Fox Closes Doors on “Dollhouse”

E!Online is announcing that Fox has officially shut down the Dollhouse. Insiders confirm to us that Fox has officially closed the book on the Friday-night sci-fi series. (Series producer and Joss Whedon sister-in-law Maurissa Tancharoen, who also guest stars in an upcoming episode as an active named Kilo, tweeted confirmation as well, saying, “Yes. Cancelled. Sad but true.”)

Series creator, Joss Whedon, will have time to pull together all the story lines for a nice finish. Says E!Online, “We’re hearing that episode 13 serves as a season finale ‘in a significant way and gives Joss enough time to wrap up the stories.’ ”

Go to E!Online for the entire story.

Having a Blast; NiceGirls Style

This past week I had the chance to attend two unique and fun events very much in line with the ‘celebration’ of Halloween. On Wednesday, I attended the Paley Center for Media’s look Inside the Writers’ Room of the fan favorite HBO series True Blood. You can see my full write-up on the panel itself at both True-Blood.net and SciFiTVZone.com sometime this week.

As a regular viewer of the show – and I have to preface this with the fact that I’m not a fan of the show (per se) even though it is a cult favorite and a good guilty pleasure series – it was interesting to learn the inner workings of the talented writers on this series.

The audience was appreciative of Executive Producer Alan Ball and his staffs’ work and the careful details they provided for Season 3. While they were rather elusive on specifics, it was fascinating to learn their process and get a behind-the-scenes look at how True Blood is put together.

On Friday night, I attended the Second Annual Halloween Charity Screening of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog as well as the screening of the entire second season of the internet series The Guild, starring Felicia Day which was coordinated by the folks behind Whedonopolis.

Felicia Day made a special appearance at the event and while we all would have loved for Nathan Fillion or Joss Whedon to have been in attendance, it was nice to know they are hard at work on their respective shows, Castle and Dollhouse.

Much like my write-up for the True Blood event, you can read my full article about the charity screenings via SciFiTVZone.com, also, sometime this week.

Next week I will be going to another event at the Paley Center for Media: this time a retrospective on the WB hit series Dawson’s Creek with expected appearances by James Van Der Beek, Meredith Monroe, Busy Phillips as well as Creator/Executive Producer Kevin Williamson.

Next Saturday I was supposed to attend an in-store appearance at Barnes & Noble by the cast of the new FOX musicomedy Glee. But, I recently learned wristbands were to be given out at 9 AM this morning; and given the fact that my friends and I (who were going to make the Glee appearance a group event) all have to go to our day jobs, so the Glee event won’t happen after all: much to our chagrin and disappointment.

Lastly, a few weeks from now Creation Entertainment will be holding their annual Firefly and Serenity convention, featuring guest appearances by Nathan Fillion, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin, Alan Tudyk, Mark Sheppard and Yan and Rafael Feldman. This event is always fun and entertaining; and I’m sure this year will be no different.

Such is the life of a NiceGirl in California and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Joss Whedon to Direct an Episode of GLEE

That was me you heard screaming just now. And everyone who saw “Once More With Feeling”. And everyone who saw Dr. Horrible. And everyone who loves good TV.

EW.com’s Michael Ausiello reports that Glee, the freshman phenomenon from the mind of Ryan Murphy, will have none other than Joss Whedon at the helm for one of the back 9 episodes Fox ordered last month. It’s a genius move that will, I hope, send some of the millons who are watching Glee to Whedon’s struggling show, Dollhouse. Ausiello is quick to reassure us that Whedon’s moonlighting gig on Glee in no way indicates the fate of Dollhouse, though. He’ll likely put those kids through the ol’ song and dance routine after production on Dollhouse’s 13 episodes is completed.

TV Around LA

The life of a TV fan in Los Angeles is never dull. It’s easy enough to spot an actor walking around town, but it’s equally as easy to see actors talking about their work at numerous other locales.

For me the next few weeks are going pretty busy, with the added bonus of being really entertaining. Friday, the Egyptian Theatre is sponsoring an event featuring Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog and The Guild, followed by a conversation between Felicia Day and Joss Whedon (schedules permitting). I can only imagine what those two will have to talk about together, but that’s what comes with these events.

