SAN DIEGO — At Comic-Con, Joss Whedon is a god on par with the likes of George Lucas, Gene Roddenberry, Neil Gaiman and even Lou Ferrigno, and Eliza Dushku is a goddess who shares her Mt. Rushmore alongside the faces of Carrie Fisher, Sigourney Weaver, Natalie Portman and Kristen Bell. Which is why half the geeks here wanted the cult show "Dollhouse" to come back to Fox for a second season, and the other half wanted it to go out with a bang.

As it turns out, both groups are getting their wish. And the dynamic genre duo spoke to MTV News about how they're doing it.

"We suspected we might be ... I don't want to say canceled, so much as chopped into small bits with an ax," Whedon grinned, discussing "Epitaph One," a never-aired episode that marks the unofficial end of season one. "So we made this, also because we were asked by the studio to make another episode, and I thought the network would air it. Instead, it's available on DVD."

"There's an exclusive Comic-Con DVD, with limited-edition copies," explained Dushku, who stars in the series as a DNA-altered human whose mind has been wiped and implanted with false memories and skills. "We filmed it because we definitely didn't know if we were going to be back ... but we are!"

Sure enough, "Dollhouse" will be back for at least 13 more episodes — some of which, Whedon and crew revealed at the Con's festivities, will feature beloved Whedon veteran Alexis Denisof and possibly Summer Glau. It all makes "Epitaph One" — which had a packed screening here at the Con — an odd little tidbit for the fans who wonder what might have been but also want to rejoice in what is yet to come.

"We definitely had that agenda, to give you a taste of what might happen. But we also kept everything open to question as to what the scenes we're seeing that take place in the future mean," Whedon said of the episode, set in 2019. "It's definitely not an alternate universe. It's our universe; it's a very different vision of our universe, but it's one we will be honoring in the second season."

When they decided to make the episode, Whedon remembered, "We said, 'This could definitely be the end, but it's also an experiment in doing something different, off to the side.' It's about the characters, but it also deals with a new group of characters in a whole new reality.

"It's all based on the idea of the Dollhouse, and where we were planning on taking it anyway," added the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Firefly" mastermind. "So, now we'll see, in the next season, how that episode impacts where we're going and who's doing what with whom. It will actually bring up more questions than it will answers — which is what we intended to do."

MTV News is on the scene with live coverage of the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con all weekend long. Visit MTVNews.com, Splash Page, the MTV Movies Blog and Hollywood Crush for videos, interviews and the latest news on "New Moon," "Iron Man 2" and everything in between.