| Scoreboard |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating/Share: Adults 18-49 | 1.8/6 | 1.3/4 | 1.2/4 | 0.8/2 | 0.8/2 |
| Total Viewers (million) | 7.53 | 5.11 | 4.56 | 2.05 | 2.02 |
As is typical for Fridays, CBS won the night both with adults 18-49 and with total viewers.
Dollhouse returned quietly. Though its ratings no longer matter in terms of its future, it returned with about the same amount of adults 18-49 viewers as it had when it departed (which were at a series low) and a few less overall viewers than it had when it went on hiatus. For the two hours it averaged a 0.8/2 rating/share with adults 18-49 and 2.05 million viewers overall.
Ahead of its move to Wednesdays at 10pm next month, Ugly Betty bounced back from its lows last week when it had a 0.9 rating with adults 18-49. Last night it averaged a 1.2/4 with adults 18-49 and 4.23 million viewers.
Ghost Whisperer was the night’s top show both in adults 18-49 and total viewers, but it failed to reach a 2.0 adults 18-49 rating, coming in with a 1.9/7 and 8.23 million viewers.
Full details:
| Time | Net | Show | 18-49 Rating/Share | Viewers (Millons) |
| 8:00 | CBS | Ghost Whiperer | 1.9/7 | 8.23 |
| NBC | Muppets Christmas: Letters To Santa (R) | 1.1/4 | 4.27 | |
| ABC | Dreams Come True | 0.9/3 | 3.70 | |
| FOX | Dollhouse | 0.8/3 | 2.17 | |
| CW | Smallville (R) | 0.8/3 | 1.82 | |
| 9:00 | CBS | Medium | 1.8/5 | 6.96 |
| NBC | Dateline NBC | 1.5/5 | 6.28 | |
| ABC | Ugly Betty | 1.2/4 | 4.23 | |
| FOX | Dollhouse | 0.8/2 | 1.94 | |
| CW | Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer (R) | 0.7/2 | 2.22 | |
| 10:00 | CBS | Numb3rs | 1.6/5 | 7.38 |
| ABC | 20/20 | 1.6/5 | 5.73 | |
| NBC | The Jay Leno Show | 1.4/4 | 4.78 |
=
You can see TV ratings from other recent Overnight ratings reports here.
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
Definitions:
Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings, including demographics, are available at approximately 11 AM (ET) the day after telecast, and are released to subscribing customers daily. These data, from the National People Meter sample, are strictly time-period information, based on the normal broadcast network feed, and include all programming on the affiliated stations, sometimes including network programming, sometimes not. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns. For example, with a World Series game, Fast Affiliate Ratings would include whatever aired from 8-11PM on affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, following the live football game, but not game coverage that begins at 5PM PT. The same would be true of Presidential debates as well as live award shows and breaking news reports.
Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent.
Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time. (See also, Rating, which represents tuning or viewing as a percent of the entire population being measured.)
Time Shifted Viewing – Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live+Same Day (Live+SD) and Live+7 Day. Time shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs which are currently in approximately 24.4% of all U.S. TV households. Live+Same Day (Live+SD) include viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3:00AM local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live+7 Day ratings include incremental viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.
For more information see Numbers 101 and Numbers 102.
Dollhouse was beyond amazing last night.
Hmm at those ratings, you guy’s dont think Dollhouse might be in trouble, do you?
Those Episodes were soooo good. If we can bow out with 7 episodes that are good as the last 4 have been im a happy fan that will cherish my two DVD boxsets!
Last week Ugly Betty received 3.39 million viewers, so 4.23 million is good improvement. Hopefully next week more people will tune in to find out who is actually pregnant!!! These ratings aren’t great, but at least it improved somewhat and beat the Disney special.
superglowy,
you are Kyle XY fans serious competition for “the clueless fan award”. It doesn’t matter, it already as been officially been canceled, but will run the 13 episodes of the season.
It is a shame about Dollhouse as the show really is taking off quality wise. Fantastic two episodes last night. Hopefully they can tie everything up by episode 13.
S,
I think someones sircasm detector is broken
Glad that Betty “bounced” back, I knew it would because it was a bad idea of ABC to air a new episode after Thanksgiving.
I hope the move to Wednesday helps the show gain a little bit more in the demos
I’m hopeful anyway.
Do you by any chance have any numbers for Stargate Universe and Monk.
These Dollhouse numbers look much, much better to me than you’re suggesting!
(1) For starters, the-network-whose-name-I-refuse-to-type-out didn’t really advertise the show at all! So a big DUH for this not being the highest rated episode of the season!
(2) According to my mathematical abilities, if you add the ratings for both episodes, Dollhouse actually had about 4 million viewers and a 1.6 in the demo! Yay!! That’s almost as good as Ghost Whisperer and Medium in the demo!
So don’t give up hope, Dollhouse fans! The show may not actually be dead yet! Believe in the power of Joss!
Dollhouse! Dollhouse! Dollhouse! Dollhouse rules! That-network-whose-name-I-refuse-to-type-out drools! Dollhouse!
Where do i find cable ratings. i want to find out about monks last episodes. that was a good shoiw.
Wow, DH below 2 million viewers. Yikes!
@Joss’ Biggest Fain: Yeah, but they paid for two episodes. It’s not one episode, so the demos and viewers can be added up.
John, JBF was being sarcastic.
Yay! Go Ghost Whisperer!!!! ^__^
Okay, “Gossip Girl”, “One Tree Hill” and “90210″ beat “Dollhouse” this week. Yeah, that’s horrible!!!
