I made the mistake some time ago of referencing LG’s “T:SCC canceled” hoax (T:SCC was eventually canceled, but it’s fair to say LG’s story was fiction) when I tried to persuade DH fans it was not a good idea to hitch DH’s fortunes to a sinking ship. As a result, nothing I said was taken seriously, even though the central point, that T:SCC was a sinking ship regardless of whether LG was trolling or not, was obviously correct.

I’ve made it clear I don’t trust LG’s posts, and as a result LG insists on treating me as a fan of T:SCC, a show I’ve attacked since the second season started last year.

I normally make it a policy not to respond to LG, but in this case I’ll make an exception if only to ensure nobody else makes the same stupid error I did and in case there’s anyone stupid enough to actually think I really hate DH, a show I’ve been raving about since Ep. 6.

The only people that rabidly hate Dollhouse are you and the other 43 active (I’ll be nice here) Terminatorwiki “fans”.

Dollhouse will be fine.

Apparently the people that mattered thought DH was a better show with more potential and the DH fans obviously communicated a stronger desire to keep their show

~Lanie~

there is, of course, another scenario. one of the telling weaknesses of dollhouse is that even the whedonesque.com hard-core whedonites are kind of split on dollhouse. that’s like the republican presidential candidate struggling to win south carolina.

if dvd sales disappoint, i think we can all agree, it’s over. but they might not. it’s good when the people decide, not a few executives in a room.

So from my point of view, it’s highly improbable that ratings will get worse unless the show itself gets worse. But I don’t think 1.0-1.2 is sustainable in the long term for the reasons you point out. It just takes Fox to get a pilot for a show it thinks can make it on a Friday and which doesn’t cost substantially more, and Fox has to consider other things to do with Dollhouse.

The good news (from my point of view) is that there are more options with Dollhouse than there were with T:SCC. T:SCC was so expensive, and DVD sales so poor, that moving it to another network was never an option. Dollhouse may be able to move, if DVD sales are at least reasonable. I’m just not confident they will be.

once that happens, the ride is over for dollhouse fans. kevin reilly might be content to break even with a cheap sci-fi show in the short run, but in the long run, he wants to build a dominant night, and he knows dollhouse will never be part of that.

the thing i’d say he forgot is what most fans forget: the effect of other shows. there’s no way that horrible lead-in sitcom hour will deliver the closely-matched audience that sarah connor did for the first nine episodes. fox ruled sunday night for years with the simpsons/x-files tag team, but animation is different. animation nerds and sci-fi nerds are two mutations of the same family tree. friday night has no synergy. dollhouse’s ratings will inescapably go down.

and, i’m not sure how big this will be, but nbc even scheduled a show at 9, medium, that might actually peel off some of dollhouse’s fringe-y audience, which can’t lose a single person as it stands.

i think we all agree, the prognosis is not good.

1. Most likely

Ratings stay flat, DVD sales low, show canceled most probably after 13 episodes, though possibly allowed to lumber on, T:SCC style, to end on a full season if Fox sees it as better than cheap filler material.

I think ratings will stay flat because I’m finding people actually hate the show. I don’t mean in an American Idol type way, I mean as in I’ve defended it before and been treated as if I just said Hitler is a pretty cool guy. I mean that literally, you have no idea how hysterial people are in their hatred of Dollhouse. The fact it portrays an evil system dispassionately, and the people running it as human beings rather than evil archetypes, really rubs critics up the wrong way. I love the show for those strengths, but alas I think it’s too complex for general audiences to appreciate. Add to that the fact it’s already not attracted a large audience, and the issues others have raised about the “main character” not being identifiable, and you don’t have something that has a large pull.

DVD sales will be low partially for the above, and partially because the DVD set is relatively expensive for relatively little. $32 is the heavily discounted price. It’s not even on my wait order list, and I love the show.

2. Second most likely

Ratings remain low, but DVD sales are good. Fox finishes series 2 (including mid-season pick-up), with S3 onwards moved to FX

I’ve already explained why I think ratings will remain low. There’s more of a chance I’m wrong on DVD sales, largely because the DVD set contains some extras many fans will feel are critical, in much the same way that fans of Firefly felt obliged to buy the DVD set because it had content missing from the network run.

Why finish the series and put S3 on FX? Well, if DVD sales are high, and ratings don’t go lower, then there may well be enough of an audience to justify showing the show on cable especially as the cost is low and the DVD sales will help drive up revenues. Dollhouse would also appear to fit some of FX’s demographic. Why bother canceling it if the show is ultimately profitable? It’s better to find a way to keep making the show, it’s just putting it on Fox with such low ratings makes no sense.

3. Third most likely

Ratings go up, DVD sales are high. Show continues to limp on, with a third season commissioned for the Fox Network.

I think both are improbable but if somehow ratings improve, I can see Fox renewing the series as they don’t have much of a justification for not doing so.

4. Fourth most likely: Ratings plummet. DVD sales low. Show is canceled after seven or eight episodes.

Highly improbable. I think Dollhouse has attracted a base of strong fans, so I don’t see Dollhouse dropping below the 1.0 it ended the first season on. But it’s also possible the second season will stink.

Me, I’m hoping for the second or third most likely scenarios. I just don’t see either as particularly likely. I don’t think ratings will go above a 1.2, and I don’t think DVD sales are going to be particularly good. But I’d be delighted to be proven wrong, as the show’s awesome.

“Very true, DH will need an enlarged audience over the current fanbase, I expect that will happen.”

