• Obviously, this week is all about the aftermath of Comic Con, and one of the coolest images I saw on the interwebs is also one of the simplest: the emblem of all things good and true, Captain America’s shield. It’s funny … never in my wildest dreams as a kid did I expect to see so many live-action films based on the comics I loved. And now here we are. Excelsior. (There’s also a pic of the Infinity Gauntlet.)

• Plans are afoot to reboot The Crow film franchise, and for the script they’ve hired Nick Cave, also known as the dude I’ve never heard of before. But apparently he’s an esteemed writer and has a fan base, so who knows? Could be awesome.

• Now that the latest Tron: Legacy trailer has hit the net, word is coming in that the powers that be are planning a prequel comic in order to bridge the new movie with the original. Sweet.

• Even though he didn’t end up getting the role, Josh Hutcherson’s audition tape for Spider-Man, featuring him in a fight scene, is online. It’s actually pretty awesome, and totally makes me want to film one of my own. Too bad the part’s already been taken.

• If you’re interested, someone thought long and hard about why Stephenie Meyer’s vampires sparkle. Because if anything merits serious, scientific research, it’s Twilight.

• Family Guy head honcho Seth MacFarlane said that now having done their third Star Wars episode, they won’t do episodes lampooning the prequels. Why? Says star Alex Borstein, “They sucked.” Uh-huh. So did your spoof of The Empire Strikes Back.

• This season I’ve been channeling my inner evil demon to bring you Goth Recaps for True Blood, but it turns out all the cast wants to do is joke around and talking about getting naked on set.

• Check out Joss Whedon discussing his casting choices of Jeremy Renner and Mark Ruffalo in The Avengers …

• And finally, fans are going gaga over what happened at the Green Lantern panel, as it just absolutely reeks of adorable. So this cute little kid wearing a Green Lantern T-Shirt asks Ryan Reynolds to recite the Green Lantern’s oath. Which he did … flawlessly. Epic win.

• We have a lot of news out of Comic-Con this weekend, and while I’ve tried to slice off the fantasy portions, I’ve put together something of a Comic-Con Gallery of interesting photos over on the Facebook page of AfterElton.com as the weekend progressed you might like.

• But I’d be remiss if I didn’t say a few things about our superheroes, like the fact that Mark Ruffalo is indeed playing Hulk, and Jeremy Renner is Hawkeye. In fact, here we see The Avengers assemble for the first time: Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Captain America, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner / Incredible Hulk, and Director Joss Whedon.

• Guillermo del Toro left The Hobbit for a Haunted Mansion movie, but he swears what got people most excited at his panel, “where we had a house at full capacity, with 6000 asses levitated by both pieces of footage” was for his horror film Are You Afraid of the Dark starring Katie Holmes. That’s why she made the front page.

• Supernatural is filming the impossible sixth season, and they swear it doesn’t suck. Dean is living the domestic life for a year, thinking Sam is dead when he gets sucked back into hunting. They also planned a meta episode (my favorites are the meta episodes) about vampires, and how real vampires are having a feeding frenzy because girls want to date Edward Cullen. Supernatural vampires aren’t cuddly like “pasty, waify” vampires from Twilight and Vampire Diaries.

• As long as we’re talking about vampires, you may as well see this trailer for the second half of True Blood. It seems to me we’ve just been setting the pieces in place so far. Things haven’t even begun to get interesting.

• Speaking of vicious vampires, Priest was a big hit at Comic-Con. I don’t know whether to view this as sci-fi or fantasy, but vampires have driven humans into walled cities. Priests are genetically engineered super-soldiers meant to fight them. Let Twilight’s Cam Gigandet, Maggie Q, and Karl Urban explain.

• And so you can decide for yourself if these are vampires we’d recognize in any normal sense of the word, here’s the trailer for Priest. I think they’d have Edward Cullen for lunch.

• Dragon Age: Origins announced some upcoming DLC this weekend. Don’t expect much in the way of story: this is a dungeon designed for high-level players to hack their way through hordes of enemies in an unforgiving environment.

• Zack Snyder sat down with MTV to talk about Xerxes. He’s careful not to call it a prequel or a sequel, since the graphic novel they’re using as a book takes place over the same three days as 300 happened. He’s not even against trying to get Gerard Butler into somehow, even if I am.

