New Joss Whedon show announced: Dollhouse

Originally Posted by TV GUIDE

Eliza Dushku Lures Joss Whedon Back to TV!

Eliza Dushku courtesy Fox, Joss Whedon courtesy Fox
Short of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reunion movie, this is just about the best news you could ask for: Eliza Dushku and Joss Whedon are reteaming for a new series! (Told ya it would be worth tearing yourself away from the candy corn to drop by The Ausiello Report.) Here are the five things you have to know about the show, and I mean now:

1. It's a one-hour drama produced by 20th Century Fox to air on Fox. The first of the seven episodes to which the network has committed could premiere as early as spring.

2. It's called Dollhouse because that's the nickname of the high-tech lab where a group of human chalkboards are kept between assignments.

3. Human chalkboards?! Yes! What else would you call characters like Dushku's Echo who can be given new memories, skills and even personalities, then stripped of them just as quickly, leaving them virtual children.

4. Whedon is the creator, head writer and executive producer, and perhaps in part because Dushku convinced him to do the show, she's getting a producer credit. (Fellow Buffyverse alum Tim Minear is also on board.)

5. I just got off the phone with both of them!

First things first: How in the hellmouth did Dushku get her Buffy and Angel boss to do it? In a word, food. Shortly after she signed a development deal with Fox in August, "I called the one man that I knew I wanted to do [a series] with and had to have [in order to] to have the best show possible" and invited him to lunch, she says. "And he was seduced!"

Actually, hypnotized, Whedon counters. "Eliza was wearing a hat with a big spiraling wheel on it, and she kept saying, 'Look into the wheel. You want to make television. You want it to be about me… ' It sounds hokey, but it really worked."......

Originally Posted by Chris

I hope in jest Every ep of "Firefly" I thought was pretty good. If this is up to that level, it's worth it

But, then again, with a writer strike pending, I'll be lucky to watch anything.

Originally Posted by Jason Seaver

Anyway, I dig the concept even if I do wonder how far it extends past that initial seven-episode story. Still, I imagine the roles of the "dolls" will be an actor's dream - they get to potentially play a new character every week while still having the (relative) security of a TV job. It'll be fun and challenging for them and the writers to try to build strong continuing characters out of that kind of discontinuity.