It's simply outdated and irrelevant to use a data pool that ignores DVR viewing of a show. Some shows and some time spots are more prone to being 'time shifted' (recorded and watched later) than others. Shows on friday night are very likely to be recorded and watched the next day. Most people, even nerds who like sci-fi shows, go out and do stuff friday evening, whether it's getting laid, getting drunk, or playing dungeons and dragons at your friend's house while his mom is out of town so you can turn up the volume on your "Rush" CD as loud as it goes (at least that's what I picture nerds doing on friday nights).

Even live viewing numbers doesn't mean that commercials are being watched. When I watch a show live, I pause it on my DVR the moment it starts, go screw around on the computer for 15 minutes or so, and then come back and start watching the show so I have a buffer to skip ahead all the commercials. If I'm too lazy to get off the couch, for whatever reason, then I will at the very least mute the commercials or change the channel to watch a few minutes of news. Of course all the channels have conspired, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, to show commercials at the same time - anticompetitive behavior clearly done in restraint of trade, but the federal government is never going to prosecute them for it.

Why would I want to watch commercials? One day a year, during the superbowl, they are mildly entertaining and have a modicum of cleverness to them. The rest of the time it's just (a) lame car commercials, (b) "not free" credit report dot com commercials making false threats and lying about being free ("free with purchase" means not free), and (c) a gecko and a deep-voiced african american both claiming their insurance company offers the cheapest rates.

Why the fuck would I, or any rational human being, voluntarily submit to the torture of being bombarded by such inane bullshit? If it were impossible to watch TV shows without sitting through every commercial, I would never watch television. Never. Not my favorite show, not one minute. And to base the ratings of a TV show on the fact that rational people will take the simple step of DVRing the show so as to avoid torture means highly-watched shows end up getting horrible ratings. Why should the future of a TV show depend upon how many masochists watch it?

And correct me if i'm wrong, but "nielsen families" who get a "nielsen box" have to set it up to bypass any DVR. The neilsen box only scores what is watched live. Even if two shows are on two different channels at the same time and you watch one and record the other to watch immediately thereafter, only the one watched live will "get the ratings" and the other show is treated as though it was never watched at all.

No wonder the networks can't come up with any shows that last more than one season. They have no freaking clue what people are watching. It doesn't matter WHEN they are watching it, assuming they watch a show within, say, one week of its live broadcast (or before the showing of the next episode, whichever comes first).

I've often said put me in charge of the TV networks, and working two hours a day - which i'd do for free - I'd improve the quality of television by at least 200%.

Yeah I don't see how the mere possibility that actor X might be playing role Y in a TV show can be considered a spoiler. Even if it were confirmed that he was playing Alpha, we know the character of Alpha exists, so someone has to play him. I don't consider casting decisions to be spoilers, except maybe in some extremely rare situations... i.e. a unknown character is a key bad guy for the whole course of a few seasons of a TV show, we don't know who he is, and it's revealed that the person playing said bad guy is an actor already on the show, who some have suspected (confirming certain fanboy theories).

I suppose, if true, this does disprove the theory that agent Ballard is Alpha, but I've always thought that was a really dumb theory anyway (sorry). The Dollhouse people know exactly who Ballard is, they have people misleading him, and they know exactly what he's up to. Alpha, however, is a mysterious danger - they'd love to be able to track him down and kill him, for everyone's safety.

Then again, I'm on record as saying this show makes sense, so it wouldn't be a complete surprise to me if Ballard did turn out to be Alpha. Or Eliza Dushku for that matter. Alpha is her alter-ego. Idiotic? Stupid? Nonsensical? Absolutely, but completely consistent with every other premise behind Dollhouse.

I'm just worried that Dollhouse is going to hurt TSCC, one of my favorite shows on TV. Sci-fi Friday's are not a bad idea, Fox just needs to understand that they can't only look at the meaningless, outdated, junk-in/junk-out Neilsen data; rather, they need to appreciate that an extremely large number of people Tivo TSCC (and probably Dollhouse, too). To ignore DVR numbers is to ignore the majority of the audience.

I never miss an episode of TSCC, but I also rarely watch it live on friday night - I always Tivo it and it's the first show I watch when I go to my playlist. I've read TSCC is one of the most DVR'd shows on TV. Giving it the friday timeslot of death is certainly a guarantor that DVRs across the nation will be churning away.

Dollhouse will not make it a full season. It will last about as long as "Moonlight" did (15 or 16 episodes, no more). And Moonlight was an infinitely better show. My advice is not to become too emotionally invested in the altruistic acts of public service committed by the criminal organization known as the dollhouse, because the show is already in its last twitches of death. Don't worry, there will be some spiffy interviews with Joss Whedon on the Dollhouse two-disc "complete series" DVD box set. Yay.

Wait, Alan Tudyk is showing up in episode six already? Are we sure? I thought that set photo was from much later in the season.

Pretty much gave up on this show but Tudyk is worth tuning in for. He's been excellent in everything I've seen him in so far.

Ok this is either the truth or Joss and company are playing us all. (I've read multiple sources with Wash as Alpha.) I'm happy either way. I adore Alan and think it would be a great way to be as un-Wash as possible. I also wouldn't mind if Joss was throwing us off the trial.

I'm going to miss both, thank God for DVR (just got it).

Anyway I read the spoiler, and I couldn't be more happy as I haven't really warmed up to the show yet but this could change things.

So 3 months ago saying that Eliza Dushku was going to be in Dollhouse would have been a spoiler?

You do know that you haven't revealed anything in the actual plot, don't you? Just disproved one of your theories.

But, "Most likely he'll be playing Alpha, although that's not completely certain at this stage," you might not have even done that.

actually he is listed as alpha on imdb. Which is weird, becouse Whedon was suggesting that Alpha will be revealed in the series finale, and it'll be someone we already saw in the first episodes. So alll the stakes were on Ballard.

That's what HULU is for.
SO SAY WE ALL!!!!