Dollhouse

Television, Movies Games and Books Dollhouse
#221

To be fair, though I love the show and still wish it was on air, I thought Fox did everything it could for Arrested Development, giving them almost 3 full seasons (It’s one of those shows that probably would have benefited from being on a channel like HBO instead of network; it probably wouldn’t have worked at the time with any other network channel, really) even though the bastards did destroy Firefly in every way they possibly could have.

Actually, the only full season order Arrested Development received was for season 1. Season 2 was cut mid-way to 18 episodes and season 3 to 13, the last four episodes of which were burned off against NBC’s coverage of the 2006 winter olympics. They also did very little to promote the show to a wider audience OR to make a big deal of all the critical praise and awards it received, and kept changing its time slot willy nilly. They did play all of seasons 1 and 2 in two hour blocks every Friday over the summer between seasons 2 and 3, which was a good effort at selling the show. I’ll give them that.

Can you tell I’m still bitter about how that show was treated? Imagine if I’d watched Firefly when it was actually on. I’d be furious!

Dollhouse looks like it’s not long for this world. Like you, though, I won’t miss it. It just hasn’t grabbed me and, to be honest, I don’t see the appeal in Eliza Dushku (she really isn’t that versatile an actress, IMO–and Tamoh, poor, poor Tamoh, isn’t exactly showing a wide range here either. I’m wondering if his work towards the end of BSG was a fluke, or if he’s just being given crummy material here, or both).

#222

re: Tahmoh’s acting - I think it’s safe to say it’s the material. If he wasn’t capable of greatness it wouldn’t matter how good BSG was…

You know - Dollhouse is really getting interesting and I’m starting to dig some of the characters - just not the one I’m supposed to. I basically don’t care about Echo/Caroline at all. I really dig the Victor/Sierra story and hope that doesn’t get dropped. Paul just seems kind of dumb to me - hot!..but dumb. And I’m starting to like Topher a little bit. He’s smarmy but funny and I think there is something in there underneath the creep.

Too bad it’s going to get cancelled. Honestly I won’t miss it either. It just doesn’t compare to a show like Firefly - that show was stellar right out of the gate - it was so good that after only 10 episodes fans were rabidly trying to save it - hell some poeple have still never gotten over it’s cancellation. Moreover, Joss was devestated when Firefly was cancelled. I mean really torn up. Does anyone else get the impression that Joss’ heart really isn’t in Dollhouse? I mean this is the mad who posted on Whedonesque like 20 times before and during the Dr. Horrible release…where is he? Normally he’d be posting away getting people all riled up. I just don’t think he’s all that into this show.

#223

No, it isn’t Firefly. Yes, it’s taking it’s time to catch people’s attention/build interest. I just wish that both of those points weren’t such a turn off for most people.

Personally, I don’t think I would have found episode 6 so interesting if I hadn’t seen that slow, less than compelling build from episodes 1-5. Because there were some nice moments scattered throughout those episodes, particularly of the blank dolls bonding and a few of those conversations between Boyd and Dr. Saunders. I feel the same will be true from now right up until the end of the season. So my biggest fear is that when my interest and investment in the show reaches it’s peak at that point, it will be too late and the show will never be given the chance to develop further.

For now though, all I can do is anxiously wait for the May 1 episode - can’t fraking wait for that!
[spoiler] Alan Tudyk guest stars! Be warned though - every bit of news I’ve read and the photos I’ve seen about it, are very spoilery about the plot (hence my reasoning for the tags). So just take care if you go looking![/spoiler]

#224

Isn’t that the episode that’s NOT getting aired, “Epitaph One”?

#225

Nope. According to the most recent information, the series will wrap on May 8 with “Omega” (ep.#12). “Epitaph One” is the 13th episode that doesn’t count as one of the 13 which Fox ordered, because two pilot episodes were shot. That’s how I understand the recent hubub, anyway.

Word is that “Epitaph One” is a stand-alone episode, that doesn’t finish any of the previous episodes’ plot arcs.

