WB are certainly interested in shopping it around, as you said yourself Nick C.

They are taking into account Terminator: Salvation being a box office smash, which may or may not bring viewers to TSCC in a third season, but that’s the thinking, anyway.

Fox hasn’t decided if they will renew TSCC.

I guess you can take what I say with a grain of salt but if so, take what Nick has to say with an equal amount.

I believe Friedman acknowledged that the back nine were ordered in October, so I don’t think he’s lying. The problem is that I don’t think they had all the initial 13 episodes filmed at that point, so there was some delay in writing the back nine episodes.

However, I do feel that these last few episodes – and possibly the four to come – feel “rushed” or perhaps “crammed”. Friedman claims they “crammed” a lot in the last few episodes, more than he thought they could have, and in the last couple episodes, it feels like it to me. Obviously he’s trying to make up for the glacial pace of the first 13 – indeed 16 – episodes. But it makes the show feel less “tight” to me.

And what they’re throwing in I don’t like. The Cameron “bomb in the head” stunt is just painfully bad writing.

The spoiler clip with Sarah confronting Cameron and suggesting to Cameron that John sent her back in time to get rid of her is just brain dead, even for Sarah.

Cameron’s hand was twitching again – as in humans a sign of anger, except Terminators don’t get angry, which the writers can’t seem to decide. I was hoping Cameron, who was standing there with a semi-auto in hand, would shoot the incredibly annoying Sarah. I’ve been waiting all season for Cameron to bitch-slap Sarah – and Derek. Instead, Cameron gets the screw-over again, courtesy of Friedman.

No wonder Summer Glau was unhappy with the fate of her character at WonderCon.

I’m beginning to think that not only will the show not be renewed, it won’t even go out in a blaze of glory, but in another smelly incompetent mess.

TSCC was CANCELED by FOX. Officially. They told Warner they wouldn’t be giving it a 3rd season. It’s done. Warner had to agree to some more adverts just to keep the show on the air. Enjoy the very last four episodes. SEE FEE will not be interested with 1.0s and 1.2s. It’s possible it could still end up there, but not likely. It’s done.

I guess someone forgot to tell Friedman, or he is a liar…

They obviously figured it was good enough at the time, or is JF contridicting himself?

That’s what I’ve been asking Nick C repeatedly, but he never seems to have an answer for me. In my opinion, and that’s solely what it is, FOX would have a reason to renew the show *if* Friedman can pitch an idea that will double the show’s viewers in Season 3. Also, like I said before; this show could be retooled to better appeal to the wider audience and to adhere to the core themes of the franchise.

That’s something TSCC has over Dollhouse: the certainty that if you give the show more of what the fans expect from a show bearing the name “Terminator”, you’ll attract a larger audience.

Another point to consider is that by the time FOX *may* greenlight a third season, some of the writers may have moved on to other projects, which means it would get new writers with different ideas that might work in TSCC’s favour. I’m not saying the current writers are bad or anything, but change is certainly good at the moment.

I dunno, maybe FOX will just keep it around cos’ they like it. *shrugs*

I don’t see anything in the numbers, live or DVR, to give me pause in thinking TSCC is as good as dead. Sure, FOX *could* play against the facts and renew for some reason but why would they – realistically?

As far as the move to Friday goes, I think thats evidence enough that FOX already decided there wouldn’t be a renewal for 3rd season. However, it does them no good to reveal that early unless they decide to pull it completely. It would be bad business.

I don’t think Dollhouse is far behind, unless it climbs a decent amount.

Anyway, the FOX strategist or whatever he’s called said that this was a niche show, so is anyone surprised at the low numbers on a Friday night? TSCC will very likely be cancelled, but what if FOX aren’t willing to see this show die completely? It’s well within their power to greenlight a new season on the condition that it be retooled and presented as something that would snare a wider audience.

Yes, the show is doing crap, but it has the potential to do so much better. This is my point. They can “reboot” the show and bring it back as something far more successful before. It would be a hell of a lot cost effective than trying their luck with an entirely new show that might fail utterly. What do you think? If the show could be tweaked and remade to better itself, would it survive this second season debacle?

As for accidentally typing out your first name. I apologize, and we corrected that as quickly as we could.

Don’t misunderstand me. I know you guys are intelligent and that your deductions make perfect sense *within the realm of raw numbers*, but your apparent inability (or unwillingness) to even consider other factors is baffling to say the least. What if FOX really does genuinely like this show? What if they decide “Hey, the ratings suck, but with DVR and a little patience, this show could become a goldmine with a third season”?

I’m not deluded and I’m not fantasizing. I’m simply taking a *positive* view on the show’s chances, as opposed to just looking at the numbers and losing all hope. That’s better for me, it may not be better for you, but I don’t care about that.

Btw, you broke a confidentiality condition. Don’t do it again, please.

