among most of the blogs and websites I read, an outright “No, that wasn’t any good” is hard to come by, especially when it comes to Joss Whedon. I understand the dynamic at play and the resulting pandering to the Whedon fanbase. Plus it seems by all account Joss is actually a great guy, yadda, yadda, so you will see many reviews that have a lot of hedging going on. Not so with the San Francisco Chronicle’s Tim Goodman:
Joss Whedon is one of television’s most talented visionaries, but his latest series – the highly anticipated midseason drama “Dollhouse” – is a major disappointment.
Yikes. That’s the review that will appear in the paper.
In a separate blog post Goodman says Eliza Dushku can’t carry the lead.
I’m sure he won’t be the only one with a problem with Dushku or the premise (why not hire the real deal instead of a fake one). He doesn’t quite trash it in the review either. He just says it’s disappointing. There is hedging going on there. Someone will totally trash it just to be the one to totally trash it.
I don’t read much hedging in MAJOR disappointment, though I’m sure we’ll see at least a review or two that are 100%, without any shred of doubt negative tomorrow.
Only the ratings will show how Dollhouse truly does. And Dollhouse looks to be performing terribly.
For a show not likely to break 5 million, it’s sure getting alot of articles posted here.
Is there anyone who does not pan Dollhouse?
Though as Mike says, the show sure does get a lot of attention.
Gusar, I think there was another article linked in another blog here, from Time magazine, that shows a more positive review of Dollhouse?
There have been hints that Dushku can’t carry the lead in a few reviews, but I couldn’t tell for sure if the “monosyllabic” and “walking around blankly” type comments were critiques more general comments. I guess this one comes right out and says it. At least we can assume this reviewer actually watched Dollhouse, since he did not mention MOWE, Bourne, or Total Recall
.
Oops, I was sidetracked beyond ratings – if Joe Nielsenviewer sees what this reviewr saw, then he may turn the channel on Dollhouse. Won’t be long until we have the numbers! Oddly enough, I think CBS finally has some decent competition in this timeslot – is Dollhouse up against a new episode of Flashpoint or a repeat?
It might actually help the show if the public has lowered expectations.
Does the public even take reviews in to account? Lets ask the producers of Pushing Daisies what they think…
The critics are not agreeing in this one. I see so many different opinions. I prefer to take my own conclusions.
As you always should, Ricardo. But it seems to be pretty universally agreed that this is not a great show. Maybe not horrible, but not great. So I don’t see where these disagreeing critics are.
“Does the public even take reviews in to account?”
The correlation between critical praise and ratings is so weak it’s a wonder that networks send screeners out to be reviewed at all.
critics have 0 affect on the ratings, look at Friday Night Lights. The critics hate Grey’s Anatomy, and it’s doing great. Heroes initially had a cold reaction, and it was a break-out hit (sadly they started hating again and so did some viewers). I doubt this will do much.
S. Does the public takes critic in account? Hell no. Look at Saw, the critics were REALLY terrible… How many Saw is there? 5, all successful on the box office. Resident Evil, bad critics, 3 films, (and the fourth coming) all successful to. Critics are only bashing people, but with more power and money…
Has for Dollhouse, i’m starting to think the show will do good. I mean, EVERYONE is talking about it, everywhere. Fox doens’t even have to talk about it, the word is spreading. With so many peoples talking about it, i’m sure there is gonna be a mass of people turning on the tv out of curiosity. Talk of it on good, in bad, but talk of it. Maybe a lot of people will leave after the pilot, but maybe not.
Well, I am gonna be one of them, gonna check out what it is. And probably come back for the next episodes.
jonthemon, FNL is a great example of how critics’ raves won’t mean you have a hit series. Critics’ panning, prior to the debut of a new series, might have a tiny bit more influence in deflating viewer interest, but I’ve seen no direct data to back me up on that.
Awards are another non-indicator of ratings. NBC is the only broadcast net who has steadily cornered the Emmy Awards (30 Rock) of late – and how are NBC’s Nielsen ratings
? Still, raves and awards give the actors, producers, writers, and directors a nice bit of encouragement that they’ve accomplished what they set out to achieve – a fine product. Early reviews of Dollhouse are not providing much hope that such warm-fuzzies (awards and praise) will be heaped upon Dollhouse, but that means nothing to ratings.
