Welcome to the Dollhouse

Probably the best news of the week (though in terms of geekiness perhaps Google’s OpenSocial thing kicks its ass) is Joss Whedon’s imminent return to television for the first time since the unfortunate demise of his Firefly series. Whedon ‘had lunch’ with Eliza Dushku (Faith in Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer), to talk about her development deal with Fox – as friends do – went to the bathroom and came back with a fully fledged idea for a new series for her.

‘Dollhouse’ will feature Dushku as ‘Echo’ who is literally every person’s fantasy. An empty vessel who is filled with a personality and abilities to satisfy a customer in some way, then reset and formatted for a new assignment. Whedon’s old buddy Tim Minear (Angel) will be on the team too. Naturally, this all caused a bit of a storm on Whedonesque.com, with a large dollop of squee on top.

Fox have ordered seven episodes to be written and filmed. That doesn’t mean they’ll actually air, but we’re hopeful and can’t wait to have more Jossy goodness on our screen. Eager fans have already set up a website, forum, MySpace, Facebook and LiveJournal community for the series. Begrudgers are already putting money on the show’s early cancellation, seeing that once again, the network involved is Fox.

As for myself, I’m happy for those of us for whom comics don’t really cut it. I think this new series will be a kind of Dark Angel with better dialogue and better, well, everything and I am confident Whedon will once again manage to put together a wonderful supporting cast for what I hope will be another great ensemble show.