Last night, we received a press release with a bunch of mid-season start dates, including Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, which is scheduled to begin on Friday, February 13, 2009.I'm sorry, but WTF? Is Fox trying to once again screw over Joss and his compatriots (such as has been done with his previous television opus Firefly) by giving it the Friday night death slot?
Either this show is a piece of crap (and given its show-runner, I tend to doubt it) or Fox has no faith in it and is already writing the planned excuses for its inevitable failure.I could be reading this wrong. The show is intended to be an action-thriller and somewhat scary, so maybe Fox is going for the whole "Friday the 13th" vibe for its initial broadcast and plan to move the show to another night thereafter. I certainly hope so.
In any case, I will still be watching the show and reviewing it for TV Squad, no matter what scheduling tricks Fox plans. If they can give a second season to The Sarah Connor Chronicles (which, by the way, is being moved to the same night for broadcast as Dollhouse), surely they can give a decent chance to Dollhouse.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
11-07-2008 @ 7:59AM
Jesse said...
I'm a sad panda. :(
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11-07-2008 @ 8:26AM
Ibrahim Hussein said...
These executives in FOX are plain stupid, they canceled many many many great great shows. That is why I did not watch Fringe until they aired few episodes and I still fear cancellation any moment.
Either these people have no taste or they aim soooo high, but by seeing some of the shows already running for a while there I believe they have no taste what so ever.
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11-07-2008 @ 8:58AM
Mike said...
Well, Fringe is not great, has poor acting, scripts, and 'science' that appears to be made up on the spot to resolve some arbitrary issue. Not a great show.
So Fox will likely grant it seven seasons.
Sanctuary is way better, and even it isn't wonderful. :)
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11-07-2008 @ 8:59AM
K.V.C said...
It's all Whedon's fault for getting back in bed with FOX.
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11-07-2008 @ 9:04AM
tcc3 said...
They *should* cancel Fringe. Its the dumbest "scifi" show I've ever seen. I am in constant amazement at the lame impossible stuff they expect the audience to swallow.
The only thing it has going for it is the interesting conspiracy plot. I keep waiting to see if the "pattern" relates to Lost's island some how. Even if it doesnt, its the best thing about the show. Please Fringe hire some damn science advisors. You can do "realm of extreme possibility" science without asking your audience to turn off their brains.
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11-07-2008 @ 9:19AM
Courtney said...
To be honest, I was surprised by the move--actually, The X-Files' old time slot--as I was hoping it'd be Monday. But then again, Heroes is picking up steam and so is 2.5 Men, so it would have some tough competition. FOX seems to be rearranging a lot of its shows midseason, so I don't know what to think. At least it'd have less competition. I still have high hopes...
Was this the same time slot that Firefly had? Someone remind me. In that case, maybe it is a death slot. But you know, other Friday night shows really hit it off (Ghost Whisperer, Numbers--both of which won't be direct competition), so just keep your fingers crossed!
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11-07-2008 @ 9:19AM
mosbutnotall said...
At this stage Joss Whedon only has himself to blame if it gets cancelled. It's not as if they don't have a track record. I'm also fairly sure he'd be able to get a show on the air with a cable network who'd probably give him a bit more respect. That said, in this instance he's doing it with Eliza who I gather had a development deal so that probably influenced the whole being on Fux thing.
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11-07-2008 @ 9:19AM
mosbutnotall said...
Oh look, a typo.
11-07-2008 @ 2:35PM
Eric H said...
I don't know if he could get on another network, honestly the guy doesn't make people a whole lot of money except Fox (DVD Sales). UPN lost major cash on the last two season of Buffy, and Universal dropped him like a hot potato after Serenity.
11-07-2008 @ 10:51AM
RadioScott said...
"...Fox has no faith in it..."
Pun intended? Because, of course, Faith is indeed in it. In fact, she's starring.
I'm hoping the Friday thing is special premiere date, and then they'll move it to a regular and better time slot. But, I'm not all that hopeful.
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11-07-2008 @ 11:08AM
RadioScott said...
Ah. I just read elsewhere that Friday is the regular time slot. Dollhouse will be paired with Terminator on Fridays. :-(
11-07-2008 @ 11:32AM
Jastrom said...
Hey there's that same Dollhouse pic. sigh.
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11-07-2008 @ 11:27AM
apronk said...
With the popularity of online viewing and dvr, does the schedule slot still play as big of a role as it used to, in terms of a show's success?
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11-07-2008 @ 12:13PM
ryan said...
Yes
11-07-2008 @ 11:28AM
Smacksmackums said...
Ugh. Friday nights with Terminator? They're killing good shows.
Why not put them on Wednesday? There's never anything good on that night... or Thursday too.
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11-07-2008 @ 2:32PM
Eric H said...
Why do people jump on FOX automatically for hurting Joss' show. We don't even know if its good. Frankly I am quite sick of Mr. Whedon lately, after seeing Dr. Horrible I realized how much of a "One Trick Pony" he is.When it comes time for the drama its time to impale someone. Personally I think he is running out of juice. Frankly this show doesn't seem very interesting at all, but people will call it brilliant when someone is impaled at a random moment. What really irks me is ai used to be a huge fan, I even help run a Joss fansite (http://hellmouthcentral.com).
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11-07-2008 @ 4:27PM
Mel said...
*sigh* Oh, Fox, when will you learn? You put out some amazing shows, but you don't treat them very well. I think it's time for an intervention.
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11-07-2008 @ 6:58PM
Michael 8-) said...
Well, an all-new SciFi block on Friday night is working pretty well for SciFi Channel. Why shouldn't FOX make a run at that?
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11-07-2008 @ 9:51PM
1iPete said...
There may be a silver lining to placing it on Friday. The rating expectations will be lower on Friday, so perhaps Fox will give it the rest of the year to gain an audience.
Terminator is already picked up for the entire season, so it's fairly likely that it will finish the year on Friday, so I'm hopeful that Dollhouse will stay paired with it.
And can we stop the Fringe cancellation fears as it's the biggest ad demo performers of new shows and has already received a full season pickup.
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11-08-2008 @ 1:40AM
anonymouse said...
how bad is the friday slot these days, figuring in dvr numbers? speaking of which, i believe numb3rs, which had whedonverse alums d.b. woodside and morena baccarin on one recent ep, and of course stars serenity's david krumholtz, does pretty good business on fridays. sure it's a procedural, but it's a nerdier/geekier-than-usual procedural and probably has overlapping audience with dollhouse.
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