The Glau-Dushku Convergence

Some might say a Friday night is a death sentence for a television program, a barren wasteland with no viewers, because everyone has a life, right? Many times in the past, the FOX network has rolled the dice in scheduling programs on Friday nights that might appeal to the geeky, dateless wonders just sad enough to be sitting in front of that glowing box instead of another human being. And yet, perhaps the science fiction demographic was still too great a minority to pull in the numbers the executives would have wanted for such now-canceled shows as Millennium, Harsh Realm, The Visitor, Sliders, and others. Sliders managed to gain a few extra seasons after FOX axed it, and found a new home on SciFi, a channel that went on to dominate the Friday night geek audience with the Stargate franchise as well as Battlestar Galactica.

FOX is at it again, as of this past Friday and, knowing their target audience, included a series of promos for their shows starring Summer Glau and Eliza Dushku. Both are beloved stars from past Joss Whedon shows, and that man knows how to cast his sexy young ladies. Fans of Nathan “Cap'n Tightpants” Fillion could probably argue that he does well casting males as well, but I'll leave that argument for someone else. Glau formerly starred with Fillion in Firefly, Whedon's foray into science fiction that gained a large cult following despite being canceled after one season of episodes that were aired out of order and not in their entirety. She now stars on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles playing a reprogrammed robot sent back in time to protect the future leader of the human resistance. In its second season, the show continues to impress me with its sheer character driven strength and themes of humanity. In this weeks episode, suffering from a bullet wound, Lena Heady's Sarah Connor hallucinates her son's father Kyle Reese, and he acts as a guide and motivator as she finds a doctor to help her while avoiding the authorities. It was a great bit of continuity that the show worked in some of the Kyle character's dialogue from the original Terminator film, and I hope the upcoming film sparks enough interest in the franchise to draw in more viewers. Moving from Mondays to Fridays as of this week, the show may risk a drop in the ratings.

Dushku meanwhile stars in a new Whedon show, Dollhouse, and the sophomore Terminator may have moved to give the new show a strong lead-in. Dushku first came to the attention of Whedon fans on Buffy The Vampire Slayer playing the slayer Faith, and would later reprise the role on several episodes of the spin-off Angel. Dushku is no stranger to FOX either, and after her supernatural Whedon appearances she went on to star in Tru Calling, playing a morgue worker who relives days until she prevents the death of whichever body asked for her help in a particular episode. It's one of the many FOX shows I wished could have been brought back to life. In Dollhouse, she plays Echo, an “Active”. Actives are blank slates, people who have been brought to some mysterious facility, the Dollhouse, to have their pasts erased. The people in the facility can imprint any active with any collected personality, or blend of personalities, with the skills needed for a particular task. In the pilot, Echo is imprinted with a hostage negotiator in order to retrieve a kidnapped girl. The catch is that personality imprints come from living beings, and she has the memories of someone who happened to have been kidnapped by one of the same people who took the little girl she's trying to save. She might also pick up any physical limitations along with skills, in this case nearsightedness and asthma. Battlestar Galactica's Tahmoh Penikett stars as an agent on the trail of the Dollhouse, tracking missing persons because the Actives may have been taken against their will. It's not quite clear whether they volunteered to have their memory wiped, and what the full motives of the Dollhouse staff actually are. They seem to be helping people, albeit for a fee, and through questionable means. Amy Acker, another Angel alum, also stars as one of the doctors in the facility.

The new show has potential, especially since Eliza will be assuming a different role each week, depending on what skills and personality are needed. And there's an early bit of dialogue in which her character alludes to the fact that when you wipe a slate, there are still smudges and imprints of what was written there before. Over time these characters are probably going to struggle with past memories, and it's no coincidence her character is named “Echo”. The show is running with the same limited commercial interruption format as Fringe, letting viewers know whether a break will be 60 or 90 seconds. These messages are set against shots of Dushku's curves, in case viewers missed the double team of Glau and Dushku appealing to their dateless male demographic. They even threw in a line for Acker on the show, telling Dushku's character it was time for her massage. So they're being pretty blatant in using the sex appeal of these actresses to hook their viewers. Both shows are good in their own right, and that's enough of a reason to watch without resorting to such obvious tactics.

Although it certainly didn't hurt...