Two weeks after, Whedonopolis, a site dedicated to all things Whedon, is sponsoring its second annual showing of Dr. Horrible. Last year’s event included some of the creative team and cast talking before the screening as well as plenty of fun (this event welcomes fans to sing along and to dress up).

Lastly, the inner teenager in me doesn’t want to wait for next event. In celebration of Dawson’s Creek being available as a complete series on DVD, the Paley Center will host a night with creator Kevin Williamson (with additional guests pending) to discuss the show’s influence.

Needless to say, there will be plenty of material for columns from these events, as they always leave an impression.

Joss Whedon Thinks This Week’s Dollhouse Will Live Up To The Hype

I had the opportunity to participate in a teleconference with Joss Whedon today, in advance of Friday’s mind-blowing new episode of Dollhouse. This was my second phone chat with Joss, so that’s totally old hat now. Really. That wasn’t me you heard nervously cracking her knuckles while waiting for her chance to ask what was sure to be a less-than-brilliant question in the presence of not just Joss but some other big names in TV news – TV Guide, E!Online, Sepinwall…I have no idea how I got invited, but I did and I bring you scoop!

Brace Yourselves…
“Mindblowing.” “Stunning.” “Jaw-dropping.” Those are just some of the words those lucky enough to have seen the next two episodes are using to describe what’s coming up on Dollhouse. And they’re right. A couple of the reveals in “Man on the Street”, airing Friday, March 20 at 9/8c on Fox, will have viewers rewinding to make sure we saw what we thought we saw. (A tip: set your DVRs now!) Says Joss, “For all of us [cast and staff], this episode was when a lot of tumblers fell into place. We walked away from shooting that episode and felt like we’d found another layer. We’re really proud of that.”

Why Are They There?
Joss touched on several of the characters surrounding Echo, revealing that we will indeed find out more about Amy Acker’s Dr. Saunders in the coming weeks: “I love that character, not just because it’s Amy Acker, but because she wears misery and torture on her face, literally. We definitely learn how Claire came to this fabulous career. In the last few eps we get to turn the Acker up pretty high.”

However, we are not going to find out why Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) is so obsessed with Caroline and the Dollhouse, at least not in the first season. (“In season four, it’s a whole two-parter!”) Ballard is about to be sent through the wringer, though. “We’re about to send him forward in ways he does not expect. We want to challenge him and make it as hard for him as possible to explain himself why he’s doing what he’s doing.”

Boyd Langdon (Harry Lennix) is another character whose motivations will have to wait for another season to be revealed, although Joss admits that he’s “had a feeling” about what brought Boyd to the Dollhouse since before the role was fully written. His relationship with Echo is something that will continue to evolve as the rest of the season plays out: “Boyd definitely cares about Echo more than his job requires, but he doesn’t have the opportunity in these first 13 episodes to really do anything to help her. He wants to protect her and the only truly safe place in the Dollhouse is his paternal feelings for Echo. Their relationship is going to have to shift, in ways I can’t get into yet.”

Whither the Wit?
Whedon fans have often commented on the lack of that trademark wit in Dollhouse, compared to the rest of Whedon’s ouevre. Will Dollhouse bring the funny? In short, not so much. “This is not a comedy. This is not a light-hearted romp that [my] other shows were,” says Joss. “There’s definitely funny stuff coming up, but it doesn’t build like a comedy and it wasn’t designed to be a comedy.”

How Did We Get Here?
Another constant question is how the Actives become involved in the Dollhouse. Is it voluntary? Is it “sentencing” for crimes committed? We’ll have some light shed on that subject in the next couple of episodes when we find out how Sierra, Echo and a couple of the other Actives came to the Dollhouse. Of course, this being Joss, the answers aren’t simple or easy.

Is the Dollhouse a Brothel?
Blame it on the marketing but it seems like most casual viewers think Dollhouse is little more than a show about call girls and boys, hired to be the perfect sexual partners before having their minds erased and sent out on the next gig. Those who have been watching for the past five weeks realize that the premise is much more complicated. So far Echo has been on two engagements that involved sex (that we know about). Her other assignments have included being an expert safecracker, infiltrating a religious cult, and being the best friend/bodyguard of a suicidal pop star. Is that because the network wanted all the sex toned down? No, says Joss, he always intended for the show to be about more than sex.

