• Post-apocalyptic wishes and radioactive dreams:
  One of this year's most anticipated games is Fallout 3, the follow-up to what's seen as one of the best and most innovative role playing games. Those eager Fallout fans got some exciting news this week. Not only is the game done (with bugs to fix) the game promises to be huge -- with some 200 possible endings. Wow. Now if only someone could tell me if the game has any same-sex couples, as Fallout 2 did...
  
  
• Welcome to the Dollhouse, Helo:
  Before the Writers' Guild went on strike, we were pretty excited over the news of a new Joss Whedon series. Now that Hollywood has gone back to work, they've begun casting the roles not played by Eliza Dushku. Battlestar Galactica hottie Tahmoh Penikett will be playng Dushku's romantic foil. Nice...

  

  Maybe it's just the articles I read, but I haven't seen the usual talk of "We can work around his Battlestar Galactica commitments." Hurm, I wonder...
  
  
• I'd buy a record from a group called Doctor and the Three Companions:
  Oh, goody, the series four Doctor Who trailer hit the web this week. Check it out. I know this isn't a common opinion, but I'm looking forward to seeing the return of Donna. I like the idea of an everywoman companion who isn't immediately wowed by everything The Doctor does and the promise of a big companion meet-up is pretty exciting, as well. (Though why not throw Mickey into that mix, as well? And weren't we already promised that Captain Jack would be a part of the mix?) The fourth season arrives in the USA on the Sci-Fi Channel April 18, starting with the "Voyage of the Damned" special which co-stars dance diva Kylie Minogue.
  
  
• Look who's honoring him now:
  Four years ago, indie game developer Stardock introduced a strategy based around presidential politics, The Political Machine. The game was simple, but fun. It was like something you'd expect to play during a social studies class with the cool teacher. (So calling all you Oregon Trail fans...)
  
  This week, the publisher announced it would be coming out with a new 2008 edition. Here's what I find amusing: Four years ago the screenshot for the media screen showed a pundit looking a lot like Bill O'Reilly. This time, their media screen looks like:

  

  Notice the portrait in the corner? Heh.
  
  

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.