2.5 men: In it’s first couple of seasons it was the show for critics to pan and point to the dumbing down of America. Nevermind it was immensely popular anyways, and well written and very funny.
Greys Anatomy: Not great reviews.
American Idol: Do critics even touch this?
Friends: I don’t know what the reviews were like back in the day, but by all accounts it wasn’t a great show.
Shows with great reviews: Arrested Development, Firefly, Friday Night Lights, Pushing Daisies, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
Critics love Mad Men, Damages (at least season one) and Battlestar Galactica, and no, that doesn’t matter. But there are critics who DO matter, in this case the internal ones who work at FOX who critiqued the show and determined:
1. this is pretty not so good
2. it’s so not good we couldn’t risk promoting the pilot behind one episode of Idol
3. BUT, hey, you never know and we don’t have much else going on Fridays and the ratings on Fridays have stunk for a while anyway, so let’s put it there.
Dave, Friends was a critical success, if I recall correctly.
Critics don’t have much in the way of long term effects on a show, but they do have short term. Pushing Daisies premiered to strong numbers. No one tuned in to that FOX comedy this season that got horrible reviews. I wouldn’t discount how this will affect Dollhouse’s premiere. You’d be foolish to think it won’t.
By the cloven hooves of Pan! Finally something comes out of San FranFREAKsco that I agree with. What Ive seen of it is awful.
Id rather keep TSCC around that DudHouse.
Thank goodness! As someone else mentioned, hype is the number one, leading killer of new shows IMO. People have been anticipating this show basically since its conception. The last time I checked TWOP had over 80 pages of posts… for a show that hasn’t even aired yet! Up against such absurdly inflated expectations, it would be hard for the show NOT to fail.
And I’ve noticed SciFi fans are particularly merciless in expressing their “disappointment” in a new genre show. From the board chatter I read, they seem to be far less forgiving than say viewers of dramas or even comedies. Even Whedon won’t get soft treatment if the show is bad. Hopefully these negative reviews will lower the bar.
Mandi, I think the best you can hope for is that this will make the majority of them not watch. Because no matter the reviews the fan expectation is going to be sky high.
This is somewhat reminiscent when the TSCC pilot got panned. Some people called it a rehash of T2. I liked that well enough, and the show has improved by a lot since then. So I’ll give this a shot.
How about posting one of the good reviews for once?
Robert, if internal review was that bad….
they’d have shot it down. It never would have aired. That does happen.
I don’t know if I buy that THIS year, Nick. For reasons you have eloquently elaborated on (Friday ratings have STUNK for Fox this year) and especially since I think they are on the hook for TSCC anyway, there was probably little harm in trying.
If House was pulling 2.5 demos in reruns on Fridays, I’m not sure Dollhouse wouldn’t have been scrapped.
@Ethan, e-mail me or post a link to a good review from a media outlet (as opposed to blogging fanboys like us) and I will absolutely post it!
Robert, TIME has a good review, and I linked to that before, but here it is:
http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2008/12/04/i-have-seen-dollhouse/
It’s not a great review, but it’s good.
Robert, the internal panels for DOLLHOUSE are better than they get for FRINGE. So… but FRINGE is more marketable. JJ ABRAMS > WHEDON for viewers right now.
we may have a different definition of “Good”, but I will do a post…
All this “hype is bad” and “critical praise is bad” stuff i’m reading in these comments are hilarious. Hype normally means people are going to watch the pilot at least. Lots of hype, lots of curious people. It’s the shows you don’t hear about that start low and stay low, ratings wise. And as far as the critical praise stuff, any negative review does nothing but harm. Quit fooling yourselves Dollhouse people, right now it doesn’t look good. Grant you, I could be wrong and it could be a smash, but all the preliminary signs point to 1 season and done.
Robert, it definitely has good copy in it. ” well enough written to be absorbing ”
“the episode is tight, suspenseful, with intriguing psychological twists and flashes of Whedonesque humor.”
“dying to see a second episode”
There is enough “good,” there for a PR person to have a field day.
Ha, Nick.