“I pitched it as Alias meets Quantum Leap,” he recalls. “The type of engagement was always supposed to be shifting. She would be solving crimes, she would be helping people, she would be committing crimes… sexuality was a big part of it, and the most edgy part of it, but not the only part of it. I thought of her, more than anything, as a kind of life coach. As the person you absolutely need in your life at a certain moment. As the person who will change you or comfort you or take your life to the level that you want it to be. That could be something nice, evil, sexual, any number of things.”

Are you still watching Dollhouse? Are you as psyched for this week’s episode as we are? Leave your comments below!

Whedon’verse Alum Take Over TV

It’s no secret that Joss Whedon is a hero here at Nice Girls HQ. As if pimping Dollhouse for months prior to its debut wasn’t enough of a clue, we have a (possibly annoying) habit of gleeing over various Whedon alumni whenever we encounter them on the airwaves or in real life (see: Comic Con). So you’ll understand that I really have no choice but to dedicate this week’s column to all of the Whedon alumni who are currently working on pilots or actually have TV shows on the air at this very moment.

Currently on TV

Eliza Dushku
Formerly: Faith, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel
Now: Echo, Dollhouse
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 3

Amy Acker
Fomerly: Fred, Angel
Now: Dr. Claire Saunders, Dollhouse
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 2

Summer Glau
Formerly: Prima Ballerina, Angel; River Tam, Firefly/Serenity
Now: Cameron/Allison, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 2/3*

Nathan Fillion
Fomerly: Caleb, Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Captain Malcom Reynolds, Firefly/Serenity; Captain Hammer, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog
Now: Rick Castle, Castle
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 3/4*

Adam Baldwin
Fomerly: Jayne Cobb, Firefly/Serenity
Now: Major John Casey, Chuck
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 1/2*

Alyson Hannigan
Fomerly: Willow, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Now: Lily, How I Met Your Mother
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 1

David Boreanaz
Fomerly: Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel
Now: Seeley Booth, Bones
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 2

Michelle Trachtenburg
Fomerly: Dawn, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Now: Georgina, Gossip Girl
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 1

Felicia Day
Fomerly: Vi, Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Penny, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog
Now: Codex, The Guild
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 2

Mark Sheppard
Fomerly: Badger, Firefly
Now: Tanaka, Dollhouse; Jim Sterling, Leverage; Romo Lampkin, Battlestar Galactica
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 2

Neil Patrick Harris
Fomerly: Dr. Horrible, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog
Now: Barney Stinson, How I Met Your Mother
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 1

Coming Soon to TV

Anthony Stewart Head
Fomerly: Giles, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Now: Uther Pendragon, Merlin (coming to NBC this summer)
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 1

Sean Maher
Fomerly: Simon Tam, Firefly/Serenity
Now: Drop Dead Diva (coming to Lifetime this summer)
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 1/2*

Sarah Michelle Gellar
Fomerly: Buffy Summers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Now: The Wonderful Maladys (pilot for HBO)
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 1

Morena Baccarin
Fomerly: Inara, Firefly/Serenity
Now: Anna, V (pilot for ABC)
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 1/2*

Alan Tudyk
Fomerly: Wash, Firefly/Serenity
Now: Drew, Untitled David Kohan/Max Mutchinick Project (pilot for ABC)
Number of Whedon Projects to Date: 1-3**

Did I miss anyone? Do you have scoop on a Whedon alum who may be returning to our TV screens soon? Leave a comment below and let me know!

*Technically, Firefly and Serenity are two different projects. However, the movie is obviously a continuation from the series, so it’s up to you to decide how to number them.

**SPOILER WARNING: Alan Tudyk may be in another Whedon project, but that is currently unconfirmed. Sort of. It’s complicated.

Joss Whedon Wants to Make Us Uncomfortable

I had the privilege of participating in a Dollhouse conference call with Joss Whedon last week. The call was packed so I only got to ask one question, and since I was the second-to-last person to ask, all my Super Insightful and Clever questions had been asked, but you know what? I asked Joss Whedon a question and he answered it. I was Queen of my Facebook friends for at least 12 hours after that.

We aired part of the Q&A session on today’s Nice Girls Radio show (listen here), but it’s always nice to have interviews in writing so we can parse every word of every sentence. Because this is Joss, I’ll just give you his words straight up. No editing needed.