• The Cape is a weird mix. It seems to have a disgraced cop trying to clear his name donning a costume from one of his son’s comic books, but also using basic magician tricks and illusion in the hunt for bad guys. But some bad guys are better than others since he lives with a group of circus clown bank robbers. I’d watch this one early, because it sounds too weird to gain an audience.

• We got the first trailer of Ironclad at Comic-Con, with Paul Giamatti as King John storming a castle, complete with some major catapults.

• Killruddery House and Gardens (pics at link) has been de-modernized to stand in for the palace in Starz’ Camelot in Northern Ireland. They’ve added replica gates to take the castle back to a more medieval look, and stars Ralph Fiennes and Jamie Campbell-Bowers have already raced up to the front on horseback as Merlin and King Arthur. I have to say it looks more “right” than the French castle they use in Merlin.

• In the side bar on the front page, we’ve been running the teaser for The Goon, the animated zombie film that David Fincher is trying to make. There’s still no studio funding this beyond a short, which is a shame, because I’m not sure we’ve seen anything quite like it before. Here’s the animated short the teaser was cut from. Somebody please make this.

• Most of the UK is buzzing about A Game of Thrones, one of the few properties not at Comic-Con this weekend since they only just began shooting. But they’re calling it the most anticipated television show ever, and the only thing the article compares the show to is Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, which is pretty exclusive company to keep. It also offers the best summary of what it is I’ve read yet, “A Game of Thrones is high fantasy; although with a lot more swords than sorcery. It’s a world of prophecies, exiled princesses, talking crows and magical trees. There’s lots of death and lots of sex; the world is relentlessly bleak and war is hell.” This is also the first place I remember reading that the BBC has a stake in the show, which will matter to our British readers.

• On Friday we mentioned Drive Angry 3D, and showed some demonic concept art. The first footage that was released doesn’t really show any of that, just Nic Cage playing the same Nic Cage character he always plays, this time with a more traditional hairpiece than The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

• Thor is a weird property: he’s a Norse God, but he exists in the same Marvel universe as Iron Man’s technology. So it should be as no surprise when he falls to earth, cast out by Odin, he’s taken to an Area-51 style facility. But the reports out of Comic-con say that while he is a God, science is king to the story, and most of it takes place on Earth. Here’s Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston (Loki) in front of Odin’s throne, with the Destroyer armor behind them.

• Another big movie with a lot of expectations is Let Me In, which is an American remake of the classic Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In. There’s been much discussion about whether this remake was necessary, but I’ll be honest, it’s tough to maintain tension with an American audience with subtitles.

• But while the poster is bleak, I’m not going to lie to you, Marge, the trailer creeps me out. Children as vampires isn’t often done, and in most cases they’re considered abominations, and this doesn’t seem to be the route they’re taking here. Color me intrigued.

• And finally, I know this column is long, and it’s epic, but I can’t leave without sharing the sizzle reel for Mega Python vs. Gatoroid from SyFy. It’s got teen queens Deborah Gibson and Tiffany in an epic fight scene worthy of Dynasty, and Tiffany’s cleavage is working overtime.

Okay, I know that Buffy didn’t invent the wheel.

I know that Joss Whedon liberally borrowed from Anne Rice when creating his epic vampire series, and that Rice herself had taken a cue from plenty of other authors, Bram Stoker being one of the big ones.

But I think we can all agree that when a certain valley girl staked her way into our hearts in 1997, something special happened.

Sure, the 1992 Buffy movie was a silly camp-fest. But thankfully, the stars aligned for Whedon when the then-fledgling WB network wanted to turn the film into a series, and the rest is history. Buffy the Vampire Slayer became one of the most influential television shows of the past two decades, made stars of its young cast, and basically invented the TV genre of urban fantasy.

So isn’t it crazy how everyone is ripping it off and not giving it credit?

Does anyone remember that genius episode of South Park entitled “Simpsons Already Did It,” in which Butters realized anything that could possibly happen in the town of South Park had already been covered by The Simpsons?

That’s sort of the case with vampire shows these days, only in this case, The Simpsons is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and South Park is, well, everything else.

The biggest vampire properties these days are True Blood, Twilight, and The Vampire Diaries. All of them, interestingly, based on book series, and two of those three series were written after Buffy had gone on the air.