Why? You’ve already cognized that it might fall to a 0.5, at which point “Kevin Reilly’s ego” would take the reins in grand Swedenborgian fashion, like the comet Kohoutek. This is “the same reason DH will at least go all of S2.” So why now has that 0.5 turned into an expectantly engorged audience? (Is this the “different” reason DH will “at least go all of S2″ to go along with the “same” reason?)

but apparently we’re still doing this. and actually, there’s actually a fair amount of agreement between everyone still left.

I agree with the whedon fans in that:

fox doesn’t really believe in dollhouse.

i disagree with the whedon fans in that:

the reason fox doesn’t believe in dollhouse is because they shouldn’t. it’s not a theoretical question any more, it’s been shown to the viewers and they’ve turned up their noses.

the big over-arcing problem here is that in the 1990s, joss was willing to fully commit his talent to getting the viewers to identify with buffy and sarah michelle gellar and reap the rewards of the viewers’ love for buffy. but joss’ ego has grown to the point where he now needs his writing to be the star of the show. it needs to be Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse. and in the immortal words of rocky the flying squirrel, that trick never works. joss can get his not-big-enough-for-prime-time internet army to show up for that, but normal viewers only bond with people who are on the screen.

but hey, joss has some big hits under his belt and more money than he can ever spend. if he wants to cut back on the intensity and rigor of his work so he can enjoy it more, well, a lot of writers do that in their 40s, i’m certainly in no position to judge.

it’s only when he tries to use a fragile moment in a young actor’s career as a temporary flotation device to keep his drowning show afloat that he turns into something evil. but i guess you could argue that it’s joss’ role to try that, and summer’s agent’s job to keep it from working. so whatever, we’ll see what happens, it won’t be decided here.

Thats a Dead On Comment, Summer’s performance will determine her reputation, not if the show fails or succeeds.

@Max452

Very true, DH will need an enlarged audience over the current fanbase, I expect that will happen.

~Lanie~

If I remember correctly, the X-Files did so-so on Friday but became big when it was moved to Sundays. More people than the “dedicated fan base” started watching, and it became a hit. Fox even reran old episodes from seasons 1-4 on Sundays, which are some of the shows best. If X-files didn’t do well on season 5 on Sundays it was done. There are interviews with Chris Carter saying they were trying to wrap some threads up in case they didn’t make it to season 6.

If all Dollhouse has is its “dedicated fanbase” and doesn’t attract new viewers, its done. When it comes to Fox, fan bases alone did not save Firefly, TSSC, Dark Angel, Briscoe County Jr, etc, etc, etc…

Movies are another matter. Anyone heard of Renny Harlin lately?

What would be likely to happen is that Summer is brought in to boost the ratings, they don’t boost, they go down, and everybody says what a shame it was that Summer was on another failing show.

Just like they did with TSCC after Firefly. That’s exactly what they said. As long as most people perceive her character as engaging and her performance professional, she’s not going to have a problem with the show failing out from under her.

If Fridays are so bad what was the reason behind the X-Files massive success? Wasn’t the first four seasons of X-Files on Friday at 9pm?

If the answer is X-Files had solid writing, a dedicated fan base and all around good show that overcame the “Friday Death Slot” then why didn’t the robot show make it?

I am betting that Dollhouse will over come the Friday Death Slot and will not need a lead, hence it will be able to stand on its own, again, unlike the robot show and before anyone gets all in a tizzy, if the robot show could stand on it’s own, it would still be there.

But anyway GF,

Thank you for explaining,

~Lanie~

Forget fan demand. Forget DVR numbers. Forget ratings, or at least in the traditional sense.

It’s M O N E Y. Personally, I very much buy Nick C.’s story that Dollhouse could be produced very cheaply, that’s the pitch that sold the show for a second season. Think about it. They get an hour’s worth of television for the price of a half hour sitcom, and its a sci-fi drama that they wholly own and produce. So they see all the money from DVD sales and syndication, and it’s a Whedon project, guaranteed fanbase. Plus they get all the advertising revenue. Win win for the network, it’s a guaranteed money maker. Of course, if the ratings really tank, that’s another story.

Even then, they’re not overly enthusiastic about the show’s chances. If they were, why keep it on a Friday, where television shows go to die? Why lead off with a Freshman comedy, Sons of Tucson, followed by a failing sitcom, Til Death, which was only renewed because of Sony’s cheap deal with FOX? Dollhouse’s ratings tanked badly with a non sci-fi lead in, do they really expect much better with two shows that have very little audience overlap with Sci-Fi viewers? If they were optimistic about it’s chances, it would have been paired with Past Life or Human Target.

It’s not. It got renewed because it was very cheap, FOX will give it another chance to improve, but they’re not expecting much. Show’s going in to the Fall 2009 season already on life support.

Michael’s boss invites him to play golf. But Michael doesn’t play golf. So he goes to the Dollhouse and gets imprinted with Tiger Woods’ golf-playing abilities. But the boss hates playing against a great golfer. Michael learns to be himself. It’s more of an emotional episode.

i’m not sure you’ll find a lot of precedent for kevin giving a THIRD season to shows without viewers. the shows he’s famous for nurturing, 30 rock, the office and the sopranos, outgrew their awkward phases and built decent audiences. when sarah connor did a second season with dollhouse-like numbers, kevin pulled the plug.

will the second season be 13 or 22? like boris says, we can just wait to find out. it’s not up to me. and it will have more to do with when fox has its new friday night ready than dollhouse itself.

by the way, if you’re such a joss whedon fan you shouldn’t really celebrate these pathetic charity pickups. the whole time dollhouse is scraping along at the bottom of the ratings it’s quietly eroding joss whedon’s ability to get future movies and tv shows made. if you recall, in the 1990s he did stuff that was interesting AND successful. now he hasn’t had a hit in ten years. at some point they start to notice stuff like that.