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May 24, 2013

Fox wants Dollhouse to fail early

by Brad Trechak, posted Jun 16th 2009 9:10AM

DollhouseFox has given the release date for the premiere of Dollhouse, as well as their new musical comedy Glee and several other shows. However, I wanted to focus on Dollhouse for a moment.

Once again sitting in the Friday night Death Slot of 9 PM, this time it doesn't even have a lead-in of another sci-fi drama. This time, starting September 18, the lead is 'Til Death starring Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher.

The only reasonable hypothesis I can reasonably come up with is that Fox wants to broadcast all thirteen episodes of season 2 during the 2009 calendar year before they finally pull the plug on this show. This would mean that the entire run of Dollhouse would have been during 2009.

In short, if you really want the show to make it to a third season, I recommend buying a hundred copies per household member of the DVD set for season one. Otherwise, I don't see it happening.

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Martin

Yay. Now I have something to do on Friday nights again!!! Now if they would only get some good programming All day Saturday and Sunday~!!

June 17 2009 at 10:42 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ricky19

i thought that virtuality was going to be a lead in to dollhouse?

June 16 2009 at 4:34 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Joe

This show was doomed from the start. Maybe FOX thinks that the demographic who's watching this show doesn't have enough of a life to go out on Fridays anyway. I agree, FOX wants this show to fail. I just don't understand why they brought it back in the first place if that's the case.

http://www.joeonthetube.com

June 16 2009 at 11:54 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Joe's comment
Val

I want to say they brought it back because of the Firefly debacle maybe FOX Execs felt like they owed Whedon something.. LOL yeah right..

June 16 2009 at 12:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
StillBash

Hm. I see it differently. You do something else on the net 'til 9, watch Dollhouse, and leave for the Disco at 10.

I don't see a problem here. Who really needs to watch something on Fox from 8 to 9? I certainly don't. I think the times where you needed a strong lead-in are gone, at least on fridays. If Dollhouse were to air right after 24, after House M.D. on a whole different day, that could be something different.

Nonetheless I've ordered my 100 copies today. Just to be safe. Worked on FNL :-)

June 16 2009 at 11:17 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Karen

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty confident that lead-ins stopped mattering so much back when VCRs were invented; and have been working their way closer and closer to irrelevance with every "Record your favorites and watch 'em when you please" invention that's come down the pike since.

On the other hand, as we were talking about in the previous Dollhouse post, engaging plotlines, a relatable ensemble of characters to root for and against, and a good emotional hook are never going to stop mattering so much.

And Dollhouse is a little weak in some of those areas. I say work on THAT problem, and let the timeslots fall where they may.

June 16 2009 at 10:18 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Karen's comment
LC

Exactly. I never understood that whole "death slot" mentality. The X-files did great in that timeslot on Friday nights. CBS isn't doing too shabby with Ghost Whisperer on Friday nights at 9pm.

Sometimes shows will get a dedicated fan base, but sometimes that fan base is too small to support it and the show loses money for the network.

June 16 2009 at 10:36 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
RobynM

It'd be nice if that were the case, but it's not as far as the suits are concerned. Even as recently as 2-6 months ago, Network execs were saying "If you want to save your show, watch it live".

T:TSCC had huge DVR and online view numbers, and you saw what happened to that. Until the suits understand that people have moved on from being chained to an arbitrary schedule and adjust their number-gathering techniques accordingly, it's going to keep right on happening.

June 17 2009 at 5:21 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply

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