In all fairness, the Vampire Diaries book series, which featured a high school girl who fell in love with a vampire, was published in 1991, six years before the Buffy series aired. Therefore, they get a pass.

The other guys? Not so much.

Like The Twilight Zone before it, Buffy changed the game and influenced a huge amount of projects that came after it.

Let’s break it down:

Twilight, which was published in 2005 (2 years after Buffy wrapped), featured a high school girl who falls in love with a vampire. Their love is angsty and forbidden, and the vampire lover, Edward, resists having sex with her lest he lose control. Not a far cry from the situation with Buffy and her undead beau, Angel, in the beginning of the series.

Twilight also features Jacob, a werewolf with a gigantic crush, not unlike Oz, played by Seth Green, who premiered in the second season of Buffy.

Dead Until Dark, the novel which became the inspiration for the entire first season of True Blood, centers around Sookie, a perky blond waitress with telepathic abilities, who begins a steamy romance with a vampire named Bill. Sookie is tormented by her ability to read minds, and finds it refreshing that she can’t hear the thoughts of a vampire.

Great plot, right? It was even better when it appeared in the “Earshot” episode of Buffy, which aired in 1999, two years before Dead Until Dark was published.

And the influence extends beyond just these shows. Daybreakers, which came out earlier this year, took place in a world overrun by vampires, in which they harvest human blood with advanced machinery. Of course, this idea was already explored in the third season Buffy episode “The Wish.”

Blade: Trinity, which featured the extremely Buffyish Abigail (Jessica Biel), had a plot which took a known vampire slayer — Blade — and put him up against Dracula … a la the fifth season opener, “Buffy vs. Dracula.”

Even the campy, low-budget soap Dante’s Cove had a character named Van, a lesbian witch who became intoxicated by her own power, leading to tragedy. Sound familiar? It should, as that was pulled right from Willow’s arc in Buffy’s sixth season.

As stated earlier, I’m well aware that Buffy itself pulled from a lot of different sources, but there’s no question that, whether consciously or not, many authors are directly influenced by the plots of the ground-breaking show. I actually believe that most authors are unaware if their stories may seem a little too similar to Buffy, as the show has become so much a part of the cultural fabric — particularly among fantasy fans — that the influence may very well be entirely subliminal.

So, who knows? Maybe the future will bring us genre stories that feel less derivative. But until someone massively reimagines the vampire mythos, chances are they’ll still bare a passing resemblance to our Sunnydale cheerleader and her adventures.

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Four and a half Torches (Out of Five)

There are fandoms, and then there is the Firefly fandom, which unlike any other.

Joss Whedon’s “space Western” aired for a mere eleven episodes in 2002 — 14 were produced in all. But an outpouring of enthusiasm from fans has kept the show alive since then (and led to a 2005 movie, Serenity, that was even better than the series).

Not surprisingly, in addition to the movie, much media have been created to satisfy fans of Firefly, the latest project of which is Firefly: Still Flying, a sort of scrapbook-like “celebration” of the series.

This book is not a definitive “guide” to the series — not surprisingly, that’s been done before (and plenty is also available online). This project probably isn’t for the casual fan.

But if you’re a devoted “Browncoat,” or truly devoted fan of the series, you’ll absolutely love geeking out on this book, which takes sort of a “little bit of everything” approach to its subject.

How did the scripts get outlined and written? Jane Espenson tells you. How were stunts done on the show? They interview Nick Brandon, the show’s stunt coordinator.

There are also storyboards and costuming sketches and behind-the-scenes photos and weaponry and even a look at the kitchen utensils on board the Serenity.

No, seriously. Like I said, this is for serious geeks of the series.

Most interesting of all, the book includes new fiction about the characters written by writers of the original series.

If anything is disappointing about the book, it’s that most of the interviews with the actual cast members are snippets from old, previously published articles.

Still, this is all very well-done and highly recommended for, well, you know who you are.

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• Sony may have to make a decision that should make plenty of people happy, including me: make a Ghost Rider sequel without Nic Cage. The actor wants to come back, but has a jam-packed schedule, and if Sony doesn’t get production underway but November 14 of this year, Marvel gets the character rights back, and Disney would love to be in the Ghost Rider business.

• Ryan Carnes is set to play the world’s least exciting super hero, The Phantom. The first trailer is out from SyFy’s four-hour miniseries, meant to serve as a possible backdoor pilot for a series. The new Phantom has technology and an attitude, but he doesn’t wear spandex.