Wow, Summer Glau’s appearance on Dollhouse sure packed ‘em in. For Ugly Betty.
I need to add boilerplate that says “THERE ARE NO CABLE OVERNIGHT RATINGS”. Actually there are, but they come out much later. At the earliest, preliminary numbers wouldn’t be available until around 3pm ET
Alan, unless USA releases a press release today (I kind of doubt it, but it could happen) you won’t see MONK’s numbers before Monday, and perhaps not until Tuesday. We’ll publish the #s when we see them either way.
JBF, how about doing the same math with the half-hour blocks? Add those together, and Dollhouse gets around a 3.2 with around 8 million viewers, making it the strongest-performing show of the night by a longshot!
A “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” beat a Smallville repeat? “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” actually performed pretty well for the CW.
I had no idea dollhouse was on until i read something online about it!!! Glad i didnt miss out!! last nites episodes were VERY good!!! I really enjoyed them!!! Its sad to see it go but we got 2 seasons!!!
WOW A RERUN OF SMALLVILLE ALMOST DOES BETTER THAN A NEW DOLLHOUSE WOW!
@Rich, difference is, though, is that Dollhouse is better quality.
Wow there is no hope for dollhouse, PEOPLE JUST DONT LIKE GOOD SHOWS!
I figured DH would be lower, given the lack of promotion and general weak ratings across the board. DH is down to the diehards – and given the quality we are getting in the end, increasingly saddened diehards.
Will be interesting to see just what Betty does when it moves to Wednesdays. 1.5ish?
Yeah thats why it got cancelled and Smallville is going for season 10!
Some of my readers over at mediumdreams.com talked about their local affiliates preempting Medium. Have any of you heard anything about that?
Smallville is good for CW. And there’s no word on a tenth season for Smallville.
Kona, I didn’t see anything about pre-emptions, but what we see for Friday and Saturday nights isn’t as informative as what we see for Sun-Thur.
If it was pre-empted, whatever aired in its place would STILL BE INCLUDED in THESE fast national numbers, but would be stripped out in the final numbers (which won’t be available before Monday).
Tre618, I love good television.
And I haven’t seen any from Whedon since the 90′s.
Angel was good.
The best 2 hours on television last night, of the Dollhouse series and is one of the best TV dramas on right now. So of course it will not do well in ratings and be canceled. In order for a show to succeed it seems it must garbage. Who are these people Neilsen is using for TV rating? Just look at the crap that is on that is doing well. This is so disappointing.
Wow, the Muppets can’t pull in ratings anymore, not even with a Christmas special. Guess that proves that popularity on the Internet (Bohemian Rhapsody) doesn’t necessarily translate into good TV ratings.
And I think the reason that Smallville is getting generally good ratings for repeats is because:
1. ALL episodes so far this season were so good that watching it again is a must for fans
2. “Other” may have heard how good Smallville has been this season had decided to tune in.
Kristen from E! online has reported that the CW “DEFINITELY WANTS A 10TH SEASON” of Smallville!
Wow the “They didn’t promote it and people didn’t know it was on!” excuse is getting trotted out for Dollhouse.
Even though it’s never been on any other night than Friday, and Summer Glau’s appearance was getting talked up all over the internet, which is the only place Dollhouse fans exist (never met one in real-space).
It’s not a good show. It barely rises to the level of mediocre. I loved The Wire. I have no trouble following Mad Men. Hell, I watched every single episode of Fassbinder’s “Berlin Alexanderplatz.” My fave shows of all time are The Prisoner, Twin Peaks, The Rockford Files, The Twilight Zone.
I watch Dollhouse and I think “Why the hell would anyone want to watch this?”
Well, guess what?
HARDLY ANYONE DOES.
The fact that you want to like it doesn’t mean that anyone else has to.
Grow up.
Ah, Twin Peaks. The worst show evar.
Mike, this is getting a bit much.
You are so far gone now that you’re saying Dollhouse is the ONLY GOOD SHOW ON TELEVISION?
It’s not even the best show on FOX.
John, Whedon didn’t run Angel for most of its existence. And it was good OCCASIONALLY. But the only really exceptional TV I’ve seen from Whedon is the first three seasons of Buffy. And even that doesn’t go down as anywhere near the best television I can think of. Just the best show on WB at the time.
Pisher always has to be right.
Thanks, Robert! I didn’t know that those numbers were included. You learn something new every day!
I’ve heard so far that Houston, TX pre-empted it for Operation Smile, and Orlando FL pre-empted it for a college football game, although I think in the latter case, it aired the ep. at 2 am.
I loved all seven seasons of Buffy. “The Body”, “One More with feeling”, “The Gift”, and “Restless” were some of the best Pisher.
The sooner FOX gets that drek Dollhouse (AKA Joss’ twisted male fantasy) off the air, the sooner something good could fill the slot.
pisher: are u saying something bad about buffy? if it is, million of people in the USA and in the rest of the world would be disagree with u, and most of the critics too. BUFFY IS THE BEST TELEVISION SERIES OF ALL TIME, ALL OVER CSI, DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE, GOSSIP GIRL, HEROES, HOUSE, EVERYTHING!!!!!! NOT A WORD ON THAT
Shia, there were some decent episodes in fourth and fifth seasons, but everything after that was overrated rubbish. “Once More With Feeling” was probably the ultimate shark-jumping moment for Buffy–she was REALLY dead after that.
You can say you don’t agree, and that’s fine. But the ratings show that more and more people are coming over to my side.
