It appears that Fox doesn’t think its “patience” with Dollhouse is going to save it from fan blowback.
And last week, Fox chucked Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse on the scrap heap. Though the network has promised to air all 13 of the show’s commissioned episodes, loyal Dollhouse fans aren’t likely to go gently into that good night. “I’ll still get hate mail and death threats,” says Preston Beckman, executive VP of strategic program planning at Fox.
And in a bit of Dollhouse blowback imagining, Ben Grossman of Broadcasting & Cable has some “What They Said, What They Wanted To Say” :
What They Said: “Dollhouse got cancelled. F-ck you, Fox. F-ck you so hard—YET AGAIN for doing this to Joss and all of us!!!”—One of America’s great thinkers (and the show’s dozens of devoted fans), on Twitter.
What They Wanted to Say: “Hey ma! Can we get some meatloaf? The meatloaf! We want it now! The meatloaf! F-ck!”
via Broadcasting & Cable.
Sorry …my impression is that someone want to create a “fan blowback ” where it does not exist
But I could be wrong 
. However the idiots are everywhere and in opposite parties
People actually use Safari? Firefox on my Mac all the way!
Fan’s really have no reason to be angry, with the exception of the timeslot Fox have done absolutely nothing wrong.
They gave it a second season despite low ratings, they have been decent enough to let Joss finish this season and they plan to air it’s final episodes.
What more could we possibly/realistically ask for?
Ratings were low. Any fan who blames fox really doesn’t have a leg to stand on in my opinion.
Brad, I prefer a browser that doesn’t hog all my RAM.
(And I have an add-on which fixes all the things that I don’t love about Safari.)
Fox messed significantly with the original concept of the show which may have contributed to the low ratings. Yes, it’s time to pull out the fan excuse bingo cards again.
Is there no low you will go to get hits from fans of tv shows? This site was actually highly regarded at one time for its analysis. Now it just seems like LCD material.
safari is amazing way better than internet explorer and firefox
How many people would even know who Preston Beckman IS in relation to Dollhouse had he not been quoted in this article? He’s getting death threats because the mailroom and switchboard are forwarding him generic death threats?
I think it’s more likely his quote was provided to B&C in (humorous?) anticipation of conventional wisdom behavior instead of recounting specific events. It’s even in the *future* tense.
Safari? Safari? What the… Firefox for the win
firefox sucks it doesn’t give you the convenience of opening your top sites with just a click of button no wait time safari is way faster firefox is definitely better than internet explorer but it is no safari
Opera beats all.
What the hell started the Firefox vs Safari discussion? I don’t see anything in what Bill posted.
The 1337 – meh, the only thing Fox asked for that the Dollhouse team didn’t want to do, so far as I can see, is ask for the first few episodes to be standalones. In all honesty, saying “Oh no, we can’t write standalones, we don’t know how to do it and/or it would somehow be impossible to fit into our vision” means being unfit to run a TV series.
Now, I don’t think Whedon is unfit to run a TV series, far from it, but I’m amazed he and his team did such a poor job for S1E1-S1E5. You can’t blame Fox for that.
Robert – that was my question too. Never heard of the guy, why would he receive hate mail?
Anyway, I don’t think he would. Dollhouse’s end wasn’t exactly unanticipated. And just as this usually-cold-on-Whedon viewer rather liked the show, the show seemed unusually unpopular – well, at least, non-enthusiasm-inspiring – amongst Whedon’s usual fans. So the people most likely to be rabid aren’t actually going to be… about this show itself.
Sure it does, Carl, if you add a very small and fast addon. And Firefox is much better and that whole rendering websites thing that is pretty important for a web browser.
What is this site going to do when us DH fans leave? lol
Wayne – that’s what Fringe fans are for, duh!
talk about V, Heroes, Fringe, Smallville, Castle, Law & Order, Numb3rs, The Big Bang Theory, CSI, The Jay Leno Show, Lost, Stargate Universe, SpongeBob, Burn Notice. I could go on with dozens of shows which would likely be punctuated with one word: CHUCK!