• Disney is so anxious to make some money off the Marvel purchase that they’re even entertaining the possibility of spinning Black Widow off from Iron Man into her own franchise. I’m not comics savvy, but I hadn’t even heard of Black Widow until this Iron Man sequel.

• As long as we’re stuck in the comics universe, the Wall Street Journal has weighed in with a fawning editorial on why Joss Whedon is the only person who can make The Avengers work. Their argument seems to be that he once did Buffy, and if you ignore anything else he did, he’s brilliant.

• Collider took all five Iron Man 2 clips released this week and created one super-clip for our enjoyment. Plus, AC/DC is a great way to get pumped for the week.

• Taking an early look at the genre pilots being shot by the major broadcast networks, it’s a mixed bag. It still looks like Terra Nova is a lock on Fox with Brannon Braga on board to destroy the dino series faster than a comet collision. NBC is interested in the Batman-esque The Cape with the former cop turned super hero. ABC isn’t looking at much. The CW has the Nikita concept, which is slightly futuristic spy-thriller, and Nomads, which is college students working for the CIA. It’s a little bare other than that.

• Avatar: The Last Airbender has released a new trailer, and there’s still nothing funny, but it does have something very, very important to the story – Appa! Appa in flight, and he looks just like Appa should. I want a flying bison!

• Jim Butcher’s latest addition to his Dresden Files series, Changes, shakes what had been a fairly predictable world up by giving the wizard detective a daughter, and having her kidnapped by vampires. I think it’s nice to see evil vampires for a change.

• Catching up with Haven star Emily Rose, we find that there’s a decent amount of Stephen King’s The Colorado Kid to the paranormal detective series, but it also sound like they’re holding on to the “soap-opera” aspect noted by plenty of others. It will be much more character-driven than spooky.

• Now that the United States has seen two episodes of Matt Smith as Doctor Who, people are starting to weigh in on the quality. It seems to be undeniable that Matt Smith and Karen Gillen are charming and well-balanced as Doctor and Companion. But some feel that showrunner and lead writer Steven Moffat is afraid to take the story into the deep end. And I admit, it feels a bit safe up to this point.

• Ricardo de Montreuil’s short film The Raven takes place in an alternative future in Los Angeles, with protagonist Chris Black possessing a “power that could lead to the downfall of the current regime.” It’s fairly impressive, considering it was shot for just $5,000.

• Could it be true? The internets are all a-flutter, saying it’s quite possible that High Lord and Master of All Geeks, Joss Whedon, will be directing the upcoming Avengers movie. Please, please, please let this happen.

• I’m open about the fact that I’m a newb to the Doctor Who universe, having discovered it after really enjoying Torchwood a few months ago. But in those months, I’ve gotten to know the world of Who quite well, and while I’m going to desperately miss David Tennant, I’m really looking forward to the new season. io9 has an interview with the cast and writer that’s well worth a look.

• Did you guys know there are fantasy-adventure books out with J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis as the protagonists? I didn’t, but apparently they will soon be turned into movies, and get this: they’ll be produced by Rick Porras, who will be well-known to owners of the DVDs of Lord of the Rings. This is like concentric rings of geekdom. And I love it!

• I’m not sure how people are reacting to Chris Evans as Captain America on the whole. When I was at PAX East, some dude overheard me talking about it with friends and shouted “Sucks!” So, that’s one guy … with apparently no social skills. What do you guys thing? Anyway, Ain’t It Cool has a little piece about it here.

• Gaaah … this freaks me the eff out, but it might be worth a look if you’re into weird, challenging art. An artist named Jason de Caires Taylor has taken to creating creepy, lifelike sculptures and placing them on the bottom of the sea floor. I don’t know why, but it gives me the serious heebiejeebies.

• I got two items into this list and had to stop, but I know some of you out there live for this kind of stuff, so here is a list of the 7 Most Horrifying Things Ever Found in a Human Body from Cracked. Enjoy the list … freaks.

• Ever wanted to know what the most depressing moments in Marvel history were? Well, look no further!
  

• Number three on the aforementioned list is the entire life of Daredevil. I feel bad for the guy, such a series of unlucky breaks, and then a less-than-stellar movie. Beyond that, he’s also the victim of a pretty hilarious blooper while filming a fight scene … (Warning: Very mildly NSFW language.)