Whedon is finished as a serious creative force in television.
BTVS Fan, I understood BTVS better than you ever will, appreciated its brief greatness, and mourned its total creative meltdown.
I can imagine Whedon wincing as he reads your moronic defense.
Thank you.
I’m hoping Betty’s move will at least get it to a 2.0, judging from Eastwick though it’s a long shot. But I’m positive UB has more fans than Eastwick, so let’s just hope they all tune in. And ABC better promote the heck out of the move!
John, it’s not really fair to say I have to be right. I mean, with ratings like these, I don’t even have to SHOW UP.
Well im glad I had Dollhouse on my DVR series record because I had no idea it was supposed to be on last night.
It was announced weeks ago. Hell, it was announced HERE.
FOX greenlit a flop. They saw in advance they had a flop and aired it anyway, and promoted the hell out of it, and let Whedon spend a bundle on it. It premiered as a flop anyway. It flopped worse almost every single week, and FOX renewed it for another season, and spent millions more on promotion, and let Whedon hire other Whedonverse fan faves like Summer Glau, star of the flop Terminator series on FOX (noticing a trend here?).
When they finally had to cancel the flop, they agreed to air every single episode, and give Whedon a chance to finish off the overarching storyline, which when you get right down to it, could have been told in just a few hours, once you stripped away the episodic crap.
And for this you will hate them forever.
And this is why FOX needs to stop hiring Joss Whedon.
pisher said: “you’re saying Dollhouse is the ONLY GOOD SHOW ON TELEVISION?”
No, I said it was the best 2 hours on television last night, of the Dollhouse series and is one of the best TV dramas on right now. How many CSI’s, Law and Order’s can you watch. Dollhouse stands out from anything else on right now. Lie To Me is another good show on the cusp of barely hanging in there and just proves my point about the ratings.
Pisher is the classic cocky stereotype. He ALWAYS has to be right. Just let him live in his own little world.
Robert, Medium was pre-empted in Orlando for a special on the Florida Gators (boo!) but it was aired at two o’clock in the morning. (How lame is that?) But I was wondering if those later numbers (if anyone actually watched at that unGodly hour) would be included in the ratings?
I swear pisher has written more words about Joss Whedon than the entire community of Whedonesque. I think someone has an adorable little crush!
Robert, if the numbers for the specials that pre-empted Medium were stripped out of the final numbers, any chance that Medium’s ratings could improve in the finals?
A new Dollhouse episode with the same ratings as a Smallville repeat… quite bad
Smallville is doing pretty good with repeats considering its friday’s. And to all non believers that say the cw never stated that they want a season 10, U R WRONG!
Kristen at E!Online stated that the CW stated they want a season 10 and if the ratings for the next 2 episodes and the movie is good they will renew it without hesitation.
Still not renewed yet. And it didn’t come directly from the CW, so I wouldn’t believe it just yet. Also, it’s not just the network, a few cast members (including Tom Welling) have stated they’re getting tired with Smallville after nine years.
That 1.2 rating for Ugly Betty is just about exactly its season average so far.
I’ll be very surprised if it can sustain a 2.0 at 10pm Wednesday. I’m expecting a 1.7.
@pisher
Still dancing on your grave concerning Castle HA!
I don’t like Dollhouse at all but yesterday’s 2 were amazing, even I gotta admit that.
@Donnie: thanks for the idea.
Welcome to the next edition of TVBTN message board by the numbers.
Here are the top 10 word counts for the board, as of December 5, 2009, 11:01 am.
pisher 541
Mike 153
Robert Seidman 129
John 124
Joss’s Biggest Fan 106
Ren 89
Mediumfan 75
Kona Gallagher 72
Smallville 62
BTVS FAN 58
To be fair, some of the longer DH posters haven’t hit the board yet. Numbers may be updated later, if I am bored.
I did not know Dollhouse was on last night. I don’t care if there a FOX exec outside my front door with a bullhorn telling me it was on last night, I did not know it was on TV.
I am not a huge Dollhouse fan. I bought the first season on DVD without ever watching a single episode. I thought the first 6 or 7 episodes of Dollhouse first season was very bad, but the 2nd half of the first season showed promise with the unaired episode being excellent and also shows the potential for a spin off of a excellent movie. I made the choice to give the second season a shot and thought every episode to date has been very good.
With the quality of the second season I was hoping Dollhouse would get a third season, it would be nice to see where the show is heading, but since it’s been canceled it’s hard for me to get into watching the remaining episodes. I will probably wait now until its on DVD.
@Mediumfan, the Orlando airing for “Medium” at 2am will get counted, it will *not* get lumped into the national ratings for “Medium” at 9p. When it comes to the national final #s, only viewing of airings in the normal time slot are counted.
the 2 eps of Dollhouse fri nite were actually pretty good.
I dont like the show , it has been bad from the start.
it is strange they wait till after it has been canceled to air 2 good eps. If they had started out with shows like these then the ratings now might not be so bad.
@ phisher, the ratings dont reflect what everyone actually watch, it is just a estimate based on a few thousand neilsen goofballs and what they watch.
when csi was the supposedly the most watched show in america, I didnt watch it and asked alot of people and none of them watched the show.
the truth is not many people actually watch broadcast tv anymore.
the neilsen ratings help the networks [get their ad $ ] by saying millions watch this show and that show when the truth is it may be more like thousands instead of millions.
10 million people could have watched DH fri, but if they dont have a neilsen box then no one knows what they watched.
