IGN.com nabbed the first publicity photos of the Dollhouse cast. Check 'em out.

Dushku's lookin' pretty smokin'. The cast looks kind of ho-hum in their first shot, but maybe they'll grow on me.

Alyson Hannigan was on Late Night with Conan O'Brien last night. No mention of HIMYM being renewed, but she did mention that "Buffy changed her life". Click here to check out the show.

Serenity: Better Days #3 came out yesterday. This issue finishes up the series. I have to tell you, I haven't read any of it yet. Anyone wanna send 'em to me, email me. *wink, wink*

For all you Spike crazies: James Marsters has cancelled his Fangoria appearance that is on June 21st. His manager still expects him to go to Dragon*Con in Atlanta in August. Apparently, James got an acting gig with some UK company. No more details yet on that news. If anyone would like to stalk him, I don't know where he's going next, so don't ask.

At NYMag.com , Michelle Trachtenberg says she was "tortured" in High School because apparently kids called her "Harriet". Oh my God, somebody help this poor, poor girl.

This was the quickie. Was it good for you?

Kristin from E!Online recently spoke with Joss Whedon who informed her and us of the following....

ON DOLLHOUSE --

- Joss will be directing the second episode as well as the finished-on-Friday pilot, just to get things rolling.

- Sarah Craft and Elizabeth Fain are the show runners.

- Steve DeKnight and Tim Minear are both consulting producers on the series.

- Tim is writing and directing the midseason two-parter, namely episodes seven and eight.

- Joss would love to get Jane Espenson to write for the show, but she's busy on Battlestar.

- As reported earlier this week, Dollhouse will go at midseason, and, according to Joss, it's likely premiering in January. (Would someone please like to inform Dollverse.com that they should stop now?)

- There is no Dollhouse presentation planned at the Fox event, but Eliza Dushku might appear on behalf of the show.

- Joss: "I'm still having so much fun. I keep waiting for it to not be fun anymore."

But Seriously folks, I've seen literally 5 minutes of this show, so I can't be the judge of it. I hear it's funny. Things with Jason Segal, Alyson Hannigan and/or Neil Patrick Harris usually are funny, so I can't really say anything bad about it. I guess the thing that bothers me is they decided to use a laugh track for the show. When I found that out, it kind of turned me off to it. I'm telling you, the way of the laugh track is falling behind.

The L.A. Times is reporting that Alyson and company will have a job next fall, because CBS has apparently renewed How I Met Your Mother for another season. The article mentions that Britney Spears' appearance helped garner the series it's biggest ratings, and that before that episode HIMYM wasn't getting the greatest numbers, especially on the high-powered CBS Monday night line-up. So I guess once again CBS can thank coked up trailer trash for helping their sitcoms. Thanks Brit!

To be fair, I've heard HIMYM is not in a sense a traditional CBS Monday sitcom, in that it can be at times actually funny. I believe the sources who told me this chose to stay anonymous so that no one found out they watched CBS. Congrats to Aly, Jason, Neil and those other two less famous ones.

Buy How I Met Your Mother Season 2 for only $20 by clicking here!

Variety.com confirmed this morning what the Hollywood Reporter said late last week -- that Joss Whedon's Dollhouse would be a mid-season replacement.

Variety said, "Also coming in midseason -- and perhaps also on the night -- Joss Whedon's highly anticipated 'Dollhouse,' which already had an episodic order heading into the upfronts."

This of course goes against what the fan site Dollverse.com said over the weekend . This will not be, however, confirmed by FOX until May 15th -- this Thursday. Now I could be wrong here, but I think I'll believe the Hollywood Reporter and friggin' Variety over whoever runs Dollverse.com. I guess this gets them free advertising, even though they haven't proven themselves to be a legitimate news source. Congratulations.

To finish up, I really like the idea Variety had with giving Dollhouse a Monday timeslot -- it could go either before or after 24 in January. That's a good spot to be in, as 24 is now very, very highly anticipated.

Nathan Fillion (that guy all those crazy chicks can't get enough of -- who happens to be real cool from all accounts) recently spoke to the fansite TruckerMovie.net about his new film "Trucker", as well as the usual Serenity 2 question, and his role in Joss' web musical, "Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog." Obviously a busy guy.

Fillion said about Dr. Horrible, "It’s gonna rock. It’s gonna rock. For something that looked kinda felt… Joss called me up and said “Hey, me and my brothers and one of my brothers’ fiancé, we wrote this thing, a musical, we’re going to put it on do you want to do it?” Sure! Six days of filming, this incredible music that we were singing, these incredible lyrics, these wonderful songs, it’s just… it sounds kinda hokey but in six days all these people pulling together… I saw a rough cut of this thing and it’s frickin’ great." I take it he liked it.

Be prepared for Dr. Horrible -- if it's even barely watchable -- to be a huge success with the 20-45 pimple brigade. Not that it will suck.....it'll probably end up being great. I just had to throw in the proverbial dig at Browncoats (even by all accounts I pretty much am one -- what are ya gonna do?).

There's still no date for Dr. Horrible's web debut. "Trucker" ran at the Tribeca Film Festival a couple weeks ago, but currently (from what I can tell) has no distribution deal. Lastly, "Serenity 2" is still a made-up concept -- deal with it.

Dear Mom,

Even though you're gone, I thought I'd write this letter to you as a dedication to your life and the support you gave me through mine.

I know it was hard to live with someone like me.....someone who hung out with strange characters and killed even more strange characters. I know the endless amount of blood stains on my shirt must have been hard to get out, but somehow you were always able to do it.

There are many moments I remember like they happened yesterday.

Here are the brand new covers for the TPB's for Buffy: Wolves at the Gate and Serenity: Better Days. Even though neither come out until November 1st, you can pre-order them both from Amazon now by clicking on the images to get to each page.

Buffy Vol. 3: Wolves at the Gate is $10.85 and Serenity: Better Days is $9.95.

And my shilling for the day is done.

 The Hollywood Reporter is....uh...reporting...that Morena Baccarin has been cast in a new ABC pilot called, "Five Year Plan", created by Dave Hemingson (How I Met Your Mother, Kitchen Confidential). Here's how HR describes the premise...

The Hemingson project, from 20th TV, is an ensemble about a law school grad (Matt Long) from a blue-collar background who joins a Los Angeles boutique law firm. Baccarin ("Heartland") will play another new associate at the firm, a scrupulous Beverly Hills born and bred.

A comedy involving lawyers? Shouldn't the show be called "Life"? It might be good. Hemingson doesn't make too many bad shows, and I could see something like a Scrubs-in-a-law-firm type of series.

The article also mentions Nathan Fillion's new pilot, "Castle". Nothing really new to report on it except that Ruben Santiago-Hudson has joined the cast. I could barely find anything on this show, except that I hear Nathan plays a mystery writer who helps the NYPD solve crimes. I'm guessing Fridays and an 8-episode run, but that's just me talking.

What do you think about Morena's show? What about Nathan's?