The details don’t matter, the fact that the show is profitable does matter.

For the Friday thing, you cant expect to beat a show with strong numbers (GW) by simply putting another show whose vievers generally do not watch on that day. Fox must be patient on both DH and TSSC if wants to make Fridays as a day suitable for scripted shows. Or must air shows suitable for people such as housewives etc, who watch tv Friday nights.

I m sure either DH or TSSC get better (and acceptable for renewal) ratings if they would be aired in different day.

If Josh wants to write that stuff, he should move over to some family drama and steer clear of science fiction franchises that emphasize major action.

In general, I distinguish between the TSCC writers ability to produce decent dialog and plots from their somewhat poorer ability to deal with logical blunders from the perspective of the overall concept.

In other words, they do things like having the Connors leave a trail a blind cop can follow and ignoring the consequences of that, while at the same time any particular plot concept is okay.

I’ve argued all season long that the best way to come up with decent plots for episodes is to follow the internal logic of the circumstances the Connors are in and set those circumstances firmly in the real world.

For example, in the real world, they (anybody with a brain!) would have followed up on the nuclear plant incident, on Dr. Sherman’s death, etc. They wouldn’t have ignored those things. And doing that follow up would have led them directly to Zeira Corp and Weaver and John Henry.

The problem for that is it means you’ve compressed the overall season plot development into about two episodes and not given Weaver any time to develop John Henry. Well, gee, that’s exactly what we WANT! Faster plot development!

You can always throw in complications that prevent the Connors from immediately being able to deal with what they’ve discovered. That’s real world, too. You can’t always deal with a problem right away.

But at least they’d look like they knew what they were doing instead of looking like idiots because they completely IGNORED “The Turk” for the entire season!

Same problem with all the “we gotta save somebody from Skynet” emphasis in the stand alones this season. Job One is stopping Skynet from ever existing. You do that, you don’t NEED to worry about either Terminators coming after John or saving random Resistance people.

It’s just a matter of focusing on the real circumstances they’re in and not bothering to try to come up with “cool” stuff or “explore” stuff like Sarah’s deteriorating mental state. You weave that stuff in where you can if it’s that important to you, but you focus on the real world that people can relate to as well as enjoying the drama and tension and momentum that real world problems produce.

Another example: Within a couple episodes of Chromatie being gunned down, Skynet should have sent another Terminator after John – this time a T-1000! Yeah, a SECOND T-1000 in the show! Imagine what you could do with that! Because that’s what Skynet would have done after T-2!

It’s not hard to come up with show concepts that fit the Terminator concept and would have kept this show at six million viewers and a 2.5-3.0 demo.

But the shows as written were generally written well and very believable (except for the real world stuff they ignored.)

They need a script consultant. My rates are cheap.

I think TSCC can do very well on a cable channel (like TNT) if they rethink their approach to the show a little. I don’t want it to change too much, but I do want it to be more in keeping with what makes Terminator “Terminator”. That means no more Crazy Sarah episodes and the like. If every episode can be as good as last week’s, which I know the writers are capable of doing, then this show will kick ass on cable.

Also, JF really needs to let go of his “no spoilers” policy. I know the guy wants to keep us guessing with each episode, but the FOX trailers could be far more engaging if he’d allow a little more interest (I know he has no decision in this regard, but he does send the advertisers a list of “Do’s and Don’t's”). Hell, even the Canadian trailers are far more engaging than the US.

No it doesn’t and no they didn’t.

The report does not say that Dollhouse and Knight Rider are part of a package deal and if it did it would be wrong. Knight Rider and Dollhouse are owned and sold by two different production companies, Sci-Fi has not brought them as a package deal. They are seperate deals announced at/around the same time.

Meanwhile Dollhouse and Angel are both owned by the same company (Fox) but Sci-Fi were not forced into buying Dollhouse so they could keep Angel – they did not *have* to buy Dollhouse to keep Angel repeats. Again this is two seperate deals announced at the same time. Is it possible that the two deals are linked and that both sides leveraged Angel to get a better Dollhouse deal? Yes. Did Fox force Sci-Fi to pick-up Dollhouse or lose Angel? No.

And Fin Sci-Fi does not and to my knowledge never has aired Buffy nor does the deal to air Dollhouse in anyway, shape or form include the rights to Buffy repeats. I was however wrong when I said Sky still owns them, apparently FX does.

You claimed that Sky had paid 400K GBP an episode … even assuming they were allowed to, why would they sell it to Sci Fi for 40K? They value the first run rights at 400K (half as much again as Heroes after it was a hit and there was a bidding war? more than Fringe, 24 and House?) then sell them on for 40K? Meaning that they value first-run rights at 40K and *repeat* rights at 360K?

Does that make sense to you? Taking your Whedon specs off just for a second and putting your logic specs on, would that make sense?

Every report in the UK has Sci Fi showing it *instead* of Sky One. Oh, and the Guardian said ‘all thirteen episodes’.

Or, in other words, every episode is making about $540K less than Fox thought it would make. On a per episode budget of $1.5M.

I’m amused by all the people saying the show is “expensive,” and then stating the $1.5M to $2M price tag per episode for the show. The show is averaging around $1.65M per episode according to one person I talked to. That isn’t expensive. That’s pretty cheap. It’s right up there with BURN NOTICE and many hour long cable shows (but not PSYCH, that show is extremely cheap).

