There's Pretty Much No Saving 'Dollhouse' Now

Even though Fox probably would have been better served from a business standpoint cutting its losses and canceling Joss Whedon's Dollhouse after its first season, the network had belief that the show could come around in year two and find a bigger audience. So far, that hasn't happened, and now TV by the Numbers says the future looks really grim for the show. When faced with whether or not to save Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles or Dollhouse, it looked for a while like Fox wouldn't pick up either show for this season. In the end, it was decided that Terminator hadn't distinguished itself well enough after two years but that Dollhouse was a bigger hit with the DVR and online viewing crowd and deserved another shot. And with a budget of maybe $1 million an episode, it may not take as much to make the show profitable. But when you look at the overall ratings game, Fox was not too far behind CBS in average viewers, maybe a couple million in the 2008-2009 season. That's right: Fox is pretty close to being the top network on TV, and wins all the key advertising demos. But when you have the lowest-rated scripted drama on TV (a .8 this past Friday, or roughly two million viewers), wouldn't you be better off just running a repeat of House or 24? So while it's too early to say when the axe will fall, it's unreasonable to expect this show will be back for a third season, and if the DVR numbers continue to slump this season - they're off considerably from last spring - it may not even make it through 2009.

Comments

[Andrew]

Come on America, don't make this Firefly 2.0 - it's too good for that!

[Emily]

I just discovered Dollhouse on iTunes and LOVE it!!! PLEASE DON'T CANCEL IT! :(

[Theseus]

The worst thing that TV By The Numbers says about Dollhouse's performance for this past Friday is, and this is a direct quote from the article, "that’s not good news for Dollhouse." You could say that "Dollhouse slipped to a series low" is a worse quote, but in either case, your proclamation that TBTN is saying that the future for Dollhouse is looking pretty grim is patently false. TBTN said no such thing.

If you want to speculate on Dollhouse's future, you are free to do so. But it's your own speculation. Don't attribute it to someone else, especially a nearly pure numbers reporting site like TBTN.

[Get The Big Picture]

I actually cited the wrong article, so sorry. What I meant to link to was TV by the Numbers' article titled,"Say Goodbye to Dollhouse, part II: The DVR Numbers Won't Matter." The indication there is that the show won't live past its current 13-episode order.

Here it is:

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/10/03/say-goodbye-to-dollhouse-part-ii-the-dvr-numbers-wont-matter/29390

[Scarlet]

Once again a network in this case the CW has tried and failed with it's FRIDAY switch of what seems to be turning out to be the best season of Smallville yet. Sorry but most Smallville viewers weren't CW Friday night viewers and just because you put a major show on that night doesn't mean it will change. All it means is that the Powers that Be will probably decide to scrap another good series because of idiotic programming.

Same is true with Fox and their Friday choice for Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles a show that in it's 2nd season was really gaining it's legs but once again viewers didn't switch nights and it was cancelled leaving the Brothel/Spy entity known as Dollhouse in order to keep it's creator happy.

Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles died a horrible death and I'm sorry I hate to see Smallville fall to the same fate because of the executives decisions to play multiple chairs with shows that got good ratings on their original nights.

[CuteNShy]

Everyone complains about scheduling, but unlike the weather we now have the Tech to do something about it. Unfortunantly, the rating system still fails to take that into account. As a result, I can watch Ugly Betty tonight and record both Doll House and Smallville for later viewing, but only Ugly Betty will be counted... Evan though I am actually more interested in keeping the shows that I record (and will buy on DVD a soon as they are available...) . There is no short term fix for this, Advertisers only care about Eyeballs during the comercials anyway, and they have more controll over what shows get made than all the network executives and programers rolled together. Good luck to us all, we are going to need it! I think we may be in the last years of scripted TV. (Yes, I know the so called "Reality Shows" have scripts, but it just isn't the same thing).