As for FOX not announcing the decision until May, what that tells me is FOX is smart about how it handles negative asymmetrical risk — it avoids doing stuff that has NO upside but potential for downside. There is no upside for FOX to announce the decision early as it is clear they are in a deal w/Warner Bros to air all the episodes. There IS downside to announcing the show won’t be renewed before the uprfronts. The people who are advertising on TSCC won’t be happy about that news coming out early.

All of that said, you are absolutely right that it is your choice in terms of deciding whether to give up hope. But please remember, the numbers point to no hope (at least on FOX) very clearly, to such an extent that it’s really not speculation.

Nick’s comment was obviously about Dollhouse. I was just making sure you realized that.

Oh, and for the record; FOX is waiting until May before they decide the show’s fate. What does that tell you?

Also, I asked this question before but it was either ignored or unseen…
If FOX were to miraculously renew the show for a third season, despite the ratings (which let’s say for the sake of argument level out at 3.5 1.2/4 demo live by the end of the season), what reasons can you think of that would inspire them to make this decision?

Just humour me here.

I don’t think 24 is a case similar to NCIS, because it had huge audiences, had the worst slump and recovered, while the season average of viewers for NCIS has constantly climbed since day one. And other than with the X-Files or Seinfeld or Cheers or whatever other show this is said about, they have climbed from already above average numbers.

I guess my point is, with 24 I could see it actually being the quality of the show that took a dive and recovered. With NCIS though I think it is all about the buzz that show is not getting ever, so it takes longer to trickle down to every household. NCIS is advertised during the previous week of NCIS and that’s about it, there are no magazine covers, no morning show visits, no award wins, no Oprah guest staring.
24, Lost, even TSCC all had their huge all eyes on boards episodes already, while NCIS is still sneaking up on people zapping through cable channles while sick.

Do we have any idea what the mechanics are behind show revivals? 24, NCIS, X-Files, and a few other shows whose names I’m forgetting right now are all examples of shows that actually built audiences as they went. I grant you that in 90% of cases, ratings stay stable or decline over time. That fact is what makes studying the 10% of shows that buck the trend very illuminating.

For what it’s worth, I think Dollhouse was marked for death from the start and its quality is low. From what I understand, Whedon was brought in and was not the creative force behind the show. Sadly, my guess is that this show will mark the end of Whedon’s career — you can’t have multiple clunkers in a row and survive.

That’s why I was asking elsewhere if anybody had ever heard of a show recovering from a ratings dive (or never having had good ratings) in the last four or five episodes of a 22-episode season and getting renewed.

My guess is: almost never. That’s what you’re saying and I can believe it.

I’m just thinking from what I heard over the last few days from people who would know, that its chances have taken a dive. They just aren’t convinced it will trend back up. So if it does…

Pete could still say screw it.

Once ratings sink, quality changes don’t usually matter. It would need to improve to levels where everyone who is still watching is telling their friends OMG OMG you HAVE to watch this. Experiences says this doesn’t happen much. Decreasing ratings are common. Stable ratings are fairly common. 25% improvement from a decline after you’ve stabilized (which is roughly what I think Dollhouse would need to achieve sans “Remote Free”) is four leaf clover rare these days.

Good headlines are still important, but that’s as far as getting people to click once they are already on our site. If things were titled “Thinking about last night” or “Some data about last week” nobody would ever have any idea what it was. Bill likes to put more creativity into the overnight posts as far as the headlines go as something he honestly enjoys doing. I don’t put any effort into that usually as far as the overnight posts go because it DOESN’T make much much difference as far as traffic.

My generic and boring headline for the Monday night post might have done a little better if my headline had been OMFG! Chuck rerun beats Heroes rerun!!!!!! But it wouldn’t have been much more traffic and, yeah, I really didn’t want to read those comments. Don’t get me wrong, if a good headline comes to me quickly, I won’t avoid it, but I’m not sitting around thinking about the headlines for more than about 15 seconds.

Robert, care to explain in detail why you think Dollhouse can’t improve its ratings even if the episodes get seriously better? Do you think there’s so much “damage” in the first five episodes that it can’t recover? Do you think the concept just doesn’t appeal to anybody? Is it the night? Do you think the episodes can’t or just won’t get better enough?

Inquiring minds…

(I still think you toss in the names for hits, everyone does for search engines.)

And no, I’m not delighted in the demise of Dollhouse. Why assume I would be? I’m more upset at the higher ups like Friedman or the genius who scheduled Fox’s sci-fi lineup. At least I’m confident Fringe is going to stick.

Better C3 (commercial ratings numbers) won’t help its case if Fox pulls the plug on Remote Free, and the buzz is that it will, at least for Dollhouse. I’d put the chances of it actually increasing its 18-49 S-T-D average for the remainder of the year somewhere between slim and none. In another week or two, I’d predict Bill will be seeing comments like yours from the Dollhouse faithful. We’ll see.

I didn’t see you complaining a few weeks ago for example when my CW headline was “Privileged Ends Tonight, Forever”