Fox sends Dollhouse to the attic

That's right, Whedonites. The sad but not totally unexpected day has arrived:

Dollhouse has officially been canceled.

As I said, sad, but not unexpected. Dollhouse has been low in the ratings for a while, and reviews have been mixed. However, the show has been getting steadily better since the middle of the first season, and it's one of the few shows on TV right now that tackles real issues of humanity and ethics in interesting, mind-bending ways.

Point of Interest: Though I never mind pointing out Fox's various sudden but inevitable betrayals (I will NEVER forgive them for killing Firefly), I really find it hard to blame them this time. True, they put Dollhouse in a terrible time slot (Friday night? For a Whedon show? Really?), but they gave the show a second chance when the ratings didn't necessarily warrant it, and they didn't screw up the episode order the way they did with Firefly.

Anyway, now that we know that a finale is imminent, how about some predictions?

First of all, we all know of Joss' penchant for killing off main characters at the end of his shows (Spike, Anya, Wash, Book, Penny... I haven't watched much of Angel, or I'd probably have more). Often, the character is a fan favorite and/or someone with a significant other.

We also know that Joss apparently hates happy couples, since most of the couples in his shows end up torn apart in tragic or angsty ways. Observe:

• Buffy/Angel = angst
• Buffy/Spike = tragedy (though he did come back somehow, apparently)
• Giles/Jenny = tragedy
• Willow/Oz = angst
• Willow/Tara = tragedy
• Xander/Everyone = angst
• Wash/Zoe = tragedy
• Dr. Horrible/Penny = tragedy

In fact, the only happy couples I can think of are Willow/Kennedy and Kaylee/Simon, and those couples only ended happily because their respective shows ended before angst or tragedy could ensue.

So what do I predict? Well, since the only real couple on the show is Victor/Sierra (and I LOVE them!), I predict we'll be seeing one of them meet an untimely end in the finale (it has to be ONE of them, or it won't fit the Whedon pattern). In the fan favorite category, I imagine that Topher might be the one to die. Nearly everyone I talk to LOVES Topher, morally absent though he might be. Actually, I can imagine him pulling an Anya, in the sense that he would show how much he's changed by dying in defense of something or someone that he previously wouldn't have been concerned about.

So what do you all think? Post your predictions and your thoughts about the cancellation in the comments!