Neil Patrick Harris, the star of Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog internet video sensation, tells MTV News that he expects the sequel to be a feature film.

“That’s their plan,” he said. “I don’t know of what scale. They’re talking all options, because they made the first Dr. Horrible in five days on no budget at all — that was its intention.

“You don’t want to necessarily make the feature film be an $80 million giant movie,” he said, “because it defeats the purpose of what the first film was made to be. Then again, you don’t want it to be so low-brow that it’s not worth paying money to see as a movie.”

Although it seems unimaginable that Harris wouldn’t be the star, that’s apparently a possibility.

“I hope they cast me in it,” Harris said. “We’ll see.”

In January, Harris told a group of writers (including a TheTorchOnline.com correspondent) that his busy schedule would make filming the sequel difficult.

“We have from April to August off [from filming my sitcom How I Met Your Mother], which isn’t a huge window,” he said, “and that’s coming pretty soon, so I wouldn’t expect it to happen this hiatus. But maybe a year from then?”

With the news that the project may be a feature film, a start date this year now seems impossible. So if the project ends up starring Harris, it likely couldn’t be out for several years.

Three and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

After the tantalizing cliffhanger that ended the last issue, in which we see Buffy floating hundreds of yards in the air, we knew we were up for something big. And we get it, as the latest issue picks up with Buffy flying through the air, Superman-style, mentioning to herself how strong she feels.

In the immediate aftermath of the battle that’s been featured in the last two issues, we catch up with the currently powerless Slayers, who are nursing their own wounded, as well as Twilight’s soldiers. The three havoc-wreaking goddesses are still bent on destruction, and Willow can do nothing to stop them. Finally, after a confessional chat with Xander, Buffy outs herself as newly super-empowered and buries the goddesses deep in the ground.

Overview: This issue was written by the man himself, Joss Whedon, and thus the dialogue had that familiar flow of the series (much like the issues written by Jane Espenson), so for that alone it’s worth it. But overall not a whole lot happens here. We discover Faith, Andrew, and Giles have been kidnapped by Twilight, a small heart-to-heart between Buffy and Riley, a lengthy talk between Buffy and Xander, and finally Buffy’s revelation of her new powers.

But it’s really the encounter between Buffy and Xander that is the focus of this story. Having learned that Xander and Dawn are dating, Buffy professes that she has feelings for Xander, who puts her in her place, saying she’s confused and selfish, in a nice way, of course. In essence, he’s having none of it, and Buffy admits it was tactless.

And that’s what’s great about Joss Whedon’s vision: he’s created a hero who is seriously, deeply flawed in the way that we’re all seriously, deeply flawed. Super strength and (now) the power of flight do not place her emotionally above any of us, and she’s as prone to moments of pettiness as the rest of us, even if her pettier moments come between the times she’s busying herself saving the world.

I also want to point out that artist Georges Jeanty, who I’ve said I’ve found unimpressive in previous issues, seems to have upped his game, returning to his more detailed, nuanced drawings that he started the series with. I’m beginning to think the reason his art has seemed a little off is because he’s been rushed. With December off, it’s been two months since the last issue that he drew, and his style is noticeably sharper. So well done, Mr. Jeanty.

Since the series started in March of 2007, we’ve had to deal with something that’s unusual for Buffy (but not comics in general): a masked villain. In the letters column, we’re promised that Twilight’s identity will be revealed in naught but a few months. After three years, I’d say it’s about time.

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Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)

Q: How is it that a spell or potion of invisibility can make clothing invisible too — but only as long as it’s on the person who is invisible? — Aaron, Pasadena, CA

A: It’s called magic for a reason.

Q: I hated Dollhouse for a lot of different reasons, but one thing that creeped me out was the idea that the “dolls” were programmed for sex, which they had no control over. How is this entertaining? It bugs me that Joss Whedon also romanticized prostitution in Firefly. Given his reputation for writing strong females, does he not understand that most women see this “fantasy” very differently? — Margot, Chicago, IL

A: Whedon definitely intended the show to explore a certain kind of sexual fantasies, but says he immediately ran into studio interference surrounding those themes.