Joss On the Friday Night Time Slot:
Honestly, I really do see the opportunity there because the deal with the Friday night time slot was you don’t come out, bang, opening weekend, and it’s all decided. It’s about growing a fan base, both for Dollhouse and Terminator. I think Terminator is a remarkably good show, and the kind of show that makes sense to be paired with Dollhouse, so I feel great about that, plus I get to see all these posters with Summer and Eliza together and that’s just too cool.

Ultimately, this is a show where people will hopefully become intrigued and then hang in, that really builds, so it needs the 13 weeks, and it needs the 13 weeks of people paying attention, but not so much attention that it gets burned out in the glare of the spotlight. I’ve always worked best under the radar. Most of my shows people have come to after they stopped airing, but I would like to buck that trend, and at the same time, it is part of how I work that you stay with it and it grows on you and it becomes family, and the Friday night is a much better place for that to actually happen.

Joss On the Birthing Pangs of Dollhouse vs. His Other Shows:

I think this show definitely went through a tougher process, tough in a different way than the other shows. Probably most similar to Angel in the sense of what we had in our minds about what Angel was ultimately was different than what the network did. Our version was a little darker, and in this instance, it wasn’t so much a question of reworking what the show was as it was a question of reworking how we get into it. There were definitely some differences of opinion about what was going on and what we were going to stress in the show, but mostly it was about how do we bring the audience in and the mandate was very much once they had seen the pilot…They made some noise about this before. I don’t want to say that they just thought it up out of the blue, but the mandate “was give us not just the world of the show, but the structure of the show.” The original pilot explained everything that happened, but came at it very sideways, and they said let the audience see an engagement so that they understand that every week she’s going to go to a different place and be a different person and that they have that sense of structure.

That part was simple enough. It was my idea to do a new pilot, because once I was clear on what it was they didn’t have that I had planned to provide in the show anyway, it seemed like a no-brainer to give them something they could get behind more.

But there was some real questioning about what exactly we wanted to get at in terms of the humanity and what they do and why people hire them and there’s a sexual aspect to it that makes some people nervous. Part of the mandate of the show is to make people nervous. It’s to make them identify with people they don’t like and get into situations that they don’t approve of, and also look at some of the heroic side of things and wonder if maybe they were wrong about what motivated those as well.

So we’re out to make people uncomfortable, but not maybe so much our bosses.

Joss On Fans Saving His Show, Before It Even Airs:
Usually, words of calm in these situations lead to panic. If you say there’s nothing to panic about, somebody says, he said the word panic. Basically, we found the show. My concern isn’t whether the show gets saved. It’s whether these fans who are panicking about it love it. They may get over their panic. They may see it and go, you know, actually, we’re okay. The network should do what they think is right. Ultimately, the support is very sweet, and the fact that people care and they want to see the show get a chance. That’s important to me too, because it really is a show that finds itself as it goes along, but, at the end of the day, my biggest concern is that I give them something worth panicking over.

Joss On The Genesis Of Dollhouse:
Well, there’s already the famous story of lunch with Eliza where we were talking about what kind of stuff she should play and I thought she should play lots of different things, and then the show happened.

Beyond that, there has also been I’m very interested in concepts of identity, what enounce is our own, what’s socialized, can people actually change, what do we expect from each other, how much do we use each other and manipulate each other, and what would we do if we had this kind of power over each other? And in this, our increasingly virtual world, self-definition has become a very amorphous concept, so it just felt what was on my mind. I don’t mean it felt timely like I was trolling the papers looking for something timely. It’s just been something I think about a lot.

As for the characters, they sell out by necessity. I wanted to have a strong ensemble around Eliza, because I didn’t want her to have to carry the burden of every single day of shooting, or she would burn out. So it was the question of really just doing the math. You’re going to need the handler, you’re going to need somebody running the place, you’re going to need the programmer, and then realizing what all of those different perspectives would give us, even before we had the astonishing cast, started to make the show really live.

Joss On Eliza As The Lead:
She’s overcome her homely shyness over these years. Eliza is, apart from being, in my opinion, as great a star as I have ever known, she has a genuinely powerful electric and luminous quality that I’ve rarely seen. She’s also a really solid person. She’s a good friend. She’s a feminist. She’s an activist. She’s interested in the people around her. She has a lot of different things going on, and I’ve watched her over the years, as a friend, try to take control of her career, and try to get the roles that weren’t available to her, and protect the ethos and the message of what it was that she was doing, and I respect that enormously. Being part of that progression is, for me, one of the greatest benefits of this show.