So basing a shows “true” popularity on the neilsen ratings is not accurate, not even close to accurate.
and I am not saying DH is popular, it was real bad in begining so most stopped watching it. it is however better than ghost whisperer or numbers
Robert, I’m pretty sure that any airing before 3 am gets counted in the final nationals. It’s only the airings that are on a different day that don’t get counted.
Julia, I’m pretty sure you’re wrong
Edit: but I will check to confirm either way.
Not that it matters much either way. It’s not as if airing Medium at 2 am in Orlando is going to produce more than about 12 viewers anyway.
@John- You’re totally wrong about Smallville. Welling has never said anything like that and his contract has an extension for next year, and its gigantic.
SV producers said its not a matter of “if” they get S10, its a matter of “when”.
At this pace, SV will be around in the year 3000.
Dollhouse was amazing last night!!!
@john conner, jim:
I think shows are generally better executed when they have a finite number of episodes rather than an indefinite one. It helps reduce filler, makes creators more focused, and tends to make for tighter plotting. Unfortunately, that’s not the model we have here, and shows not only have to contend with filling episode orders, they also have to pace their stories along sweeps.
Successful scripted shows tend to require both skills in storytelling and an ability to work well within these limitations.
Last night Ugly Betty was beyond AMAZING. I think some of the comedy was emmy worthy. LOVED IT. Im glad it did better, but it’s still not as good as its been on fridays, but whatever, we get wednesdays!
betty hold on!
Yay for Ugly Betty!! It was fantastic last night. And I agree with whoever said people just dont watch good shows. It’s soooooo true!
Im glad Betty bounced back because yeah, it was a pretty hot episode….literally, a lot of sex lol.
But no matter how bad it does on Fridays, we are getting a move to Wednesdays so YAY!
I still dont get why below medicore shows like Ghost Whisperer and Medium get good ratings…there is nothing special about those shows in anyway. CBS is just a smart and most-watched network lol.
Ugly Betty was FANTASTIC last night. It’s a really talented cast and has really great writers and last nights episode proved that. Hope it does really good on Wednesdays.
Agreed…Ugly Betty was great. Funny enough, last weeks ugly betty wasnt as good as it usually is and got lowwwwww numbers but this weeks was 10000 times better and it got better ones so thats great news!
I too hope it gets at least a 2.0 or close on Wednesdays. It deserves a 5th season (now let the Tommy “Its dead” banter begin…I get it Tommy, so can you not say it for once when Ugly Betty is mentioned? Thanks)
Numb3rs wins it hour! :^)
Robert said: “That 1.2 rating for Ugly Betty is just about exactly its season average so far.
I’ll be very surprised if it can sustain a 2.0 at 10pm Wednesday. I’m expecting a 1.7.”
Even if they sustain approximately a 1.7 – 1.9, would that be enough to save it, though? Or does the show need to pick up a much bigger rating in order to be miraculously saved?
The Muppets special was a rerun- it’s not like that specail is a Rudolph or Charlie Brown Christmas. Plus, ratings on Fridays are hard to come by.
Even withthe improvement, UB’s ratings should be higher. Hopefully it can pull at least 6m viewers on Wednesdays. if it pulled what it averaged last year on Thursdays, that would be a fantastic increase (not expecting that much, though- would be a near-doubling. lol).
Angie, I didn’t say that, Bill did. Though I realize to most of our readers we’re merely interchangeable ratings drones.
I think the only thing that will save Ugly Betty other than a huge upside ratings surprise (not impossible, though very unlikely) is ABC wanting even MORE episodes for syndication. If it is saved, it will not be because of a 1.7-1.9 or even a 2.1 (for the optimistic) rating.
Loved the Smallville Iron-man type episode last night. Oh my how it almost beat Dollhouse. And last night was the probably the first time the CW ever aired something G-rated.
NBC will crush medium. That’s pretty low for a CBS series.
Yay, Ugly Betty! I’m just hoping the ratings increase for next week’s episode, because it looks really good. Who is actually pregnant though??? I think it’s Hilda. Anyway, I’m glad the ratings didn’t fall any lower this week, because that would have been a real shame. I guess Black Friday did play a big role in the low ratings for last week. These are still bad ratings, but an improvement at least!
I don’t watch anything on NBC any more so how would I know a Muppets special was on even if NBC promoted it. That is a big chunk of the problem with TV. If you aren’t a regular viewer you don’t know what is on or know what you may like unless you search the schedules or read reviews. That takes a big commitment these days.
As for Dollhouse, I watched Fox Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I was trying to remember if they promoted it. That is a bad sign, isn’t it. I remember a lot of ads for Glee, Bones, and Fringe though. And Carrie Underwood.
Ugly Betty does get promoted during the ABC Soaps because they ran a bunch of ads during General Hospital this week (I record the show and usually watch when I get home). The problem is who is watching the ads since soap ratings are down. Just too many people at work.
One thing about CBS, they do promote their shows and people do actually watch CBS which translates into at least a sampling of their shows. Statistically speaking, Nielsen can’t be choosing only CBS viewers accidentally. Before CBS had a strong viewer base NBC (how sad) was number one. Ratings don’t reflect what is good, they only reflect what is popular.
Really enjoyed last night’s Dollhouse. As long as the ratings are high enough for Fox to show the remainder of the season, I’m happy.
As these were in line with the rest of the season, I doubt Fox is going to drop the remaining episodes.