“Fox sort of has that reputation for sexy or edgy or blah, blah, blah, but they don’t actually want that and it frustrates me,” Whedon told the Chicago Tribune. “It’s the classic American double standard — torture, ‘Great.’ Sex, ‘Oh, that’s so bad.’”

At the same time, Whedon admitted that their objections weren’t quite so cut-and-dried.

“This was also more complicated because people responded to this [by saying], ‘This is trafficking. This is sex for money,’” he said. “It wasn’t just sex. It was also the other implications of what was originally supposed to be somewhat more of a fantasy. The real world version of [this kind of activity] was I think what made the network really twitchy and I can’t really fault them for that.”

In the end, Whedon sort of acknowledges the ethical problem with the central concept, but he seems to imply that it’s mostly the result of some kind of sexual hang-up.

“The idea was always, how much of the fantasy will [viewers] accept and how much will they go, ‘You know what, this just is too much like real-world situations that are truly appalling and so I can’t let the fantasy happen.’”

In the end, the Oracle sides with you, Margot, and thinks that Joss might have a bit of blind spot on this particular issue.

Q: How can Santa, one person, visit all those houses in a single night? There are billions of people in the world! — Mehran, St. Louis, MO

A: Because Santa isn’t real.

Q: If gladiators all fought to the death, wouldn’t that mean they’d run out of gladiators? — Logan, Rochester, NY

A: The ranks of gladiators were filled with captured enemy soldiers, criminals, and even paid “volunteers.” Except for the volunteers, all these people were officially laboring under a sentence of “death.”

Even so, due to the popularity of the sport, Rome did soon start to run out of gladiators, and the practice of often killing the loser at the end of every combat (if he wasn’t already dead) was officially banned. It didn’t seem to make much difference, however, as the odds of dying in any given gladiatorial combat actually rose from the beginning to the end of the empire. Rome, like Quentin Tarantino, was big on giving the audience what it wanted.

In any event, it was an extremely bloody sport. Few gladiators survived more than 10 bouts (although there are recordings of gladiators who won more than 150 fights). And almost no gladiator lived past the age of 30 — most died far younger than that.

Speaking of gladiators, the Oracle just received preview copies of the first four episodes of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, the new Lucy Lawless show coming on Starz in January. The Oracle is psyched!

Q: How can you say that Narnia doesn’t really exist! It exists in the imagination of every person who reads those books! — Roberta, Fayetteville, AK

A: Under that reasoning, everything that anyone has ever imagined “really” exists, which is a nonsensical argument that turns words into sentimental mush.

Q: Someone told me that the characters in The Year Without a Santa Claus were puppets and that you could see the strings. So I guess I want to know if they were indeed puppets or is it just lines on the screen from the film being too old? – Barb

A: They’re definitely a kind of puppet, but they’re not moved using strings, but rather a process called “stop-motion,” where the movable models are position in a certain way, and a several frames of film are shot; then the camera is turned off, and model is moved slightly, and more frames are shot, and so on; when the frames of film are shown all together, it creates the illusion that the model is actually moving.

In the case of Rankin/Bass, which created The Year Without a Santa Claus and many other Christmas classics, they sometimes later added hand-drawn animation as well, for falling snow and other elements.

Any “strings” you see are probably imperfections in the film itself, although perhaps your eagle-eyed friend has also caught a glimpse of a string or stick that the filmmakers used to position a model in a certain way in an individual “shot” — suspended in the air, perhaps.

Q: Is it my imagination or is the All-Knowing Fantasy-Question-Answering Oracle in kind of a bad mood this week? Why gives? — Brent, Seattle, WA

A: Pre-Christmas let-down. Even All-Knowing Fantasy-Question-Answering Oracles get the blues.

Looking to buy something mentioned in this column (or any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)

I know a lot of people have busied themselves haterizing on Dollhouse, but I’m here to take a stand.

I really dug that show.

And with the news that it’s been canceled, I find myself disappointed, for once again the world has been deprived of what could have been.

I say could have, because I think we can all agree that Dollhouse never really rose to the apex of Joss Whedon’s talent for storytelling.

But the potential was definitely there. Dollhouse is the Jerry Maguire to my Renee Zellwegger — I love it for the show it wants to be and I love it for the show it almost is. And I even made my face all scrunchy and squinty when I said it!

But like Firefly before it, Dollhouse has been given the axe too soon. (Of course, the difference is that Firefly was instantly a clearly great show, but I digress.)

