Joss Whedon's new show deserves a "wow" and a "huh," although I'm not sure in which order.
The first thing you notice is that it's not like anything Whedon's done before (not Buffy, not Angel, not Firefly (aka Serenity)). The cool girl isn't sassy. There's no cute neo-logistic slang. The nerd guy has no self-effacing pop culture references to fall back on as comic relief. Instead, everyone is very damaged and isolated.
I don't know if Whedon is taking a new approach or if it was the rewrite that Fox demanded, but the new show is not funny or fun. And maybe that's all right because it is in spite of all it has going against it glue-you-to-your-seat riveting, psychologically fraught, and well, creepy.
What that adds up too is something that is both fascinating and easily the strangest show to appear on network televison, maybe ever. Let the countdown to cancellation begin.