Joss On Working With The New Fox:
You know, in many ways, it hasn’t changed at all. We were held to mid-season on Buffy. There was a certain amount of birth pangs. We were re-shooting things for the first episode during the last episode. So I think part of this is either the same, or I just really haven’t learned anything about how to do it better.

But I think the changes have really been that the media is constantly making new demands. There are six act breaks instead of four. They did remote free TV, which means fewer commercials, which is an exciting prospect, but it also means we’re shooting 15% to 20% more show per show on the same schedule as every other show, and that just really is beating the hell out of us.

Also something that ultimately, because of the remote free TV, and because of our production issues, fell by the wayside, but these are the extras that people expect. There’s just more to it than going in there and telling your story. The marketing of the thing and the story itself are intertwined in ways that create opportunities, and in some ways that just really exhaust me.

Joss On Accessibility:
We always refer to the first seven episodes as the seven pilots. You can’t just shut down after episode one and it can’t be a train that’s left the station. So the first several episodes, the first five are all individual engagements where the premise is made clear and the cast of characters is made clear and relationships are made clear. Obviously there is some progression in those relationships, but there is nowhere where you have giant pieces of information missing, or where you have to sit through a three minute previously on in order to get to the show. We really care about that, and that was one place where we were completely on the same page as the network.

Joss On The First Thirteen Episodes:
We definitely start entwining things this season. There’s a lot of payoff in this season. There are some things that we draw out and then some things that we payoff fairly heavily, so that people don’t get the feeling that they’re just going to tease me every week.

Paul Ballard is going to be hunting the Dollhouse, and obviously, he’s going to be one step behind them for awhile, but then every now and then, he’s going to come up against them in a rather abrupt fashion, and he’s not going to be the reporter in The Hulk, always five feet behind, and this creepy naked guy will be explained.

Echo’s progression is a constant in the show, her search for herself, so that’s something that is being spun out episode by episode. It’s just different little aspects. It’s like she takes a little memento away from every engagement, so that will be a constant.

But we’re definitely laying in some threads, and there are definitely things that we are not explaining, but we kind of took some of the things we were going to hold for a few years and said hey, let’s just hit them in the head with a frying pan, because that will keep them excited, and it’s not like we lack for places to go.

Joss On Developing The Other Dolls:
The other dolls, obviously we start out focusing on Echo, but the friends that she makes, in particular, Sierra, all have their own stories, their own reasons for being there, and their own reaction to things. As her friendships are formed more, we get to spend more time with the other dolls, and we get real tastes of how easy they have it, and how hard they do, how controlled their lives are, and then how out of control they can get, because they have no skills for dealing with the world.

I can’t really go into specifics, but we pretty much get to start putting everybody through the ringer long about halfway through. It starts to get complicated for all of them.

Joss On The Overtly Sexual Advertising Campaign:
I do support it. I saw the photo shoot, and I mostly support it because Eliza was very comfortable with it and very pleased with the photos. She’s very comfortable with her body.

The premise of the show involves these men and women being hired and obviously, some of that has to do with sex. This is something that was in the premise from the start. It came from my conversation with Eliza. We wanted to talk about it, she mentioned herself, wanted to talk about sexuality in whatever show she was doing, not just by virtue of her being all hot, but by really examining human sexuality and how it drives us and why it’s important to us.

And the idea of objectification versus identification, these are all things that I’ve been working on all the time. I didn’t actually know that tagline was in there. I just heard oh, they released those photos, so I didn’t know that, and it brings up what is ultimately the touchiest issue of this show, which is are we actually making a comment about the way people use each other that is useful and interesting and textured, or are we just putting her in a series of hot outfits and paying lip service to the idea of asking the questions.

And I think there are going to be things that people react to different. I think some things will offend some people, some things will not. There are things in it that I’m not positive I support, and some of the things that bother me don’t bother any of the other writers, and that’s something that I’ve been a little bit afraid of, but I haven’t shied away from, because part of the point is to look at these gray areas and to see what of this is unique in us, what is it we need from each other, how much do we objectify each other, how much do we use each other, both men and women, and what is actually virtuous.