Last night of Dollhouse was more than amazing !!!!!!!! , what did you think Robert ? i always like your taste
I didn’t like it as much as the tremendous Cincinnati/Pittsburgh game (I’m not sure how Florida vs. Alabama can top that) but here are a couple of general thought’s on last night’s DOLLHOUSE:
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/12/05/two-things-i-loved-about-last-nights-dollhouse-mo-tancharoen-and-enver-gjokaj/35366
Kona, there’s a whole site of local programming pre-emptions
Lynn, same site
Kona- Medium aired late for some states, yes. I saw people talking about it on IMDB’s Medium board.
Ooops, sorry Robert! Didn’t mean to interchange you and Bill. I guess I do think of you two as twins sometimes. LOL. My apologies, but thank you for explaining everything.
“pisher” you might want to actually add a little knowledge to your ramblings: Joss has several projects on the board and – so before, as you YOU claim, he is finished as a serious creative force in television, let’s leave it up to the folks who actually work in that medium to decide his fate… God knows they certainly know a whole lot more about Joss’s attributes and what he may or may not be able to offer than you.
Dreams come true was essentially an hour long commercial for Disney’s The Princess and the Frog and it even beat Dollhouse…and it looks like Betty’s kickin’, but just barely
bummed that people are not watching dollhouse.. I don’t really get it. It is unique. We have more than enough cop shows/crime dramas… csi etc. I know people like them… but really how many do they have to watch.. i am so bored with television this fall.. nothing good is on and I am a big tv fan. I know dollhouse is canceled though.. its a shame.. hey maybe they will put on another ncis or csi..
Good that Betty bounced back. I figured it will. Im guessing when Betty moves to Wednesdays, it will get 1.7-1.8 like Bill said and maybe 5.5 million viewers.
Basically, Ugly Betty will get the same demo as Eastwick but more viewers. Eastwicks demo after a new Cougar Town is about 1.7-1.8. Now that its been airing after a repeat, its been worse.
Syfy would be killing for those 2 million viewers Dollhouse are getting.
>”bummed that people are not watching dollhouse.. I don’t really get it. It is unique. ”
The last 3 episodes might have been good, but overall it’s been pretty bad, especially season 1. If it had started out this good it might have retained some more viewers, but, it didn’t.
I have a feeling the rest of the season will be entertaining and I’m looking forward to it; Whedon works well under pressure, and always does better work when building towards something. So really, the cancellation has made it a better show. A lot of people are going to use the quality of these eps as a reason it shouldn’t be canceled, but, they’re missing the chicken and the egg.
Also, pisher is a troll who loves nothing more than to rile up Whedon fans. Any time you reply to him you’re making his day.
Friday night on network is so dead.
I know you guys love your shows but its hard to defend any show that lost to The Muppets. The freakin’ Muppets!
The last DOLLHOUSE episodes SHOULD be good. No more need to compromise on quality chasing ratings.
From Joss’ Biggest Fan: “(2) According to my mathematical abilities, if you add the ratings for both episodes, Dollhouse actually had about 4 million viewers and a 1.6 in the demo! Yay!! That’s almost as good as Ghost Whisperer and Medium in the demo!”
Please tell me you’re joking, because if you aren’t your mathematical abilities clearly never made it past grade school. With that logic, we would have to say that every other show on TV last night aired two episodes as well. Ghost Whisperer and Medium double to a 3.8 and a 3.6 and Dollhouse still loses just as badly.
Quality of the show aside, no one’s watching. And that’s why it was cancelled.
“bummed that people are not watching dollhouse.. I don’t really get it. It is unique. We have more than enough cop shows/crime dramas… csi etc.”
I think this needs to be said: television drama is not a choice between Dollhouse and various crime procedurals. It isn’t an either/or situation.
“Also, pisher is a troll who loves nothing more than to rile up Whedon fans. Any time you reply to him you’re making his day.”
Although I think pisher probably does enjoy riling up Whedon fans, I take issue with the idea that he’s a troll. Whedon fans think Whedon is a genius and Dollhouse is cutting edge, smart, risky drama, while pisher thinks Whedon is overrated and Dollhouse is dreck. That doesn’t make him a troll, it just means he disagrees with the pro-Whedon camp. He would only be a troll if this was a Joss Whedon message board, but it isn’t. There is no “right” or “wrong” side in this debate. Disagree with him all you want but put your money where your mouth is and argue his point instead of calling him names. Playing the “troll” card because you can’t marshal a compelling counter-argument is just being lazy. I don’t like Dollhouse one bit and I also think Whedon is overrated, and I’m definitely not a troll.
I’ve posted at length (too often, I know) about what I perceive Dollhouse’s failings to be, because I think Whedon’s early work on Buffy showed a lot of promise and I’m boggled by the fact that Dollhouse is such a complete and utter misfire. I also think Whedon’s been coasting on his Buffy laurels for years while his actors and his co-writers don’t get anywhere near the amount of credit they should have for that show’s success. Without Alyson Hannigan, I’m pretty sure Buffy wouldn’t have been anywhere near the success it was. Without Sarah Michelle Gellar to anchor the show I doubt the audience would have kept tuning in. But all we ever hear about is Whedon, and how he’s an inspired genius, and how all of his failings are the network’s fault for interfering with his vision or the director’s fault for mangling his movie scripts. Now we have Whedon’s Dollhouse, which he must take complete respnsibility for, which is not only a misfire but an infuriating one on various levels that practically begs for insightful critique. Okay, I’m rambling. But if Whedon fans on this board want to leap to his defense, do it–not by calling non-fans like pisher names, not by pouting that people who never watched the show are just dummies who watch nothing but reality shows and CSI but by actually arguing insightfully. This isn’t Whedonesque and it isn’t taken for granted here that Joss Whedon is our master.
