a company called R-corp started a project called the Orpheus Initiative.  This project used a lot of high-tech scientific devices, but the primary purpose of the project was to give the extremely wealthy a way to talk to dead loved ones.

By the time the project was stopped in 2001, more than 20 Orpheus — or R Prime Labs — existed on different campuses across the United States.  Then, Fox says, the website rprimelab.com appeared in 2009 and showed one of the R Prime Labs that had not been in use since 1999.  We can only assume that this lab is where Hazel is being held.

In the videos, Hazel Rose says she is in search of her mother.  Maybe she came to the right place.

Only three weeks left!  Official News Release from Fox:

In the groundbreaking new online participation drama Dollplay, a young woman named Hazel Rose is trapped in a locked mobile laboratory. Her link to the outside world is through the online audience, who are her only hope to escape confinement and help her find out more about her mother, a researcher somehow linked to the Dollhouse.

Through Hazel’s video blog of real-time captivity, fans are encouraged to post clips, view other fan video responses and offer Hazel advice. In return, Hazel will respond to the audience, challenging them to help her uncover clues and discover secrets about the Dollhouse’s early defining days. Meanwhile, Hazel will use the Dollhouse’s imprint machine to dangerously mind-wipe and download herself with a number of new and different personas to help her piece together her mother’s sordid history.

With only three weeks, beginning today, to solve the mystery and escape from the laboratory, time is running out for Hazel. Visit rprimelab.com or fox.com/dollhouse today to help Hazel before it’s too late.

[View with PicLens]

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