Joss Whedon
Dollhouse might get cancelled?
Dollhouse finished its first season with pretty poor ratings, with Fox deciding the only reason to keep it on air is DVD sales of Joss Whedon's shows are always high. Fox did decide to trim some fat, though, choosing to cancel the more expensive Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles instead. The second season premiered a few weeks ago to even worse ratings, at the bottom of the charts with the second episode even being beat by reruns.
Apparently there is now real talk of cancelling Dollhouse mid-season. I can't say I'm surprised. People have blamed the Friday night death slot, while others blame losing Terminator: TSCC as a lead in.
Myself, I just don't think it's a good show. I'm a huge fan of Joss' other shows— Buffy, Angel, and Firefly were all frakkin' fantastic, along with all of the comics. Dollhouse just doesn't cut it, though. I really can see the potential for an interesting story, but it has thus far been taking the irritating Lost approach of only spending 5 minutes of every episode to advance the overall story. This might work in Lost, but with Dollhouse introducing new characters (though played by the same people) every week it becomes very hard to invest in.
Most fans agree that the DVD-only budget episode "Epitaph One" is the best in the whole last season, and that doesn't do much of any help if it was only on DVD. I had hope that season 2 would quickly advance the storyline into something more like "Epitaph One", but so far we've just had more wasted monster-of-the-week time. Terminator: TSCC was an incredible show, I think much better than Dollhouse, and it really saddens me to know it died for this. Unfortunately due to the way TV is filmed so far ahead of when it airs, there's not much quick adjusting that can be done to save it either.
Should Dollhouse be saved? I think Joss would eventually be able to pick up the pieces to make it interesting, but I can't help wonder if it would be best to just cut it now and let him move on to something new. Preferably with more Amy Acker hint hint.