Just like the box office receipts of a movie don’t indicate the quality of the movie; Quality of the tv show has NOTHING to do with the ratings. Great shows have been canceled – Pushing Daisies, Veronica Mars, Twin Peaks, Wonder Falls, Firefly, Profit, Arrested Development. All excellent shows not much with the ratings but now known for how good they were.
There are many other examples. Yet CSI: Topeka or whatever is a top 10 show.
Shows like Cheers, Seinfeld and Friends would not have become the successes they eventually became based on their first season’s ratings.
I have been one of the rare few who have followed UGLY BETTY all over the place in its many day and time slots. It’s a shame it has so few viewers this year because I think the shows are some of the very best this season. I am enjoying the new characters and the veterans as well. I hope enough people will begin to watch to give it a chance to survive. It really is well cast and the storylines are amazingly good this season. And that’s one viewer’s opinion! Give it a try….
UB is much better this season. Wednesday night after the other comedies is a better fit in so far as audience flow, but not sure this will bring in enough viewers to bring it back for another season. Hopefully, ABC will give the producers enough notice so they can give the series a satisfying ending. Maybe flashforward and have Betty be full on glam and become Editor in chief.
Mark, I try to avoid the topic of pisher, because he enjoys it so much when people talk about him, but if you do enough searching on Google, you’ll find pisher in almost any discussion that involves anything to do with Firefly. And he is always there for the express purpose to rile the fans up. I don’t care for Firefly or Whedon or a lot of the other things that pisher rails against. But that doesn’t blind me to the fact that he is nothing more than a troll.
Note that no one has called you a troll just for saying you don’t like Dollhouse.
@superglowy
His manners are broken as well
Most people that hate Dollhouse now will love it like 5 years in the future.
Like Firefly.
I love Ugly Betty and maybe Shakira helped on yesterday’s episode ratings, I love that they’re moving UB to Wednesdays yay!, but it needs a lot of promotion for its new time slot, well, I think they’ll do that because it’s gonna be part of the Comedy Wednesday and Modern Family and Cougar Town get a lot of promotion!!
I don’t go out on Fridays beacuse of UB- if they cancel it I’m gonna be depressed for weeks 
and I just stopped watching Dollhouse because of Betty, and I don’t have time to DVR it nor watch it online lol
As far as Dollhouse goes, it/they was/were pretty good episodes – for Dollhouse.
And Summer Glau played her character up just right – just like with River on Firelfy and just like with Cameron on TSCC. It’s time for SOMEONE – PLEASE – to put her in a series that has some hope of surviving more than a season or two!
Pisher makes some excellent points and the Whedon “fans” just can’t stand it. Mark, also, summed up everything I was going to say about it. If there are any doubts as to the quality of the writers working on Dullhouse just look at what they gave the series finale as a title: “Epitaph Two: Return” ?? What is this, a bad 80s horror movie?
Whedon fans are blind to quality. They have decided to like him and he could honestly film himself polishing a turd and they would call it the best piece of post modern television ever shown.
Oh wait… they already do… that turd is called Dullhouse. Maybe if Whedon hired better writers I would appreciate him more, but on this new series he just didn’t. No Marti Noxons. No David Furys. No Drew Goddards. No one any good. Heck, he hired his own brother and I think one of the writers from that God awful Bionic Woman show!! What does that tell you.
Joss should have proposed Faith The Vampire Slayer to Fox. That would have done well no matter what timeslot even on Friday Nights. Why? Because vampires = ratings.
Curiously, I think Jed wrote some of the strongest episodes…
Dollhouse got less viewers than Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer????? wtf
“Joss should have proposed Faith The Vampire Slayer to Fox. That would have done well no matter what timeslot even on Friday Nights. Why? Because vampires = ratings.”- I completely agree that would have done very well for Fox if written well, but I doubt Joss would ever consider it.
Remember that vicious flame war here last summer over Summer Glau’s appearance on Dollhouse, like it was going to be some humongous TV event that would reshape the course of the show? Kinda seems silly in retrospect, huh? The episode with Summer Glau in it dropped a share point from the Dollhouse episode that DIDN’T have Summer Glau in it.
Dollhouse took an unexpected turn for the better last night, it’s just too little too late. I wish it was like this from the beginning.
The first 2/3 of the first episode of Dollhouse last night was great. After that it was ok, but nothing too special. Still mad about TSCC, so I am glad Dollhouse is getting crappy ratings.
“Whedon Fans” is a generalization that’s just not accurate. The majority that I’ve talked to aren’t crazy about Dollhouse, or they just tolerate it. I say nice things about the show when they’re warranted (Enver is a genius actor who should be on the big screen), but overall I’m not sad to see it go.
Some people just go out of their way to troll Whedon fans, even going so far as to post in a blog entry under 3 different names so that it sounds like someone’s agreeing with them.
Look at the two people posting as Julia above. The first one, the one that has the conversation with Robert, and calls pisher out on being a troll, is the real one. The second “Julia” has the opposite opinion, and if you hover the mouse over her name, you’ll see the link goes to “http://none”.
Classy. Is faking someone’s identity enough for a ban?
John from dec 5 11:01am, the statement came from EOnline and that place always gets the info from the entwork and are never wrong. They state what the network wants stated. And the CW stated they want a season 10! So Shut it! And u dont know nothing about Smallville Tom Welling has been signed on for a 10th season since Season 8 and since he just became an exectutive producer on the show, i really doubt he would give up on the show because he is tired. If he was tired of it he wouldnt have become a co-producer.
