I don’t think I’d be alone in holding the idea that Joss Whedon has been away from TV for far too long. Firefly‘s unjust demise was in 2003, and all we’ve seen from him on any screen since then was Serenity which, though fantastic, at about two hours running time was hardly a replacement for the glory days of two hours a week of Whedonism. Incidentally, if anyone wants to try to make a pun relating the phrase “glory days” to season five of Buffy that’s actually funny—a feat which escaped me—feel free.
Lede well and truly buried, I wanted to mention Dollhouse, Whedon’s new show starting in January. It stars Eliza Dushku (True Lies), making it automatically worth looking at watching for an hour a week. The show is about a house full of improbably attractive people who are given new personalities in order to perform missions for customers—anything from a date to becoming an assassin. Then the memories are wiped to make way for the next customer. As the phrase “improbably attractive” may have given away, Dushku plays one of these “Dolls”.
It starts in January on Fox. No news yet of any Irish or UK stations picking it up, but if it does well we can probably count on Sky and RTÉ to do the right thing. Interestingly, Fox is planning to show it with far fewer ads than usual so every episode will be 50 minutes instead of the now common 42 minutes for an “hour long” drama.
Already established as the place to get news of the show is Dollverse.com, who as of now have the first trailer online.