'Dollhouse' Gets Put in the Attic for Sweeps

Joss Whedon is having a week. Things started off strong with news that the Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator will direct an episode of Fox's Glee and now comes the news that his struggling Fox drama Dollhouse is getting thrown into the attic for November's sweeps.

Fox, which recently announced that it will air all 13 episodes of the Eliza Dushku starrer's second season, confirmed Thursday that it will bench Dollhouse for November sweeps and air repeats of dramas House and Bones.

Dollhouse insiders, who successfully brought back the struggling drama in an eleventh-hour rescue and promoted the DVD release with a "Double Dollhouse Days" Twitter campaign ahead of the show's Season 2 bow in September, are putting on a happy face despite the discouraging news.

Whedon, releasing a statement to fan site Whedonesque, said: "I'm not as depressed as everyone else. We weren't about to rock sweeps anyway, and though there's a chilly November, December is CRAZY. It's like an Advent calendar of episodes!"

Dollhouse, after airing Oct. 23, won't return to the Fox Friday night lineup until Dec. 4, when it will take a page from Double Dollhouse Days and air back-to-back new episodes. The series return also will mark the first episode featuring Summer Glau (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). The Double Dollhouse Fridays will run through Dec. 18, pushing the remaining three episodes of season into 2010.

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The news isn't good for a show that was barely hanging on for survival before its second season even began.

For fans, the fact that Fox is toying with the show should come as no surprise as the network has a history of axing shows — including Whedon fare like Firefly — too soon: Arrested Development ring a bell?

That Dollhouse is being pulled from the lineup for sweeps — the period when TV networks rollout their best programming (and stunt casting) to gather more viewers in order to increase ad-buy rates — is a pretty likely sign that we won't be seeing Dushku and her hot leather pants, Miracle Laurie's sweet Doll November and Dichen Lachman's sexy Sierra on Fox much after the turn of the new year.

Critics, meanwhile, were starting to come around to the show as TV Guide's Matt Roush had high praise for Lachman's episode airing Friday.

Could Dollhouse be joining Arrested Development and dramas like Firefly, My So-Called Life and Wonderfalls in the ranks of great shows that were canceled too soon? What do you think?

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