One of the problems I ran into early on, and this was the only real dissonance between me and the network was they didn’t really want to deal with those issues having bought the show. They didn’t want to deal with the idea of what they are now clearly marketing, but the sexy side of it. It’s a classic network problem. You want to evoke this, but then they don’t want to say anything. They don’t want to be specific about it, so we’ve struggled with that. We’ve struggled with making sure that the show doesn’t, by virtue of playing it safe, become offensive, because the idea of this show was never to play it safe. The idea of this show was always to be in your face about it.

So the answer to your question is kind of both. It is just a standard scantily clad babe come-on, and it is ultimately a deconstruction of same, but not so much that I would say it’s just done ironically and therefore, I am blameless for it. We are absolutely saying Eliza is a sexual creature, and people desire her for that reason.

The idea is to get the audience to look at their own desire, and to figure out what of it is acceptable, and what of it is kind of creepy. In order to do that, we go to a creepy place sometimes, and I will be very interested to see if people find it empowering or the other things. I may have crossed the line. Let’s find out.

Dollhouse premieres Friday, February 13 at 9/8c on Fox.

Nice Girls Radio: Joss Whedon & Eliza Dushku

Dollhouse Week continues! Today on Nice Girls Radio we’ll feature clips from a couple of conference calls we participated in with Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku. Listen live at 12PM CST / 10AM PST, or listen to the archived version of the show afterward from the widget in our sidebar. We’ll also chat about Dollhouse, the return of Sarah Connor, and choose our Nice Boy of the Week.

Dollhouse Week: Whedon and Penikett at NYCC

Welcome to Dollhouse Week! We’re all Joss Whedon fans here at Nice Girls HQ, so naturally we’ve been counting down the days until the mastermind’s latest series, Dollhouse, premieres. To help us through the final week, we’ll have a Dollhouse-related post every day. Joss Whedon and Tahmoh Penikett did us a solid to start out the week by appearing at New York Comic Con yesterday, so let’s get some scoopage.

End of Show’s correspondent summed up the feeling here:

There’s nothing like a new Joss Whedon show, is there? The excitement, the obsessiveness, the regression into beloved mythologies, the quoting of memorized lines of dialogue, the anxious worries of inevitable cancellation, the grassroots campaigning for a show that may or may not need saving… Fans long initiated into the Whedon cult, obsess; everyone else turns around and stares, wondering what all the fuss is about. And this year, with a shiny new Joss show, starring not one but two of his past alumns, the pilgrimage to New York’s Comic Con (lets face it, our Mecca), feels that much more important and exhilarating.

Those attending the panel were given a sneak peek at the pilot, including this pivotal setup scene for Eliza Dushku’s character, Echo. WARNING: Spoilers!

Eliza is mildly Faith-ish here, a little tough, a little broken, looking for someone to save her. Adele offers Caroline a way out of whatever jam she’s in – five years of service in exchange for “a clean slate.” “I don’t have a choice, do I?” Caroline asks, rhetorically. Actions have consequences, she muses.The scene ends on a shot of Adele, saying: “but what if they didn’t?” (Read more about the panel and trailer at End of Show.)

Fan Jen Hayley actually met Joss, and behaved as any Nice Girl would:

There I saw the fourth trade of Astonishing X-Men, written by Joss Whedon and art by John Cassaday. It was signed by John Cassaday, and while I have the first three trades, I don’t have the fourth, so I bought it. And about, oh, 72 seconds after that, Joss Whedon walked by me.

And I had no idea how to move.

(What happened next? Go to her blog to find out.)

And finally, here’s a video of the panel for you to bask in the Joss and Tahmoh goodness.

Dollhouse & Fringe at New York Comic Con

Joss Whedon is scheduled to take Dollhouse on the road in February, appearing at the New York Comic Con on February 8 at 12:45PM to premiere the first episode (a week before it airs on Fox) and participate in a Q&A session. Get more information at the NYCC blog.

Most of the cast of Fringe are also scheduled to appear, taking the stage on February 8 at 1:45PM. Scheduled to appear at the panel session are John Noble (“Walter Bishop”), Jasika Nicole (“Astrid Fransworth”),  Anna Torv (“Olivia Dunham”), Lance Reddick (“Phillip Broyles”), Kirk Acevedo (“Charlie Francis”), and Blair Brown (“Nina Sharp”). Noble will also be signing autographs at the Fan Expo Canada booth on February 7.  Get more information at the NYCC blog.

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