Dollhouse renewed? Will wonders never cease...

This is a day of bizarre news - Dollhouse has been picked up for a second season, as has Better Off Ted, and also Castle. 3 shows which I love (well, thoroughly enjoy - as with all relationships, I've found it hard to entirely commit when I've been worrying they'll leave me at a moment's notice), all coming back for more. Hurrah!

This is really the sort of short media announcement which belongs on my sister site Reality Avoidance, but I've not written anything here for a few days, so felt I should keep the ball rolling. As such, here's a quick summary of those three shows, together with anything else which occurs to me while I write it.

Dollhouse is Joss Whedon's newest show, creator of Buffy, Angel, and Firefly. Firefly was cancelled prematurely, but subsequently built a decent fanbase on DVD, and was followed by the movie Serenity (which just about made back its budget, but was critically acclaimed and loved by everyone I know who's seen it). Dollhouse started averagely - an interesting premise (short version - a secret facility hosts people who have artificial personalities uploaded into their brains for the use of exclusive clients) was wasted for the first few episodes with generic "assignment of the week" plots, but by episode 5 or 6 a bigger arc developed, with secrets emerging, assumptions being challenged, and things kicked up a gear. The finale tied up a few loose ends but left them plenty of places to go, without an irritating cliffhanger - a suitable end if that was the last ever, but now I'm keen to see how a second series works. Now if only it gets moved from Friday nights it might actually get an audience, which would shut up the naysayers.

Better Off Ted feels reminiscent of Arrested Development, in part at least. That may be due to the presence of Portia de Rossi, but it's also a dry comedy with no laugh track, in a semi-documentary style. Well, ish. It's set in a large corporation, with the main character (Ted) being an upper-middle manager, and Portia De Rossi as his boss. Andrea Anders works in the testing department, and there are also two bickering lab techs. A sample exchange: "We need a mouse that can withstand temperatures up to 195 degrees." "We can do that. Uh, computer mouse or live mouse?" "Computer mouse." "Easier." There are apparently more episodes in existence than the 7 which have aired thus far, but no word yet on when the rest are going out - keep an eye out for them. I'm glad it's coming back - it's a fairly unique comedy at the moment, and hopefully it'll build.

Last but not least, Castle. Well, probably least. On many levels this isn't anything special, which sounds more damning than I mean it to. It's almost a modern update of Murder, She Wrote (which ran until 1996, I recently discovered) - Nathan Fillion plays Frank Castle, a crime writer who in the first episode is called in by the police for advice after a murderer starts using his books as inspiration for killings. After solving that case and enjoying the process, plus taking a shine to the female detective he was working with, he calls in a few favours with the mayor and starts joining in on cases as research for his next book(s). It's basically a generic police procedural, but the chemistry between the two leads is good, with Castle being a likeable womaniser, with a mother and daughter to look after. After Firefly and Drive both being cancelled (the latter after about 4 episodes, which was criminal, given its interesting premise), Nathan Fillion deserves to have a series last longer than a few episodes, so I'm glad he's got that chance.