For those interested in discussing browsers and operating systems I did a post with the browser/OS combos for site visits over the last 30 days:
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/11/14/tvbythenumbers-by-the-numbers-top-browseroperating-system-combos-for-accessing-the-site/33671
Joss needs to go back to what he did best, and thats the Buffyverse. The fans and television is crying out for it to return in some form, so why not just do it ??
I was quite impressed with Fox’s commitment to the show. It lasted about 20 episodes longer than I expected. Thank you Fox. I wished you’d given the show a chance on another night, but what can you do?
Also I wish Terminator had been given the extra season as it was a much stronger show creatively and as you were enduring low ratings anyway, but I know that Dollhouse was produced in house.
uh oh fox better be worried the 17 dollhouse fans are gonna get them, mabye throw ken and barbie action figures at them from the streets as a symbol of their badassness haha
Squiggle-as I understand it, Joss originally wanted Rossum to be morally ambiguous but Fox insisted that they be clearly evil. We can argue about whether or not that hurt or helped the show.
In this case actually the fans don’t have a reason to be angry. I still believe that the one reason why Dollhouse never managed to get decent ratings was the quality. The show simply had long spells of really bad episodes, especially in the beginning. And the couple of good episodes, one even unaired, simply don’t make up for the dull and bland episodes. This time, Fox isn’t to blame.
I agree with you, Evil. As I was telling a friend the other day, FOX could have premiered Dollhouse after American Idol, and it STILL would have been down to 2 million viewers by the end of season 1. The show just wasn’t mainstream enough or good enough to capture a wide audience, even in its best moments. That’s not FOX’s fault.
On a side note, I’m personally wondering what will become of Pisher after Dollhouse and Castle are canceled. Will he realize his work is done and finally return to the depths from which he came? Here’s hoping!
I disagree that this show wasn’t “mainstream” enough. I only saw the few episodes aired this 2nd season but it was far better than Flash Forward or V. I wouldn’t have those sci fi shows would make it in the mainstream, yet they have (so far). Had the show followed American Idol, I think it would have stood a far better chance at lasting longer than premiering alone on Fridays. At least more people would have probably seen the premiere and if they didn’t want to watch it week to week, they might have been interested enough to check out an episode or two in the future if they saw an upcoming preview that looked entertaining enough.
I’m going to go ahead and agree with most of the people here in saying that FOX was very generous with what they gave Dollhouse. In the end Dollhouse was just, in my opinion, an alright show. Nothing bad, nothing completely amazing, just sort of alright. And it did get a second season despite having the ratings to be canceled last spring. It’s a lot more than Firefly got and that show was actually something more than just alright.
I can’t wait for this site to get back to doing what it does best…
Talk about CHUCK!
The show sucked.
“dozens of devoted fans” lol Dozens!
I like Dollhouse. It’s a pity.
Mr Beckman forgot to include his email address in his quote.
dozens of devoted fans? you mean thousand? million?? you do not even know how much fans follow the show you axed.. what did you do to keep your work Beckman? you should tell dawn ostroff, she’s dying to know it.. anyway, f**K you fox executives, we have all the reason of this world to be angry, because some great shows like dollhouse got cancelled and 300.000 horrible medical drama or procedural cop shows live..
Yeah, I think he saw the Dollhouse story, and was commenting on how much he no longer CARES about it by bringing up the Browser/OS issue. I feel the same way. It’s over for Whedon; he can go out of the spotlight for a while; do some showtunes or funeral dirges or whatever non-drama stuff he wants for a few years.
And yeah- some people STILL use Safari, because it’s the default.
On a similar topic- ALL Windows users use it for the same reason. If you want out of the ratrace without paying Mac’s hefty price, go http://Ubuntu.com and trying Linux! It’s easier than Windows, and has 2,000,000 less viruses. (Linux has none.)
For those confused about how the browser talk started, there was an error in the post originally, which was only visible in Firefox (except for in my Safari apparently). But it’s fixed now!
