If you're one of those Whedon fans that gets a throbbing vein in your noggin when the subject of Firefly, Fox, and the original pilot come up, you might want to have a seat before you continue. It seems that the newest member of the Whedonverse, Dollhouse, is getting a new pilot.

As Whedon explains in a post over at whedonesque.com, the original episode "...didn't bring the visceral pop the network had expected from the script. The network was cool about it, but not sure how to come out of the gate with the ep." If you read that and immediately think of the network wanting a different opening for Firefly, I can't blame you, but it doesn't seem as bad as all that this time.

The Whedonverse is an incestuous place. While Drive is not technically a Whedon show, Tim Minear was brought into the fold long ago and is part of the family. And it is showing as they continue to retool the cast of his latest creation. Amy Acker, formerly Fred on Angel, is the latest addition. She'll be playing the missing wife of Nathan Fillion's (Firefly, Buffy) character, Alex Tully.

There is finally an official start date for the show as well. Drive will premiere on Sunday April 15th before settling in to Mondays at 8 on April 16th. Leading in to 24 is about as good a slot as they could have asked for, and taking over for Prison Break seems to make a lot of sense. Viewership for the two shows should be similar, so hopefully most of those folks will stick around to see what Minear has cooked up.

[ via whedonesque ]