John dont make a comment ever again or you’ll just ruin ur life by telling lies.
usedtolovecoco, I don’t think the second Julia was trying impersonate me, it was just someone trying to think of a girl’s name to use. The comment after by “polly” has the same IP address. Ironic that she is taking offense to someone else being called a troll when she obviously is one herself.
forget it guys that dollhouse SLUT is gone and never should have gone on the fox lineup to start with but its a goner thank god now if you have a hunky stud guy playing the part im there so guys get a life the show sucks and cya to a SHIT SHOW with a SLUT who played the part she must have slept with the producers of the show to get the part that WHORE now she has to find a real job but if it comes to spreding her legs thats the only way she can stay employed ONCE A SLUT ALWAYS A SLUT I HOPE SHE GETS THE CLAP HAHAHA
More viewers watched a typical afternoon airing of the cancelled “Guiding Light” on CBS (typical audience 2.2 million) than watched a prime time, all new episode of “Dollhouse” this weekend. That is why the show is cancelled.
don: “SLUT”…
Okay…I’m gonna go out on a limb and decare you a troll.
chaos amoeba: “Curiously, I think Jed wrote some of the strongest episodes…”
I agree. I think Jed and Maurissa actually had a better handle on the material–or, to be fair, the way I think the material should have been presented–than Whedon. They wrote Epitaph One and they also wrote the second season episode “Belonging” in which Adelle finally calls a spade a spade and admits that what they’re doing to people just might be a tiny bit morally questionable. And also calls Topher out on the fact that he is a kind of monster.
Oh, and on the whole Faith the Vampire Slayer thing–even if Joss was willing to go back to it, which I doubt, Eliza is on record as being through with that role. (Though I suppose a big paycheck might possibly lure her back, who knows.) But I think almost any other TV show is a more likely possibility for Eliza than “Faith”.
I want to see SMG on an awesome edgy cable show.
Julia, if pisher is a known troll on this website, is there a reason he’s not banned?
I’m so glad people have noticed how good Ugly Betty is this season, the quality has picked up a lot which almost gives off the feeling of season 1 again
I really hope the move does Betty better, the show deserves it and with such wonderful and loyal fans I can only hope so!
DW, if I got to pick who was banned, there’d be several people you’d never see on this website again. Unfortunately, that’s not my job.
Pisher could almost be Uschi. You’re not Uschi, are you, Pisher? Has the world gotten that weird?
No show got a 2.0
On another note, I hope some readers would realize that it is futile to post here using various names because the site admin tracks IP addresses, they will find out. And doing that is really pathetic, come on
I LOVE DOLLHOUSE!!! Fox can take a fall to hell.
@forg: Well, Julia(2) and polly might just be different personalities of the same doll. She wouldn’t even know that she’s using the same connection to post on the same message board. I wonder if they have wireless in the Houses…
Just sayin’…
pisher says:
“Hell, I watched every single episode of Fassbinder’s ‘Berlin Alexanderplatz.’”
Yeah, but did you do it in one sitting?
Maybe they are friends or sisters. I do that all the time with my sister where we both post. In any case, doesn’t make what they said not true.
Also, why would Fox air DH when reruns of Bones and House get better ratings?
I think fridays will improve by January. ABC’s Shark Tank/Wife Swap combo should do OK, but its better than having Betty die in that slot. FOX’s combo of House/Bones repeats and Kitchen Nightmares is likely to do better than Dollhouse did. Its very likely FOX returns Lie to Me to fridays at 8 by March. As for CBS, with Numb3rs expected to wrap up in February, I think CBS’s best bet is moving The Good Wife to fridays at 10. I know its doing great on Tuesdays, but maybe if its already doing good Tuesdays, CBS can use it to help fridays out. And with NBC, theyre liekly to but reality series or Traumas 6 eps on fridays once L&O ends. CW and Smallville are doing well so hopefully they can stiuck with that combo until May.
There’s a small part of me that holds out hope that Dollhouse will get a last minute reprieve. The show is criminally underrated and has been undeservedly ignored by viewers, which is a damn shame as it is quitee possibly one of the best shows on TV at the moment.
One thing I am curious about; why have Fox moved Ugly Betty (which, in my opinion is starting to get a little stale; to a better day and timeslot in order to improve ratings, but never bothered doing the same with Dollhouse?
@Allie,
Ugly Betty airs on ABC, not FOX.
theveiledone, “they” also used obviously fake email addresses.
As for why they would air Dollhouse, it’s December. The episodes have already been paid for, might as well air them to make back a bit of their money. It’s also a nice gesture to some of the craziest fans around. Maybe this will keep them from being quite as annoying as they would have been?
The last two episodes of dollhouse were basically the best of the two seasons so far. I think Fox is making a mistake by not giving a bigger run. They also ditched Terminator, and Firefly. Why is it that Fox puts these on then ditches them. Would rather that TNT put them on and keep em.