Since Dollhouse is out … when will the bring back Firefly chants start again?
leo – as soon as Castle goes red on Renew/Cancel
If you work for Fox TV then death threats are a given. Watchers of the network have been burned so many times Fox is now battling NBC for title of the most hated network. There’s a lot of nutty people out there, and they usually watch Fox.
^Firefly fans also need Chuck and V to get canceled, and for Gina Torres’ role on Vampire Diaries to be short-lived (it might be intended as a one-time deal…I didn’t read the release closely enough.
I think the bigger issue is what is this site going to do when Dollhouse is finally gone? What will you do to keep up the page hits?
That has been answered already – thanks to the benevolence of network programming executives and the AC Nielsen Company, there is a never-ending supply of topics (orange and red-coloured programs on the Renew/Cancel Index) for us all to discuss…
…be sure to send Ben Silverman and Dawn Ostroff a stocking stuffer for Christmas
You know I really liked Dollhouse but I never thought it was the greatest show imaginable. I found it to be a distant 4th in Joss Whedon created shows.
There are only two shows that I ever wrote any kind of letter to FOX or any other network for that matter, to save. Firefly and Arrested Development.
…how many people will write NBC to save Jay Leno, besides the AICPA?
Now, if Jay took a page from Bob Hope, and taped a few USO tours to air during some Leno slots, I just might write in
Is that Ben Grossman smoking something illegal? *g*
As for that other guy getting hatemail he says “still” that must refer to Firefly – can’t imagine there would be that much fuss over Dollhouse.
my picture will never work
I don’t know, I think I can still blame Fox for the way they promoted this show, which is badly. Especially after it found a good standing ground. And this year I’ve not seen a bunch of spots for it during their other shows. So I can blame them for not taking full advantage of the unaired episode and the story. They made it seem bland and stupid during the promos that they did show. I can blame them for that.
I never fault a network for taking a series off that has bad ratings, so THANK YOU Fox for at least letting us have a season 2. Now I have put a POX on CBS for cancelling Moonlight that won its time slot every week and was People’s Choice Award winner. The problem with DH was Eliza just was not strong enough to pull off a new character of the week, the rest of the cast was top of the line. I was sorry that Amy Acker was not used more, she could have done a new character each week.
Fox has a better job in supporting Dollhouse than they have for more than a few past shows. Some of it’s struggles in the ratings come from the premise, as well as some episodes seeming to be lackluster and some of the acting performances turning off a segment of the viewership. Fox was generous in renewing it for a 2nd Season. Personally, I’m not planning any hate mail or death threats.
Fox did make some mistakes, or judgement calls that didn’t work out very well, however. The show was promised a slot on a night other than Friday (I believe that it was Monday) and Fox changed that decision. Would the show have brought better ratings on Monday – Thursday? I believe that it would have. Though of course the demands and competition are higher on those days as well. Would the higher ratings have been high enough? We have no idea, but Fox had not had a Friday show successful enough to be renewed in many years and that points to an overall problem with their ability to bring viewers to that night. Fox did request/require some changes to the show’s premise and initial five episodes that did contribute to turning off some viewers. Fox’s did not seem to have a clear advertising strategy for the show and I believe that that resulted in commercials and promos that were not effective, or as effective as they should have been.
Overall, I believe that Fox is worthy of some of the “blame”, but certainly not all of it.
I’m a huge sci-fi fan, but this was a bad show from the start.
Let it go angry fans.
Fox tried w/ the show, but common, the concept was flawed from the start. Your telling me that running the network and seeing the first season in advance that you would of said, I’ll stick Dollhouse after Idle, and move Fringe to Fri, or Lie to Me, or 24, or House, or Bones, Yes, maybe Hell’s Kitchen, but it was cheap and Kitchen Nightmares did OK in the Fall.
Fox had to Sci-Fi shows and desided to try something that worked in the past…a sci-fi night.(X-Files/Sliders/Millenium..all had successfull runs their).