[spoiler]Instead, it takes place “in the future, after the apocalypse, amidst total anarchy.”[/spoiler]

#226

Erm, isn’t that the episode that they are only going to have on the DVD. The mythical 13th episode that led to all the cancellation rumours?
http://www.airlockalpha.com/news426248.html

I really hope they don’t cancel the show after the first season. Especially as all the episodes are already filmed and ready. Did anyone watch the show Invasion? They cancelled that after 1 season but the season ended with a pretty big cliffhanger. Thats really just cruel. At least with Eli Stone and the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon they managed to get a sense of closure to it all.
If Dollhouse ends and its just left wide open i’m going to be so pissed off.

#227

Hmm.

As I understand it, the line-up goes a lil something like this:

April 10 - Spy in the House of Love (finding the informant in the Dollhouse)
>Break for Prison Break<
April 24 - Haunted (about the death of Adele’s friend)
May 1 - Briar Rose (Alpha-centric)
May 8 - Omega (more Alpha-centric)

The spoiler I was referring to for May 1 had photos for the “Briar Rose” episode.

#228

Okay, tonight’s episode? Pretty goram good. If the show had been like this from the start, I would’ve been more passionate about it (and perhaps more people would have as well).

#229

For the lack of a better word, word.

Just watched the episode, and it’s about the first time I find Echo intriguing enough and a character worth focusing on, and not just smokin’ hot. Kind of makes me mad we had to be subjected to the first 5, 6 episodes. Though I am still more curious about the other dolls in her set. Why have a set of five dolls when they focus only on four of them - why not just have it be in groups of four instead? Unless, something totally weird happens to that tall dude doll. Or, is he just the Tory (i.e. the one that really didn’t matter in the whole scheme of things) of the five?

But, for all the buildup, the objective of Dollhouse better be god damn amazing.

#230

Did you guys hear about the season finale that Whedon wrote but that we’ll never see on screen. Sounds totally intriguing to me, a bit Terminator-ish…

http://io9.com/5206329/now-were-really-desperate-to-see-dollhouses-season-finale

#231

wow. That does sound interesting. No decision on it cancellation until May also. I really want there to be a second season. Its getting really good.

#232

Totally! What with the rumors about [spoiler] a post-apocalyptic world [/spoiler], I so want to know what the big picture is with this show, is the Dollhouse the vanguard for an alien invasion?

#233

I really enjoyed last nights show. I hate how a show can not make it through half a season without everyone talking cancelation.

#234

I have to admit that it didn’t get through half an episode before i thought it was going to get cancelled. Mostly because i thought it had potential that it would take a bit of time to reach.
Plus it has Reed Diamond in it. He might have caught the cancellation virus from his time on Journeyman. Cancellation is a virus that moves from one actor to another. If Dollhouse is cancelled after the first series the next show one of the recurring actors is in will be cancelled early.

#235

I’m not really old enough to remember, but didn’t that used to be different? I mean, Next Generation wasn’t really “good” in its first season and mediocre shows like SeaQuest got at least a couple of seasons.

Whereas other shows overshot the mark considerably. Who ever wanted to see 267 seasons of er?

#236

Maureen Ryan has a blog post up on how Joss Whedon needs to wipe the dirt off his feet if “Dollhouse” gets cancelled, not turn his back on TV and move to cable. I have to say, she has a point: http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/04/dollhouse-omega-finale.html

Which Entertainment Weekly aparently, heh heh, echoes (sorry, sorry):

http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/04/joss-whedon-dol.html

I have to agree with these sentiments. It’s been a long time since I’ve cared much for any show made/broadcast by a basic network (“Pushing Daisies” was the last one, and we all know how THAT turned out. Before that it was “Arrested Development.” Sigh!). As Ryan puts it in her blog entry above, the atmosphere in the big four right now is way too conservative for shows like Whedon’s (or Ron Moore’s and David Eick’s–how long do you think “Virtuality” will actually last, if it even sees the light of day?) or any other more experimental show runner. They’re still looking for big, 1990’s level numbers which are just impossible, so they either go with safety (medical dramas and crime procedurals), affordability (reality and game shows) or throwing in the towel (Jay Leno on prime time? :eek:). Meanwhile, cable, over the past ten years, has given us some truly groundbreaking, meaningful shows: The Sopranos; The Wire; The Shield; Weeds; Curb Your Enthusiasm; The Tudors; The Closer; Damages; The Riches (short lived and inconsistent, sure, but at least they tried something new); It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia; that one show about the survivors of the apocalypse looking for a new home on that one spaceship that was the name of the show…Spaceship Botanica? :wink: heh heh

Anyway, why am I going on and on about this? You all know what I’m talking about.