It seems that the two most common criticisms of the show were the following: Eliza Dushku wasn’t a good enough actress to pull off the part of Echo, and the show took far too long to establish the greater story arc, instead focusing on too many “one-shot” episodes. I’d like to take this time, before the corpse is even cold, to offer my rebuttal.

Sure, Eliza Dushku is no Meryl Streep, but few are, and I think people had made up their minds about her not having what it takes long before they saw a single episode. In fact, there were a few times she really impressed me. (And personally, I have a theory that indifference to this show stemmed from a lot of Buffy fans’ resentment of the fact that Dushku and Whedon were working together but NOT in a Buffyverse-related project. That, however, is a topic for a whole other article.)

Focusing on her also conveniently allows haters to overlook the solid talent of some of the other players, particularly Amy Acker, Fran Kranz, Olivia Williams, and the impressively chameleonic Enver Gjokaj, who in the part of Victor really did seem to be a different person with each new assignment.

As for the season-long story arc that we’ve come to expect from Whedon (a tactic he used on both Buffy and Angel), I believe he was trying something different. With Dollhouse there was no season-long storyline, but rather a series-long storyline. Each season didn’t contain a Big Bad — the corporation responsible for the Dollhouses was the nemesis, and the vanquishing of that foe meant the end of the series.

Therefore, Whedon allowed us a great deal of time to live in this world, to soak up every little detail of it, so that when the plot changed significantly there would be no confusion. But while crafting this sort of slow-drip exposition, he gave us fun little adventures each week, and with his true flair for storytelling, they bounced liberally between drama, comedy, action, and horror.

The individual episodes weren’t setting us up for the ride. They were the ride. But many Whedonites, too busy looking for the Big Bad and the overarching story, failed to see that, and grew frustrated.

Of course, this is all just my opinion. What one likes is entirely subjective, and I can understand how for many people, Dollhouse just wasn’t their cup of tea. But I enjoyed it. I genuinely liked the characters, and wanted them to eventually find their way out of the Dollhouse. But now, sadly, I’ll never see that happen.

Sorry it didn’t work out, Joss and Eliza. I was with you guys.

Um…if you’re looking for something else to do, though, there’s always that Faith show! Just throwin’ it out there…

• The reviews are great, and The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (Terry Gilliam’s latest and Heath Ledger’s last film) is cleaning up overseas.

• Joss Whedon pens a cheeky open letter offering to buy the rights to The Terminator franchise … for $10,000.

• Really, really interesting: Ursula K. Le Guin takes on the “dragons” of publishing! She and a group of fantasy/sci-fi authors are getting together to publish their books electronically — bypassing traditional publishers.

• How do you make a movie about a character who can’t be depicted? The producer of The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix is working on a $150 million movie about Mohammad, but, in accordance with Muslim strictures, he won’t be seen. I’m trying not to be religion-phobic here, but this seems like a really bad idea.

• Shooting for the pilot of the HBO series A Game of Thrones has begun. With all the buzz and such a top-notch cast, I’m increasingly optimistic this will go to series — and be a hit.

• Does Spiderman already need a reboot? If so, here are some ideas.

• Publisher’s Weekly interviews urban fantasy author Anton Strout: “I hate reading stories where you don’t know the limitations of the world. When everything is possible, there’s no tension for me.  I can’t get invested in the characters because they’re not realistic enough to me, not grounded. I need the core of their world to feel real, limiting them in a way.” Truer words!

• A Chinese online gaming company is banning men who play as female characters. Wow, that company has issues.

• The Green Lantern director Marty Campbell talks of the movie’s  complicated special effects: “It’s daunting. Just the process, something like 1,300 visual effects shots, it’s mind-blowing, quite honestly.” The Green Lantern’s powers are generated through a mystical ring. “It’s energized by a battery on the planet of Oa, which taps into the willpower of everyone in the universe. From that ring you can form constructs. So if you got into a fight, you could form a giant fist. Or a fighter plane.”

• Now we know why Robert Zemeckis wants to do a sequel to Roger Rabbit that nobody else cares about. He wants to use the “performance capture” technology that he’s used in Beowulf, The Polar Express, and A Christmas Carol. I admire his persistence, but let’s face it: at least two of those three movies sucked.