TSCC/Dollhouse seemed like a good idea and this way promos could run durring Idle Tue, Idle Wed, and Bones Thur…Fox’s 3 best nights.
If Dollhouse would of been successfull in any way Fox would of done like CBS did w/ CSI moved it to another night.
Fox wanted stand alone episodes for the first 5,
(doesn’t seem like a bad idea)…They still had the Ballard slow moving investigation.
The show should of made it where we sympofised w/ Echo but they didn’t
Umm… meatloaf?
@Anthony: Well, they will just start topics like “…Chuck…” cause its most likely back in januar. So the clicks will happen
But @Dollhouse, well i think Whedon and the Whedon fans should be happe that they got what they got. Its obvious to me that fox just wanted whedon happy cause he is to develope a new show for them (and direct a Glee episode). So they gave Dollhouse a second year knowing that it will die.
The problem with it was from the begining that you did not have a likeably character. You see Elizas character was well a doll and you could not really relate to that. SO it died. Good so!
Maybe this is my impression ( you know my bad english …so most probably I do not understand the biggest part of what I read ) … However, looking at all these posts … It’s look like … The only people who speak here of fans mad with Fox or with this “who-the-hell-are-you-mr Beckman ” are the very trendy haters ( most probably hate a show or the fans of a show is considered very cool
) of whedon/firefly/DH….The fan are just sad even if they recognoize the this show was doomed since the beginning …OH and then there are the pathetic TSCC fans 
This whole fanboy thing can blind people to the actual qualities of what they are watching. Dollhouse needed to break out from that hard core Whedon fanbase and it didn’t. As others have said the initial concept was flawed and it was little helped by the biggest weakness ;the truly awful, but very pretty Dushku. Fox’s own approach to it was also probably a contributory factor.
As for Whedon himself, well this was not his finest hour. Like Tarantino, when he was good, you are only as good as your last good production. Dollhouse just wasn’t good enough and all the bizarre psycho-babble that came with it did not convince general viewers otherwise.
Wasn’t DOLLHOUSE originally developed for Showcase?? The adjustment for Fox meant that, creatively, it was heavily compromised from the start. (I know, I know, another one for the Fan Excuse Bingo list. Except I’m talking about the show’s unevenness, not the ratings.)
Oh, he’ll still get hate mail and death threats? Then why bother airing the rest of them? Might as well just yank it and keep running “House” repeats.
along as FOX air all the 13 episodes im happy but isnt it time we started to campaign the CW 2 pick Dollhouse up for a 3rd season. I mean i will b better than most the crap its churning out now! and D.H’s ratings would suit the CW better!
I generally assume that networks get hate mails (and less commonly death threats) regardless of what show they cancel and it’s popularity. I bet the CW got one or two hate mail letters for cancelling the beautiful life. Just, look, they have 192 signatures already!
Seriusly Death Threats??????????????????
Just don’t Watch it
Dollhouse had a lot of potential but it never reached it. I don’t think there’s any one person specifically to blame.
If you’ve ever seen the original pilot (not the redone one that Fox actually put on the air, but the original version available on the DVD box set) you’ll probably notice that Fox’s mandated changes to it actually made it a lot better. The aired version is superior to the original version — Lubov’s real identity was revealed far too soon in the original version, for example, instead of being drawn out over a few episodes.
This isn’t to say that the network was right all the time; just that Joss wasn’t either. But the overall problem, IMO, came down to the nature of the doll contracts.
When I first heard about the show, I was figuring that it was something a little more like the sequence in “The Matrix” where Neo or Trinity had the capacity to download specific skillsets into their minds for use in combat situations. A group of operatives who could go into deep cover by adopting the complete personalities of the people they were pretending to be? Awesome. The problem was that that wasn’t who the dolls were.
