Dollhouse

There are jokes, then there are cruel jokes.

According to the midseason schedule Fox released Thursday, "Dollhouse," Joss Whedon’s new show, is going to premiere Jan. 13 (that thud you heard was my heart sinking to the crawl space beneath the subbasement).

In other news, Fox has moved "House" to Mondays as of Jan. 19; more on that in a moment.

First things first: The positioning of Whedon’s new show inspires gloom, if not dread and fear as well.

Fridays are regarded as the dumping ground of the prime-time schedule, and given that "Dollhouse" has already endured its share of trauma and drama and stop-start production ... well, we Whedon fans believed the "Buffy" creator when he said, way back when he got back into business with Fox, that he thought the "Dollhouse" would not be a replay of the "Firefly" debacle. But darned if the experience so far with this new Whedon show isn’t a case of déjà vu all over again.

As was the case with "Firefly," a sci-fi chronicle that was famously ill-treated by Fox, Fox executives and Whedon differed on what "Dollhouse" should be. And as he did with "Firefly," he eventually shot a new pilot of the Eliza Dushku vehicle, which concerns a group of secret operatives who go on new adventure missions each week.

And now "Dollhouse," which fans of Whedon’s earlier work had been eagerly anticipating, is being consigned to a dead zone on the TV schedule, which leads one to believe that Fox executives don’t believe in the project, even after all of Whedon’s attempts to make it palatable.

Sigh. I hope and pray that all the agita has produced a show worth watching. And I hope and pray that if it is worth watching, Fox executives don’t sabotage it with bad decisions. Fingers crossed.

Some other notable news from the Fox schedule:

•"House" moves to 7 p.m. Mondays and airs alongside "24," which returns Jan. 11 and 12. Tuesdays and "House" are so conjoined in my mind that I’m sure I’m going to forget to watch the show Mondays.

•"American Idol" returns Jan. 13. My anticipation for the talent contest is not palpable.

•Fox clearly believes in J.J. Abrams’ "Fringe": It’s giving the show the post-"American Idol" slot Tuesdays.

•Tim Roth debuts in the new show "Lie to Me" after the one-hour Wednesday edition of "Idol." "Lie to Me" is about "the world’s leading deception expert who studies facial expressions and involuntary body language to discover not only if someone is lying, but why."

•Every year there are rumors that Fox will shift one of its "American Idol" broadcasts to Thursdays, but that’s not happening. "Bones" and "Kitchen Nightmares" will fill out Fox’s Thursday lineup.

•"Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" moves to Friday along with "Dollhouse."

•As Zap2it.com’s Daniel Fienberg pointed out, there’s no mention on Fox’s schedule of two midseason shows the network had commissioned, "The Cleveland Show" and "Sit Down, Shut Up." Maybe they’ll debut later in 2009.