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/12/05/tv-ratings-dollhousereturns-quietly-ugly-betty-bounces-back-33/35356#com-head
Hi. This is a message to all you fellow TV show fans out there, and in particular to the fans of Dollhouse and TSCC, two shows that I have some knowledge about. Sadly, I didn’t stumble upon this thread:
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/09/14/true-blood-wins-best-new-show-terminator-the-sarah-connor-chronicles-best-drama-in-twop-tubey-awards/27095
until it was closed for comments, so this thread right here will have to do. What concerns me is the frequent apparent malice towards fans of the “other” show that is voiced in the comments in various threads: fans of TSCC are called “crazy” because they’re passionate, and both sides accuse each other of being unintelligent, either overtly or covertly, by commenting on how intelligent or smart “their” show is (as opposed to the other). The overall impression is that a disturbing number of comments are more concerned with trashing other fans than actually saying something of substance. And it can’t just be a simple matter of frustration about one’s favourite show being cancelled, because if so why were the fans of Dollhouse that happened to dislike TSCC so downright mean to the grieving fans of TSCC, while Dollhouse still had a future, at least in theory? To ALL fans, on BOTH sides, I have these things to say:
1. NEVER be HAPPY about a show being cancelled: if it hasn’t happened to a show that YOU like, it’s simply a matter of TIME. And then how would YOU like it if someone called you crazy or unintelligent when you’re just trying to channel your feelings of loss? It’s not the fans of OTHER shows that are to blaim if your favorite show gets cancelled, it’s the NETWORK. Let them know how you feel and leave the fans of other shows out of it. Perhaps a solution could be some kind of fee financed channel network where canceled shows could be given a second chance: if enough people sign up for a season, it’s a go. Just a thought…
2. ANY show that passes the bar of being aired AT ALL, is BY DEFINITION, “intelligent”. If you doubt that, try writing one yourself. And if intelligence was required to LIKE an “intelligent” show, or if by some magic wand, watching an “intelligent” show would make the VIEWER intelligent, than certainly this comment would be superfluous.
3. Is there not then, such a thing as MORE “intelligent” shows than average? Absolutely. But here’s the kicker: that doesn’t mean that people that doesn’t LIKE them are STUPID. It only means that the particular WAY in which any given show is “intelligent”, simply CAN’T appeal to everyone, because we’re all different: You might love one “intelligent” show and at the same time hate another show that’s just as “intelligent”. Because it’s not the “intelligence” of a show that makes you like it (although it can of course add to the experience), it’s your personal TASTE. Which has NOTHING to do with intelligence. Furthermore, some people LIKE the challenge of watching certain kinds of “intelligent” shows, while others get BORED by the very same show. And that doesn’t mean that ANYONE can be sure which one’s a Nobel prize winner…
And so, to the people that “didn’t quite get it” regarding TSCC, perhaps this interview with Brian Austin Green (who played Derek Reese) about the show and what the future plans were might shed some light on it. But a warning to the sensitive reader: he does have the audacity to call the show “intelligent”: his choice of word, not mine…
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=20811
Finally a couple of personal comments to some of the participants in the aforementioned thread:
@Bill Gorman: You need to work on your people skills. That attitude of yours will inevitably bite you in the ass, if it hasn’t already. But, it’s your ass, not mine. Enjoy…
@AO: You’re absolutely right about people being condescending, belittling and insulting, but you’re not helping the situation by swinging back like that. You should lead by example and not stoop to their level. About the merits of the poll, you’re iterating what others have already said but with a little more passion, and also make a big number of the possibility that it might have allowed for unlimited votes (without a shread of evidence, I might add). As for polls where you can’t vote multiple times, they certainly don’t reflect the truth either. They only reflect the views of those who sees the poll, and cares much enough to vote. Even if you can’t vote multiple times(again, could they?), are the merits of such polls really that much better? I think not. Please note that I’m not saying that you’re not right as far as numbers are concerned, I’m just saying that IMHO you’re a bit over the top when you use the words “intelligent” and “dismiss” like that: the poll in question does show one thing, and that is that TSCC fans cared much enough to vote at all, be it once or multiple times(again, was that even possible for the average visitor?). I recommend you to ponder what Schmacky and in particular Tskpft, wrote. Tskpft nails it. And yes, I do am aware that Tskpft SAYS he voted more than once. That doesn’t mean that he actually DID. The level of the debate at that point was so infectuous it might just as well have been a provocation. Also if he did, he didn’t say HOW: say the poll checked that same IP couldn’t vote twice(the standard protection for public polls). If he changed his IP(there’s a number of ways) he could vote again, b
(continued) …say the poll checked that same IP couldn’t vote twice(the standard protection for public polls). If he changed his IP(there’s a number of ways) he could vote again, but that still didn’t make that particular poll less reliable than ANY OTHER public poll. And besides, using a proxy to hide your real IP is more and more common which makes checking voter’s IP and thus excluding everyone that uses a proxy less and less meaningful, which means that ANY AND ALL public polls in the long run have NO CHOICE but to allow for multiple votes, which makes the whole discussion a non-issue. Still, what Tskpft wrote is worth contemplating regardless.
@AO: Your statements “the show is not as “intelligent”” and “there were many instances where it didn’t live up to that potential” really intrigues me. Can you be more specific ie give some examples? Is it possible that you could benefit from the aforementioned interview with Brian Austin Green? I can certainly recommend it: it made things a lot more clear to me, alas considering the fate of the show. After all, he was actually taking an active part in the production. Or perhaps you think of yourself as having a superiour mind in judging these things all on your own without getting a second opinion first (yes, even if you SAY that you are – and I quote – “not in the habit of being a condescending jerk”, it is statements like that who makes you one. This is your chance to repent and redeem yourself)?
BTW, I did like TSCC more than I like Dollhouse, but I LOVED Buffy and enjoyed Angel so I guess that makes me intelligent, crazy and stupid all at once ie schizophrenic, or …?
I’ll be back,
Terminator