Discovering that, at the end of the day, none of them had any knowledge or awareness of who they were or what they had done — that completely negated the positive effects of whatever they’d achieved while they were imprinted. Having them depicted as hollowed-out and dehumanized — and even, periodically, preyed upon by their own handlers — was more than a lot of people could stomach. Yes, it was supposed to be a metaphor for the way the entertainment industry treats actors and musicians as commodities rather than people, but the metaphor broke down every time Echo or the other dolls were reset to their “tabula rasa” state. Or, if it didn’t break down for someone watching the show, it left them feeling so uncomfortably guilty about watching TV at all — participating in that process of dehumanization — that they probably tuned in somewhere else the next week.
The running plot about one of the Dolls becoming self-aware, and the whole corporation responsible for the Dollhouse being sinister and nefarious and in need of shutting down — those things actually sabotaged the show rather than helping it along. They encouraged the audience to want the Dolls to escape and their ordeals to end, rather than to want the “Actives” (as they were also called) to go on new and exciting adventures. That meant that in every episode, the viewers were being encouraged to root for the end of the show (or, at the very least, the end of its driving premise). It’s hard to keep your audience coming back for more when that’s the goal you’ve set for them!
I kept watching, but mostly because I was interested in the subplots. I wanted to know more about Sierra and Victor and why they became Dolls, and wanted to watch their romance develop and see how they might handle it once their memories of who they really were got restored. I wanted to watch Topher’s conscience and compassion toward the Dolls develop. I wanted to know more about his back-story with Whiskey/Dr. Saunders. I wanted the father-daughter relationship between Echo and Boyd to develop, and the mother-daughter relationship between Adele and Echo to be unraveled a little more. But the main plot wasn’t particularly interesting or appealing to me, and if I hadn’t started caring about those subplots, I’d probably have been out of there, too.
TL;DR — it could have had mainstream appeal, if the fundamental premise hadn’t been one that made so many people uneasy and uncomfortable. And there’s plenty of blame to go around for that. To me, the main culprit in why it failed is that it required much of its audience to feel too uncomfortable about what they were watching, and nobody who uses TV as escapism is going to put up with that for long.
Ardath – personally, I loved the original pilot, as did my wife and everyone else I’ve talked to online. I also didn’t care for the actual broadcasted Episode One.
The thing is though that that’s in some ways beside the point. Fox didn’t mandate anything concerning the first episode, that was Whedon’s decision. He felt it didn’t work as the first episode, intended to make it the second, and then decided not to bother with it at all. So regardless of whether you love or hate the pilot, that’s Whedon’s fault, not the network’s.
I don’t blame the network at all for the quality of Dollhouse, I’ve not heard of any actual demands they made of the series (from wanting some standalone episodes to ensuring that at least an entity in the show, Rossum, was clearly right or wrong) that were unreasonable. The problem was with those involved in making Dollhouse, they just couldn’t figure out how to make standalones work, despite the fact that it’s inevitable that any open ended TV drama outside of soap operas requires the occasional standalone.
Insofar as Fox “deserves blame”, it’s the fact they originally gave up on the series from the beginning, so we saw very little promotion, and the show has been paired, from the start, with other shows Fox clearly either had already decided to cancel, or didn’t have any faith in either. But, you know, in the end Fox has to make decisions about who goes where, and if it hadn’t been Dollhouse, it would have been Fringe, or Lie to Me, or The Cleveland Show, or… so I’m not going to get upset at them for that, especially as, in the end, like T:SCC, the biggest problem with Dollhouse was with the people making the show, who were smart, talented, and brought a lot of great, original, ideas to the table, but who made some absolutely dire episodes that were enough to drive away viewers away from the really good ones.
Let’s hope they learn from this and whatever they do next is stronger as a result.
“be sure to send Ben Silverman and Dawn Ostroff a stocking stuffer for Christmas
There’s used coal on sale over at eBay for $4 on up
Squiggleslash — yes and no. It’s unlikely that the network would have greenlit reshooting the pilot if they didn’t have significant issues with it themselves, and it’s even more unlikely that Joss could have reshot the pilot without network funding/backing. He undoubtedly found a number of ways to improve upon it in the process, and it’s possible that most of the improvements were his idea rather than Fox’s, but they still had to have told him at some point that the pilot was okay, but they wouldn’t air it as-is and it needed to be reshot. This is standard operating procedure with pilots anyway, though; most get reshot before they actually hit the airwaves.
