Breaking News: Dollhouse, Castle Renewed!

The upfronts aren’t until next week, but we received late-breaking news tonight that both Dollhouse and Castle have been renewed!

In a stunning move, sources confirm that Fox has picked up Dollhouse for a 13-episode second season, bringing the show back for Fridays next Fall. Given the show’s low ratings – it ended with a 1.0 rating in the 18-49 demo – it had been pretty much given up for dead, until rumors started to swirl that negotiations were underway for season two.  The Hollywood Reporter has more on how this happened, but suffice to say there was practically a perfect storm of minor reasons and decisions that lead to the renewal. Will this mellow Whedonites’ bitterness toward Fox over Firefly? Time will tell. (We’re willing to bury the hatchet here at Nice Girls HQ. Just sayin’.)

Less surprising is ABC’s decision to renew Castle, starring Firefly alum Nathan Fillion. After expanding Dancing with the Stars to give Castle a stronger lead-in, the mystery series saw a sizeable boost in ratings that turned its prospects from “so-so” to “positive”. More details, such as number of episodes and timeslot, will emerge when ABC officially unveils their 2009-2010 schedule on Tuesday, but The Hollywood Reporter confirms that Castle has been given a second season.

Now we’re just waiting for NBC to do the right thing and give us another season of Chuck and we’ll have the perfect trifecta of returning shows.