#237

Evidently the NBC executives. ER lost me at the end of season 1. Too melodramatic and self-important.

Seinfeld is the poster child for this. Its first season was five episodes long, shown over a summer as a series of weekend specials. It had miserable ratings but enough interest from audiences and some executives to give it a half season order for the following year. Things went on like that for a while until an episode called “The Chinese Restaurant,” which Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld credit as perhaps the first true Seinfeld episode for catching the spirit of a “show about nothing” brilliantly. After that, people started paying attention enough that the network moved the show to Thursday nights to replace its biggest comedy, “Cheers,” when it went off the air. Once that happened, the show stopped being a hit and became a cultural phenomenon which still resonates.

Today, “Seinfeld” would’ve been cancelled after episode 5.

#238

It is what it is. The TV climate has long changed, and there’s no way a network channel can afford to cultivate a show for years now that it has to compete with the internet, the video games, yada yada yada. I wish it wasn’t this way, but other than the Firefly debacle (of which I missed, since I did catch the show on DVD, so I echo the sentiment earlier about how even madder I would have been should I have watched it while it aired. :D), a show that pretty much was awesome from the get-go (which also explained my lukewarm reaction to dollhouse. My expectations were Firefly high.), I was more OK with how they dealt with something like AD and say, VMars on upn/cw, because they already got way more episodes than I ever thought possible (even though, of course, I would have loved to see more). At the very least, Dollhouse wasn’t cut off its neck, like Wonderfalls and Drive (what, they got like what 3 episodes in before Fox yanked them off). OK, now I’m getting mad at FOX again, even though Drive was really too weird and insane to begin with. :smiley: But either way, it’s all about the ratings and how the Nielson ratings model needs to be changed to fit better with the reality of TV and the internet nowadays. Should this system be updated, I have to think that the numbers would look a little different. (or maybe I’m just too deluded to think that people might want better quality TV than say the 56th criminal procedural show, or whoever dances dances, or those stupid suitcases.)

But I do want Dollhouse to be renewed after this past episode. In a vice versa kind of way, should Terminator be axed, perhaps this might give Dollhouse a chance to survive. FOX probably can’t justify keeping two scifi shows with bad ratings on air, but one is a little possible, no?

And, now, theory time! I have a crazy theory (complete speculation, and perhaps kind of crazy too) I’d like to put out. The fact that Paul is so obsessed with the Dollhouse (for reasons that I don’t think has been really explained, not even in that episode 6, and no, being obsessed with a hot piece of Dushku does not count, at least I hope not, which means it probably is the case), leads me to think that Paul used to be in the Dollhouse (either as a doll/scientist/bossman/ALPHA? whatever, or is closely related to someone who is), and he himself is the mole that is giving out information to himself via November and Echo (Hence, why the dollhouse would know exactly how to make Mellie into the woman Paul would fall for, and why the mole would target this one random hot dude out of everyone). How this would work logistically is a nightmare, but I think would add some much needed layers to Paul, should this turn out to be the case.

#239

Generally 3 to 7 seasons is about right. Most shows do not do well after 5 seasons. I just think making a decision after 5 shows is not a fair start.

#240

Hollywood is one heckuva money pit. With advertisers being out there in never never land operationally, funding is always tenuous for production. Most things Hollywood makes fail as the discussion on KCRW’s Martini Shot seems to indicate.

Sometimes it feels like TV is getting harder to fund as of late while theatrical distribution (be it in physical theaters or via NetFlix) may be the way everything collapses down.