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November 11, 2009 1:09 PM - Sign in to comment - Link
Joss Whedon's 'Dollhouse' canceled - Steven Perez
""Dollhouse" is closing its doors at Fox. The network has canceled Joss Whedon's cult fave, which in May beat the odds with a second-season pickup despite low ratings. The sci-fi series, which is filming episode 11, is expected to finish its 13-episode order. After some dismal performance in the fall, despite the ratings bumps "Dollhouse" got from DVR viewing, Fox benched the show for the November sweep after four episodes. It is not clear whether Fox will air the remaining episodes starting Dec. 4 as planned." - Steven Perez
Well...fuck. - Joshua M. Neff
:((((((((((((( - Logical Extremes
Joss. Either love him or ... don't get it. - Jeremy
That "House reruns are twice as popular as Dollhouse" story was hard to ignore, eh? - Daniel J. Pritchett
I repeat: :( - Steven Perez
Well, Joss, I hope you've learned your lesson: don't make any more shows for Fox! - Joshua M. Neff
Oh well. I enjoyed the show but it had its flaws. I never got comfortable with Dushku's acting or the grauitous shots of Actives. - Daniel J. Pritchett
haha. I knew that would be cancelled. First episode, it just seemed messed up. *Back to Lost....* - Alan
:( son of a bitch...just yeah. mother fucking son of a bitch. (and people...the first five episodes sucked...if you left before it got better...your loss) - A. (Girl Entropy)
Lost *shudders* - Rasmus Lauridsen
I generally really like Joss and I tend to follow Mutant Enemy staffers around from show to show, but I really couldn't get into Dollhouse. There were a few good episodes towards the end, but the pacing was all off for me. I expected more. - joey
Knew this was going to happen from the beginning... One: Its Fox, hence they fuck with schedules all the damn time. Two: Its a SciFi. Fox + Scifi = "This dog won't hunt." Three: Its Joss Whedon. When you put Fox + Joss Whedon SciFi = Not going to last at all. When will Joss learn that Fox is a horrible Production partner? - Just CW
let's just hope that Joss takes the lumps, and then finishes the story online. Because seriously? If I can't see the lead up to Epitaph 1, I am going to be very unhappy. - A. (Girl Entropy)
Maybe he'll get to move to another network. - joey
I will miss the show. I have to say Fox gave it every chance, this time around. The renewal for season 2 was unexpected given how low the ratings were. - Stephen Mack
They did their best to make sure that it withered on the vine... - J. Abdul-Qahhar
Oh well. Can't wait to see what Joss has in store with his next Fox show...since he never leaves that company. - Jonathan Hardesty
Oh Shoot - Barry Wynn
Jon, he had a contract with them. It may be over now. I can't remember what I read about it. Yay for useless comments. - joey
When will HBO or Showtime just pick up a dark sex show and put Whedon in charge of it? Think how much better Dollhouse would of been with more adult content? - Just CW
I always figured Fox is the only network that will give Joss the time of day. Surely he's not going to them because he expects great things... - Daniel J. Pritchett
Dollhouse's biggest problem was season one. The good episodes in S1 and all of S2 were all character driven for characters I never really gave two craps about, and still don't. :( - Jonathan Hardesty
DJP, I think Joss actually *does* get interest from other networks. Although the fans can't forgive Fox for past transgressions, it seems Joss was willing to. When he talks about the people he made the deal with, he talks with respect. The problem is that in the industry one doesn't always get to continue working with the same players you made the deal with. I came to like Dollhouse even though it had a massively slow start and was mostly missing the humor I have come to expect from Joss. But if it frees him up to do something over which he has more creative control (like a Dr. Horrible sequel), I think it's a good thing in the end. - Spidra Webster
Yeah, whatever unholy contract Whedon has with Fox needs to be broken and right now. He can't keep working for a network that kneecaps him every time he comes up with an advanced concept that entails more than a little thought. - Steven Perez
Just read that it's not "cancelled" per say. Fox stressed that it wasn't. They're just capping the second season at 13 episodes. It's still going to air all of them too. It doesn't look good for the show though. - James Ferguson
Deserves it for killing Kitty Pryde in a truly awful story, plus he's crap! - Simon Curran
James: I read that, too. That is press agent speak for "cancelled". You don't cap episodes of a show you want to keep around, especially one with an arc spanning the season. - Steven Perez
*waits to see if Joss will comment on Whedonesque* - joey
Ugh! First Sarah Conner and now Dollhouse too. - Carl Fyffe
Nooooooo!!!!! - Jesse Stay
I think Dusku was the one that has the contract. I think Joss is free to go with the show. - Simian Downtime Analyst
Steven, sometimes I hate being optimistic. :( - James Ferguson
I loved the first season of Sarah Conner but they totally lost me by season two. Stories completely dependent on time travel are doomed because absolutely everything can be undone, repeatedly. - Ed Millard
8-( What Jesse said. - Andrew Terry
Fact is, Dollhouse ratings were awful. I can't blame Fox for canceling. - Stephen Mack
the show just isn't very good *shrug* - Richard Lawler
...deja view (sic)... never lived up to it's promise, imho. who knows why. - .LAG
Bummer - todd