I’m not sure I can agree with the issue of publicity, because I remember a number of people actually getting up in arms about the original ad campaign Fox had going for the show. It was a combo Dollhouse/Sarah Connor Chronicles ad with a lot of stress on the “hottie” factor and some unfortunate insinuations that Dushku and Glau were kinda-sorta “Real Girl”-esque toys to play with. Several bloggers flipped out at the ads and Fox got a lot of ire-filled letters about that.
And even if Fox had come up with a good ad campaign and promoted the show relentlessly, I don’t think it would have helped much. Too many of the people I know — and these are people who until now practically worshipped the ground Joss walks on — hate the show. I’m talking about serious, virulent loathing, and it’s in large part because of the whole “yeah, we’re slaving these poor people out, but it’s okay, they signed contracts, and we’re sleazy but lovable!” characterization of the Dollhouse staff. This was something I was able to get past but a lot of people couldn’t. Viewer retention is, in some ways, a lot more critical than advertising for new viewers, and word-of-mouth seems to have hurt the show rather than helped it. No flashy ad is going to entice someone to watch something if all of their trusted friends have told them it sucks.
As a hobby I sometimes engage in online freeform RPGs on Livejournal, which has several communities where you can bring in characters from any fandom of your choosing to play. You can actually measure a show’s likely success or failure by whether or not any of its characters show up in these communities, how many versions of them are in play, and how many other players will play off of them, etc. I’m the only one I know of who ever attempted to bring in a Dollhouse character, and when I was considering having her join a more structured game, the owner of the game privately asked me not to bring her in because way too many of the other players (people I’d figured would be receptive to her because I knew they were “Whedonverse” fans) “had serious issues with the show” and “would be very uncomfortable with her around.”
I’m bringing all of that I-have-no-life TMI up simply because, IMO, one of the biggest problems that the show had, from the very beginning, was that a large chunk of the anticipated fanbase actually became some of the show’s strongest detractors. It’s not a matter of the writing being inconsistent, although that didn’t help. It’s a matter of the underlying premise — human trafficking and presenting the people engaged in it as sympathetic — was too upsetting for a lot of people. And while the show often handled the material very adroitly, it did make enough missteps to turn people off. Yes, that is a factor of inconsistent writing (which the show absolutely could not afford). But with a less delicate premise, a badly-done episode now and then wouldn’t have been so deadly.
didnt know where to put it
http://io9.com/5405067/
very funny and on topic lolz
I’m sorry, but Dollhouse is going to be Fox’s next Arrested Development.
Fox puts a show on a 9pm slot on a Friday and is surprised when it doesn’t have great ratings?! Really?!? Fault is on Fox for this one – poor advertising and poor decision making.
My friends and I have all agreed to stop watching anything on Fox from here on out.
I have to agree; what WILL this site do without Dollhouse and Castle?
As far as I’ve been able to tell over the last few couple months, the site consists entirely of:
– Normal people saying they like the shows even if they get cancelled, and will enjoy them while they last even if they do
– The radid and insulting ‘hateful’ haters/trolls who insult and spew bile at the normal people every time with ridiculous rationalizations as to why the normal people should feel bad and ashamed for liking those shows
– The supposedly funny ’sarcastic’ haters/trolls who post “funny” parodies of things that have never happened except in their own head and are just an outlet for mass amounts of passive-aggressive vitriol and hate
– The admins who prance around squeeing and clapping their virtual hands about how funny the sarcastic trolls are, and how they’re going to print their comments out and frame them in their office in a shameful display of pandering to the loudest denominator and a blatantly misled impression that endorsement of ’sarcastic’ trolls does not count as grievously bad management of a website
… and that’s pretty much it. So, yeah, I can totally see this site going through some sort of identity crisis if those two shoes are canceled… I mean what WILL they talk/bitch/hate/passively-aggressively admin-endorse trolls about??? God knows.
