Celebrity crush: Dichen Lachman (revised)

Here's a revised entry featuring a Dollhouse veteran who's on board with this year's Torchwood: Miracle Day miniseries. Amazon and iTunes links follow. Any affiliate payments earned from your purchase or rental will help pay the hosting fees for my podcasts, so please consider clicking.

Name: Dichen Lachman (images | Web site | Twitter)
Hometown: She was born in Kathmandu, Nepal, and lived there until age 8 -- after which time, her family moved to Adelaide, Australia, according to her Wikipedia entry.

Her father is Australian, and her mother was born in India to a family in the Tibetan exile community.
Best Known For: In America, she's best known for the two seasons of the Fox science fiction series Dollhouse, which of course starred Eliza Dushku and co-starred fellow celebrity crush Miracle Laurie.

Since Dollhouse ended, she's made appearances on NCIS: Los Angeles and the Hawaii Five-O reboot.

With Dollhouse co-star and fellow crush Miracle Laurie.

As noted above, she's coming back to our TV screens in another science fiction series, playing a CIA role in Torchwood: Miracle Day, the 10-episode fourth season of the dark Doctor Who spinoff fronted by John Barrowman and Eva Myles and the first to be filmed partially in the U.S. as part of a Starz-BBC joint venture.

Humble Beginnings: She did 88 episodes of the Australian soap opera Neighbours from 2005-2007 and had a small part in the American movie Aquamarine. She also did a couple of less auspicious roles: One in a presumably direct-to-DVD horror film called Bled, the other in a Sci Fi channel movie called Tyrannosaurus Azteca (aka Aztec Rex).

And there we have the eternal question of which is worse: Direct to DVD or direct to Sci Fi (which Ye Olde Podcaster STILL refuses to call by its new, and stupid, name of Sy Fy).

She also produced a 2009 short titled Codger, which was not an acting role.

With Eliza Dushku in a fitness magazine shoot.

Obligatory Edgy Stuff: We barely even know anything not-edgy about her. Give the lady a break.
Why Ye Olde Podcaster Likes Her: Dichen is the latest in a long series of unknown talents to be discovered by Joss Whedon, who very often puts the most talented actors in his ensemble somewhere to the side, surrounding a somewhat bland, malleable lead. Firefly was the exception, with the dynamic and entertaining Nathan Fillion as Captain Mal, but Sarah Michelle Gellar on Buffy and David Boreanaz on Angel were often outshone by their "supporting" casts, and that was definitely the case with Eliza Dushku on Dollhouse.

(This isn't to insult Gellar, Boreanaz, or Dushku, please note. It's just to say that Dichen, fellow celebrity crushes Michelle Trachtenberg, Amy Acker, Amber Benson, and Miracle Laurie, and actors like Enver Gjokaj and the late Andy Hallett were frequently the highlights of their shows.)

The season two Dollhouse episode "Belonging" put Dichen's character Sierra front and center and showed us her horrific past, and it was one of the finest pieces of television in a decade that included The Wire. If Dichen is not a Hollywood A-lister by the time she's 35, I'll be more than a little disappointed.
As producer: Codger (2009 short) (Amazon | iTunes)

TV and Web series credits: Torchwood: Miracle Day (Amazon | iTunes) * Hawaii Five-O (2010), season 1: "Mana'o" (Amazon | iTunes) * NCIS: Los Angeles, season 1: "Full Throttle" (Amazon | iTunes) * Dollhouse, season 2 (Amazon | iTunes) * Dollhouse, season 1 (Amazon | iTunes) 
Film and TV-movie credits: Sunday Punch (2009 short) (Amazon | iTunes) * Bled (Amazon | iTunes) * Aztec Rex (Amazon | iTunes) * Aquamarine (Amazon | iTunes) * Safety in Numbers (Amazon | iTunes)