Season 2 of Dollhouse starts tonight, Summer Glau joins cast

Dollhouse returns tonight at 9/8c. I'll leave you to visit FOX.com for promos and so forth. Instead, I want to focus here on the news that Summer Glau has joined the cast for this season. From what I gather she will guest star as a programmer in a recurring role. Although on the surface this doesn't look like a very action-oriented part for the athletic Glau, we can hope that Joss Whedon will make better use of her talents than we generally saw in Sarah Connor Chronicles (a hope soundly based on past experience, see video clip).

Before she became an actress, Glau was a ballet dancer—and a good one. I've talked before about how extensive ballet training seems to prepare an actress well for action roles. Besides Jennifer Garner and Glau, the two obvious cases in point, there are others as well, like Amelia Cooke, who has with good reason been suggested as a possible Wonder Woman, not as famous yet but perhaps soon.

The former ballerina turned action star embodies a rare combination of ethereal grace and potent athleticism. In the two videos that follow, Glau shows us both sides—two seemingly polar opposite modes of being manifested perfectly by the same person: