When Fox Entertainment president Reilly was putting together a list of people he thought could lead a strong series, one name he didn't include was Joss Whedon, a writer and producer whose last effort on Fox ended in a disaster with the critically acclaimed "Firefly" being cancelled after just a handful of episodes.
"The only reason Joss wasn't on my list is because I thought there was no way he was coming back," Reilly told reporters during this week's Television Critics Association summer press tour.
But Whedon did come back, and brought a new series idea with him: "Dollhouse."
"Joss was a gift," Reilly said.
Whedon, who is returning to Fox with the new series, said that he's OK setting up shop once again at the network that canceled the critically acclaimed sci-fi gem, "Firefly," after relegating it to the ghetto of television, Friday nights.
When Fox aired "Firefly" in Fall 2002, it aired the episodes out of the order Whedon intended them to be shown in, and preempted them for sporting events before canceling the series after airing only 11 of the 14 completed episodes.
"These are different people," Whedon said of the new guard at Fox. "They didn't do to me what was done to 'Firefly.'"
Management at the network has changed since the "Firefly" days, and now Whedon -- who left TV to direct feature "Serenity" and write comic books as well as the hit musical miniseries "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" -- has returned to Fox with "Dollhouse," a slick science-fiction series starring "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" co-star Eliza Dushku. The actress has a contract with Fox to develop a series for her, and she seized upon the opportunity to bring Joss back to television.
"Dollhouse" is about an organization whose members have different personalities implanted to go on secret missions, or fulfill the needs of their clients, and then have those personalities and memories of what they?ve done wiped clean.
"The understanding that I reached was with myself," Whedon explained about returning to television. "That I had to be realistic about what the network expected of me and about what the chances for the show would be. Like, I fell in love with 'Firefly' in a very blind and adolescent way. And I tried to meet the network halfway. But at the same time, you know, it was agony. Everything was agony for me."
Whedon, however, gave himself a little distance while trying to find the qualities in upper management that could make a Whedon series work.
"You do your best. You work with them," he said. "And you pick the people you're working with. You look for sanity and you look for intelligence. So far, I have found a great deal of both in the executives at Fox. If I had gone there and pitched to them, and they had not understood what I was telling them, I think I would have known."
"Dollhouse" will air s at 8 p.m. on Fox in early 2009. Thirteen episodes have been ordered by the network.
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