Harry, not worried at all about what happens after Dollhouse and Castle, the TV circle of life guarantees replacements. And, Castle is in no danger of reducing our traffic any time soon, in fact I predict a big Castle driven surge come late spring.
Harry – I am shocked – shocked!
Bill and Robert, mere admins? They could have hired admins and never posted within the entries, as they own the site – thank them for their active participation, rather than what they could do – zap any post they wanted, as some admins on some sites I know do…
Dollhouse and Castle the only shows drawing such disparate reactions ever? See Firefly, Jericho, T:SCC, Chuck, Jay Leno, All In The Family, Laugh-In, Shields and Yarnell…
Simon, Dollhouse was originally developed for Fox- they had a contract with Dushku and Whedon wanted to work with her. The problem was that Joss decided to make her character into “brainwashed sex slave”, instead of something most women might fantasize about being, like “sexy spy”.
So Harry, why do you come to this site again? A man who cannot appreciate the brilliance of JBF is a sad man indeed.
Donnie – I don’t appreciate any of the work that Wheedon has done so far – in fact, I can’t think of one really good science fiction program that was ever broadcast on television, not even Star Trek (Doctor Who was likely the closest, but it was just above merely good, thanks to the cheesy special effects)…
…okay, you sci-fi fans, brickbats – set to “tase, tribble, then annhilate”!
…but I do appreciate JBF, as he does have a wicked sense of humour, and doesn’t take himself that seriously – and I do wish Mr. Wheedon well on his next endeavour, and hope I want to watch it…
Nota bene – you’ll notice I said “on television” – try finding downloads of a radio program called “X Minus One” – there were some outstanding episodes produced
I’m just glad they gave it a second season (even if it’s taking FOREVER :p ) We’re lucky to have that.
Im sure the death threat will calm down a little after both fans write in.
Theoacme — I’m not sure what you consider “good” science fiction, but a quick wiki on X minus one (sorry haven’t had time to check it out yet) suggests to me that you are probably more interested in thematic, thought-provoking sci-fi versus the “flash bang” variety. Unfortunately, I don’t think you’ll ever get anything of the Heinlein, Bradbury, et al. calibre on a serialized format.
Whedon, as far as I know, seems as close as you can get — since he likes to deal in ethics and metaphors more often than others. Abrams has much tighter, more consistent and more clever plots which makes it more complicated, but not really more deep. Anthology shows, such as Outer Limits and Twilight Zone, might have been more of your cup of tea — except, more often than not, I find them lacking in overall execution (both technical as well as storytelling) even if they have an interesting thought to provide. You mentioned Star Trek already, but I wonder about your thoughts on a show like Quantum Leap?
In general, I like television for stories that involve heavy character development or complex plot development or just idle entertainment. Complex themes are generally harder to interweave into something that airs 22x times a year as, often, the message is lost if stretched over multiple episodes and, if condensed into one, leaves nothing for the remainder of the season.
For example, DH had some nice ideas but bad execution (the conclusion to the whole backup singer episode isn’t really that bad in concept); an interesting consideration of moral dilemmas which might have been more palatable to general audiences if it was wrapped up in a single episode, although may have turned off some (see above for examples) when extended over several seasons; and some clever ideas (Epitath One), of which everyone rallied to have a continuation, but — in my opinion — would have probably devolved into a generic zombie storyline if we had a whole season of that.
Nonetheless, here’s to you finding a TV show that meets your tastes (and let us know when you do).
Michael, Maybe DOLLHOUSE was CONCEIVED with SHOWCASE in mind? I don’t know. I just remember reading somewhere, a year or more before it first aired, that it would be on Showtime. (I made a note of it.) Maybe it was wrong.
And, since you mention it … let’s be honest, if the show really WAS overtly about “brainwashed sex slaves” then the ratings would likely be a lot higher than they’ve been. Or come to think of it, if handled well, it might actually be a much more interesting show. We should pitch it to someone!
Dollhouse’ numbers are worse than Buffy’s and Angel’s and those shows were on networks that demanded much smaller audiences than does Fox. I love Joss Whedon but these idiots need to get over themselves. This show never should have been renewed for a second season after the dismal ratings of the first. We should be thankful that the show made it this far.
The mishandling of Firefly was hate mail worthy. The cancellation of Dollhouse is not.
There’s always another network for a pick-up. Perhaps TNT?
I guess Fox has to revert to strawman arguments to divert attention away from horrible decisions. Typical defense mechanism.
No, not only TNT isnt related to FOX, DOllhouse isnt a program that is compatible with their programming unlike another Friday 9pm failure Southland. Its still weird that a series with such horrible numbers has so many fans. But there are series like that in the past (Jericho Moonlight). However even those series ratings were better.
“I guess Fox has to revert to strawman arguments to divert attention away from horrible decisions.”
Yes- like putting Dollhouse on the air in the first place.
Sorry … maybe I repeat myself….but again where are these rabid fans of DH ??? ( I mean in this web site ) …
I see a lot of people posting hating these rabid fans , or surprised of ” how many rabid fans has a show with such poor rating “… I hope you do not speak of JBF …I would love to have posts like that from “rabid fans” of ( just to say ) TSCC
Whedon is extremely over rated. Other than Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, which I loved, I haven’t been very impressed by his work. Doll House had a lot of potential but it turned into a big hot mess!
what an @sshole. I hope some great person actually does kill all the Presidents of ABC, NBC, and FOX,and CW I would be So Happy…Mostly Stephen Mcpherson, and Fat Bit*h Dawn O.
You know, for a creative writing class I wrote an outline for a story where the president of programming at some network (I think I called it UBS, just for kicks) was killed by an obsessed fan of a soon-to-be-canceled show. But I never thought anyone would actually suggest it, even in jest.
I just read in the Hollywood Reporter about Larry Charles’ new project.
Set in a small town, the ensemble comedy revolves around a disparate group of people who find a unique way to exercise their creativity by making episodes of their favorite show after its end.
I imagine this is based on Charles’ real-life experiences with the Whedon Grape-Kool-Aid Cult? Hey, Whedonuts, look on the bright side. “Dollhouse” may be dunzo on FOX, but now you can make your own episodes!
Nothing like a woman in a pair of hot hooker boots.
Dollhouse had problems with concept and execution. Most of that is Joss’ fault. A part is Fox’s fault in terms of promotion and perhaps some meddling with the concept or episode order.
In any event, the show was doomed almost from the start as a result. I found many of the episodes interesting, but as I’ve said many times before, the biggest fault was having Eliza be an Active rather than an EX-Active trying to bring down the Dollhouse. This made her a weak lead with no consistent personality the audience could get behind. And there was no other POV person – neither Ballard nor Boyd qualified. And everybody else were the antagonists. There’s no way to make that work.
Well, if Joss would email me, I’m working on his next project. The tagline: They’re the most powerful and dangerous supercriminals in the world – and they’re the Good Guys! Roles for Eliza, Summer, and other Whedon/Friedman favorites! Call me, Joss! Make me showrunner, I guarantee you five seasons!
I probably won’t watch another FOX program after this. Every show I like on there ends up getting canceled. FOX messed up in every aspect when it came to “Dollhouse”. They changed the original pilot, the first 5 or 6 episodes were the least favorite of the season which FOX had Joss make those episodes, they gave it a horrible time slot.
the second season wasnt BARELY promoted. all they did was run a couple 10-15 second TV spots for it and noone even knew the show as comming back, and when Eliza did promotion for the show, its ratings went up. . . but then FOX benched it and put it back on 2 weeks later, so the extra people who tuned in came back the next week and saw it wasnt on, and then didnt tune in the week after and the ratings went right back to where they were.
there were a lot of die hard “Dollhouse” fans out there, but lack of promotion and rumors of it being canceled, and FOX’s lame attempts to dispell those rumors were the downfall.
people may not agree with me, but thats how i feel and facts are facts.