Joss Whedon returns to Fox, with Faith

Fox's new entertainment president made his first major programming move with the announcement that Joss Whedon has a new series in the works with the network. Even better, this isn't news of a pilot being developed to possibly make it to our TVs: Fox has already committed to seven episodes.

The new project, titled Dollhouse, reunites Whedon with Eliza Dushku, who's best remembered as renegade vampire slayer Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Dushku will play Echo, an agent who can be programed to have a personality -- including any necessary physical or intellectual abilities -- tailored to any task assigned to her. In between assignments, Echo and her fellow agents have their memories erased to leave a clean slate for their next one. However, Echo begins to develop some self-awareness, disrupting the status quo for the illegal facility known as The Dollhouse.

Whedon also discussed the show with TV Week. He expressed optimism for Dollhouse's chances at Fox, despite the disappointment fans felt over his last Fox series, Firefly, saying that, "It’s a brand new day over there. It’s a completely new bunch of people and they seem really intelligent and supportive."

Whedon also noted that the series' debut will depend on when the impending writers' strike ends:

I can write for spring. There’s a hiccup in that process because of the [potential] writers strike. I will be good to go the moment we are in agreement with the studios. But I won’t pick up a pencil while we’re not.

So far, there's no gay characters in the show but Whedon is responsible for giving us the first gay lead character on an American sci-fi TV series and is one of the few sci-fi writers out there who regularly seeks to include gay characters and stories. Considering that there's a definite shortage of gay representation in sci-fi, a new series by Whedon is a very welcome development.