Fringe and Dollhouse

Fox has a history for being a trash hole for reality television and crappo vision in general. They do get good shows once in a while, but they don't know how to market or handle it and Fox ends up canceling it (e.g. Firefly and Arrested Development). Recently, Fox has picked up orders for two shows that have great potential for next year's television run: Fringe and Dollhouse.

What makes Fringe and Dollhouse Asukal fodder? They're made by the Lost/Cloverfield guy (J.J. Abrams) and by the Firefly/Serenity dude (Joss Whedon) respectively. Lost and Firefly are two of my favorite things. That and kittens. Plus had Iron Man not been so hot, I would say that Cloverfield is the best movie I've seen in theaters this 2008.

Of course, Fox will fuck it all up, so I'll probably end up just adding a box set of seven episodes for each show next-next season. Fringe is about a government group that studies paranormal events. From the little I've read, it sounds like an X-files show. I actually never watched X-files when I was younger, so I'm actually not really looking forward to Fringe its content; rather, I'm just riding the J.J. hype train. (He made Lost and Cloverfield, so Fringe might be good.)

I'm more excited for Whedon's Dollhouse. The last thing of Joss that I was into was Firefly/Serenity, and since that's dead, I've been lacking in the Whed department. Firefly was the bomb. But even without Whedon's name on the show, the concept sounds loads more interesting than Fringe. It's also about a government group, but it's a group of people that can have memories or personalities downloaded and use that to solve cases. It's a secret group, I am guessing, but the drama and excitement comes from the question of whether it's ethical to do such things and whether the dolls have true identities themselves. There's a lot that can be played around there. It will of course have the wit that comes with Whedon's writing. Just think of Asukal but the exact opposite.

We shall see. Hopefully there will be more box sets of Dollhouse than of Firefly at the end of its run. Oh, and Tahmoh Penikett of Battlestar Galactica will be in it alongside Eliza Dushku. Penikett deserves more screen time as he was one of the better actors on BSG. Go, Helo!