My guess is that Sci-Fi probably aren’t paying £600k an episode although I wouldn’t go on the record as stating that as fact but I will say that part of my reason for saying that is that they aren’t buying exclusive rights to the show, just what they did with Heroes first run rights. In theory Fox is still open to sell the show to other networks, which may become easier if like Heroes before it, Dollhouse attracts decent numbers. It’s entirely possible that if the show performs well on Sci-Fi the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five or any other number of networks will look at airing the episodes as well, which essentially means Fox will get paid twice.

I can also tell you that Sci-Fi didn’t buy Dollhouse because they wanted to keep airing Buffy because I don’t think air it to begin with. I believe Sky still owns the Buffy repeats. Although I suspect you probably meant Angel (which Sci-Fi does air) but again they wouldn’t have brought the two as a package deal as in ‘if you want Angel you have to buy Dollhouse’.

Hmmmm…Season 2 anyone…anyone…??????

http://www.digitalspy.com/broadcasting/a150241/sci-fi-acquires-dollhouse-knight-rider.html

No … they’re not. Sky One didn’t want it. It’s part of a job lot deal for Sci-Fi (which is even lower profile there than in the US) and Sci-Fi only bought it because they wanted to keep showing Buffy. There’s no way they’re paying the $600,000 an episode that it was reported Sky One would pay.

How does that alter the figures, Nick C?

I’m curious, because I didn’t think Murdoch micromanaged Fox like that, is Murdoch that involved in those kinds of decisions? Or did Murdoch override Reilly who wanted, despite the unbelievably awful ratings, to keep it on air?

That would be nice, depending on where the show goes from there story wise, of course. If we got at least one more season out of it, that would be good.

I think the gist of it was that it’s a young female demographic, and TSCC doesn’t fit that. Somebody (Hibbard?) was discussing the possibility of another Star Trek spinoff TV series if the movie this year is a smash, and they said that about the CW being very much the wrong venue for a sci-fi show like Star Trek. That would probably go double for TSCC. although the strong female leads might appeal.

TNT has one show I really like, “Leverage”, that’s been given a second season, I believe. Don’t know if TSCC would fit since I’m not familiar with their lineup.

Lemme check the Starfury site and see if they’ve said anything.

Nope, nothing there, but I can’t access the forums since I’m not registered there, so I don’t know. Might be true, might not. The site isn’t big on having a News page, apparently.

But I wouldn’t be surprised. If she knows TSCC is dead, or even if not, she’d be doing projects during the hiatus and that might well interfere with convention appearances during the same time period.

Veran, my point was that it’s highly unlikely that WB wants to wait on Fox’s “final decision on May 17th”. They would want a decision as early as possible once the TSCC season ends – or before. Nick says that decision has been made. The logic supports that is all I’m saying.

Based on the tiny 150,000 increase in viewers this week, TSCC is going to be no where near five million LIVE viewers by end of season. And the demo isn’t going to be 2.00 or over.

I suppose as the saying goes: “There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.”

In other words, nothing is written and anything is possible.
Anyway, I hope WB are able to find another home for it should Nick C prove to be correct.

Which, for some reason, Majarvis needs a notarized statement from a Fox exec to prove.

The logic is that the WB will want an answer from Fox sooner rather than later so as to determine how to mesh TSCC’s future (if any) with the T-4 release, if at all.

So Fox isn’t going to wait until May to tell WB. They’re likely to wait until May before announcing – or not announcing at all – that TSCC won’t be on Fox any more.

Which means if Nick is wrong and Fox hasn’t told WB yet, they have six weeks or less to do it in. They’re not going to tell WB on May 17th.

All of which supports Nick C’s statement. Not to mention that I see no reason why Nick C would particularly bother to make this business up. Whereas I see a lot of reason why Majarvis won’t believe it for his own reasons.

Nick C: 1. Majarvis: 0

As for FOX not saying anything about TSCC, whether to confirm a cancellation or a renewal, they have no power to “hold” a show if they’re never going to greenlight another season, so WB will look elsewhere.

Isn’t this a ratings site?

It doesn’t really bother me. Sometimes hope and/or myth (they often go hand in hand) can be a good thing for people.

Whatever might happen, I’m certain WB will have a contingency plan of sorts. They at least know how profitable this show is to keep on the air, though I would prefer it stay on FOX rather than go through the long-winded process of finding a new network, unless WB can stick it on one of their channels.

Another notable thing is that DOLLHOUSE was sold at the upfronts, then moved to mid-season on Friday. From an advertising sale point of view, that’s very significant.

I think the next two weeks will be decisive for DH: Can get higher without BSG/NCAA? If not (or not much), the last straw will be PRISON BREAK. If that permanently increases the demo to 1.7/1.8, FOX probably will give it another chance.

But still, we need those damn numbers and one helluva DVR increase.

If I was looking at it strategically, I’d think about ordering another 13 episodes for next mid-season, and pair it up with something like BONES on another night. Live+SD, it’d do just over 2.0 I suspect. Although the possibility of it slipping is there.

One thing which plays against DH is that it’s reasonably expensive – I think it’s $1.5m-2m an episode – plus the set is taking an entire sound stage up at Fox. (Trust me, it’s huge). It’s not the kind of 13 episodes series (like Reaper) networks tend to gamble on.

I’m holding out to see a few more weeks numbers before I call it either way.

However, Pete wants FOX to compete on Thursday and Friday. They’re halfway there with Thursday. DOLLHOUSE does compete on Friday, but it must trend up. If it trends up it’s likely staying. Still I don’t think it’s likely.