I could take the best show in the world and mismanage it in to bad ratings. Glee isn't actually a very good show, but the Fox Marketing Machine has blessed it and they can make people think the show is a phenomenon that you need to follow unless you want to be a social outcast. - Kevin Fox
I honestly haven't even seen the show yet, but after what happened with Firefly, this isn't terribly surprising. Either Fox can't manage these shows, or the audience is just too stupid to appreciate them. - Joel Webber
Damn you, Fox. - Kevin Pedraja
Fox would rather show something like "So you think you're a fly fisherman!" than any show that takes thought. - Kevin Pedraja
Kevin, it's true. With Firefly there were countless examples of mismanagement -- wrong order, terrible promotions, pre-emptions due to sports. With Dollhouse, the main bad treatment was putting it on Fridays (a sign from the beginning they had no confidence) and lack of promotion. But once the show airs and it gets low ratings, they can't really suddenly move it to a plum spot or pile on the promotions, because there's no evidence the show would do better. - Stephen Mack
We need to make a pact, all of us agree we make sure that Jandy never finds out about this. We'll just hide it. We'll produce and act out episodes and let her think the show is still going. - Matthew DeVries
Matthew: Ooh! Can I be a vacuous doll in the background known as Foxtrot who gets no lines? - Stephen Mack
Not sure if is was the fault of Joss or Fox but the early episodes were so bad I imagine they lost most of their audience from the get go and most probably never checked back. - Ed Millard
I can't say I'm surprised. Fox always has a way of cancelling the shows it should keep around though. - veo
Dibs on being Golf - Matthew DeVries
:( Took longer than I feared, but I'm not surprised, it was on Fox after all. - Grant Bierman
Regardless of whomever may be to blame for the show's flaws, I will always believe that DOLLHOUSE was doomed to failure before it ever got started. And that's a real shame, considering the level at which it asked us to think. - Steven Perez
Update: Joss Whedon posted this comment over at Whedonesque (thanks for the heads up, Bonnie!): mm. Apparently my news is not news. I don't have a lot to say. I'm extremely proud of the people I've worked with: my star, my staff, my cast, my crew. I feel the show is getting better pretty much every week, and I think you'll agree in the coming months. I'm grateful that we got to put it on, and then come back and put it on again. I'm off to pursue internet ventures/binge drinking. Possibly that relaxation thing I've read so much about. By the time the last episode airs, you'll know what my next project is. But for now there's a lot of work still to be done, and disappointment to bear. Thank you all for your support, your patience, your excellent adverts. See you again. -j. - Matthew DeVries
Update: Joss Whedon posted this comment over at Whedonesque (thanks for the heads up, Bonnie!): mm. Apparently my news is not news. I don't have a lot to say. I'm extremely proud of the people I've worked with: my star, my staff, my cast, my crew. I feel the show is getting better pretty much every week, and I think you'll agree in the coming months. I'm grateful that we got to put it on, and then come back and put it on again. I'm off to pursue internet ventures/binge drinking. Possibly that relaxation thing I've read so much about. By the time the last episode airs, you'll know what my next project is. But for now there's a lot of work still to be done, and disappointment to bear. Thank you all for your support, your patience, your excellent adverts. See you again. -j. - Matthew DeVries
Don't hate me, but I didn't think much of Dollhouse. I'm a big fat Whedon fan, but Dollhouse didn't hold a candle to Firefly or Buffy. I thought the writing was weak, and the character development was weaker. *braces for the unfollows* - Sarah Vela
I don't think Dollhouse was his best work. But the show was getting better over time. And it was surely better than a good portion of the dreck that passes for prime-time TV these days. - Kevin Pedraja
Matthew, lol. Too late. The show's been on borrowed time all season, though, honestly. The thing that got me was the show actually did fairly well taking DVR and hulu viewings into account. The nets don't want to count those, though, because they can't sell those numbers to prime-time advertisers. Ed, the first episodes being bad were Fox's fault. They asked him to recut the pilot and do several standalone episodes before jumping into the real story arc - the original pilot script basically ended where aired episode six was in terms of arc. They did the same thing to Firefly, airing an action-oriented episode before the one that actually established the setting and characters. - faithx5
Kevin, Joss likes Glee and I don't think he would if it weren't very good. It's not amazingly kickass, but it's definitely very good. Still, you are correct that if Fox had put the kind of blitz behind Dollhouse that Glee got, it would have more viewers. However, due to Fox's inability to let Whedon be Whedon, the show people would have seen if Dollhouse had had huge advance promo would have disappointed them, I'm sure. Hell, it disappointed me and I'm inclined to worship Joss. The show got a lot better. If all the eps had been at the quality that the last few eps have been, it would have done better. - Spidra Webster
Sucks. 2x04 was particularly strong...looking forward to the rest of the season. Also, big ups to Kevin for the quote in the post, love it. - Louis Simoneau
sad to see another Whedon show die an early death. at least he knows when it's ending so he can give it a proper send-off. - Nathan Chase
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