Have someone read my comment to you very slowly, I said 100 or so ACTIVE members…

Yes there are 10K+ members, but it is the same 100 or so that are active.

That was my point and since numbers obviously confuse you, I see why you are having an issue digesting the data here on TBTN.

~Lanie~

Using your own logic in this case, if FOX moved TSCC to Fridays to die that means they gave up on it, i.e., cancelled it back in December 2008.

That’s what I have been saying all along and I do appreciate the TerminatorWiki validation and your support.

Kind of ironic talking about realism with SciFi shows.

Lanie is trying to generate buzz for her clients. Robert is trying to run a facts-based Web site (although I’m sure he loves the Chuck buzz here!)

TSCC is dead regardless of what either one of them says or does. This was pretty obvious as the move to Fridays was an attempt to save the show, not kill it. Once it kept failing on Fridays, it was a foregone conclusion it was done for. Nothing the last few episodes did could have saved it, barring a jump in viewers and demo to something like 6 million and a 3.0. And the last episodes really weren’t any better than the rest of the season except for the pacing. Same massive plot holes, same bad characterization, same lack of realism.

A week from today, TSCC and Dollhouse will be officially dead. Let the brickbats fall on the heads of Josh Friedman (and Joss Whedon to a much lesser degree for Dollhouse), not Robert or Lanie.

I hope TSCC proves you wrong in the face.

The problem I have is that, without equivocation, you rely on “sources” indicating that it’s going to be canceled and yet those “sources” have proven to be inconclusive at best. Simply put, you have just as much of a vested interest in the outcome of the show. Hence you continue to say “SERIES finale” and “end of the series.”

“I will not make any responses about post on my sites here, this is TBTN.” Ok, but don’t you think you should have response to that on your website then? Is it not an issue that besmirches your reputation?

…. >.>

Lack of interest did.

I completely agree with Lanie Grace about the above.

There are a couple of sentences that you write in which, due to your sentence construction, I am uncertain as to what you are attempting to say. But I do have the impression that I pity you.

I think that most people have their emotional needs met in their real lives and they form their moral compasses somewhere other than Television. I guess that if TV is all that you have in your life then it would make sense for you to gravitate towards programs that can meet the needs that you have no other way to fill, but if that is the case then I sincerely hope that you do not represent the norm for the sake of our society. Whether you do or do not, then I quite hope that you might give some thought to spending time with real people who actually do have “souls” and “consciences” rather than trying to find that traits in fictional personalities.

Personally, I particularly enjoy watching shows in which there is no character that has any emotional resonance for me, as it makes it quite easy to view the program and each character’s actions without bias and as purely an intellectual exercise. I look to programs that have a noteworthy element to them, whether that is an interesting story, talented acting or some other compelling aspect. I will just as easily watch a G-Rated movie as an R-rated one, all that matters to me is how much I think that I might get out of a program.

If nothing else, I hope that you can understand that not everyone views TV and it’s purpose in the same way as you seem to do.

I will not make any responses about post on my sites here, this is TBTN.

I am not acting like an authority, I just have the ability to read the numbers as posted by Robert. You just don’t like the reality of the situation and it is obvious which one of the groups you are in.

Okay, I will spot you the 3.55 million instead of the 3.0 million, that’s still pathetic in broadcast TV terms.

Not enough TSCC viewers is why the show died. No other reason.

Same for DH.

Fridays, DVR, TBTN or phases of the moon didn’t kill it.

Lack of interest did.

One of the reasons I think people like Ghost Whisperer is because it’s down to earth. Back in the 90s, being “cutting edge” on American TV was cool, and being cutting edge meant using a lot of sex and violence in TV shows. And while it was cool back then, every single show thinks they have to use those things over and over and over nowadays to be “cutting edge” and it just becomes repetitive. I enjoy a little bit of Entourage and Californication a little once in a while, but I think the appeal of Ghost Whisperer is that while it does have some sex and violence, it doesn’t overdo it, and it stays grounded, and that’s what people need in this world I think. Why do we need so much scandalized crap on serialized dramas and reality shows when we see that in the news every single day or even in our daily lives?

I think Ghost Whisperer only has appeal for people who despite the crap in this world still have a conscience and a soul, and that’s an achievement in itself in the world we’re living in.

With TSCC, the pace of the 2nd season, taking most of the focus off of Cameron (The Terminator), bad addition of characters such as Riley, Jesse, Catherine Weaver, excessive time travel confusion and alternate timeline mess, and way too much focus on Sarah Connor that’s on Friedman. What I’ll never understand is why he changed the show so dramatically the 2nd season after it did well in the 1st season.

With Dollhouse, Joss Whedon needed to have refined his concept of the show in my opinion, to have made people in the Dollhouse at least rootable like on La Femme Nikita. Eliza Dushku can’t carry a show on her own and it needed to have been an ensemble from the get-go with less focus on her charcter and more on the other characters. To me the other characters that were dolls were all way more interesting than the Echo character. Alan Tudyk was more dynamic in 2 episodes than Tahmoh Penniket in 12 of them. There was some bad casting on the show with actors who weren’t strong enough for their roles. Pimping out the dolls on a bunch of the shows was a huge turn-off for women viewers. Concepts such as date rape and being raped while drugged and unaware of it never were explorer. Unlike on La Femme Nikita, where they were fighting terrorists and protecting the world, the sole purpose on Dollhouse seemed to be just for the money. It seemed like when the show did come up with an interesting concept that they just dropped it – like being able to live for a while in a doll after dying.

Since the demo ratings equate to ad dollars, that’s the bottom line. Regardless of whether or not I personally love a show, if the ratings stink, it will end up getting cancelled since the networks are businesses that put on shows in order to make a profit.

What does surprise me is that network picked up Dollhouse’s pilot in the state that it was in without major retooling of the show’s premise and concept.

The FX show Damages is a lot like that, too!

Where exactly did you hear this, Big in Mehico? I can’t find this anywhere.

This is really exciting news, if it’s true!

What happen with Fox on Friday ?

What Serenity did was get me interested in both Firefly and Summer Glau. That was a “twofer” win!

No Thoughts or Responses?

For anyone who hasn’t yet watched Firefly I might recommend starting at the beginning.

Comparison – “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” is just about to pass 3 million units on DVD. I’m not kidding.”
——————————————
gossi, “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” is not a TV series. Nick C was specifically talking about television series on DVD. Here’s exactly what he said.

“FIREFLY is still one of the top 5 selling TV series of all time on DVD.”

H-U-L-U

Prior to Hulu, watching Friday night shows was a nailbiter. If you loved the show, you HAD to watch it, or DVR it, which not everybody had. Now… why waste a Friday night when I could just wait till morning to watch it on Hulu, for free, with almost no commercials?

On a Monday, or Tuesday night… there’s not much to do BUT watch House or Fringe. Hulu has killed the weekend TV industry. ALL shows on weekends across the board on all networks have flopped as Hulu becomes more popular (at least the shows that are on Hulu.)

Hulu views should be included on these statistics. Then they will be more accurate

I honestly don’t know, just wondering. I actually think that there are some definite similarities between them. Both shows contain a lot of unanswered questions, have moral ambiguity amongst at least some of the primary characters and both ask what are to me important questions that most network shows don’t often deal with these days. Also, i thought that both started weak and quite improved as they progressed. The cause for Dollhouse’s weak initial episodes is well-known. I wanted to like Fringe, but was ready to give up on it. Fortunately for me, I had nothing else to watch on Tuesdays and since I was home anyway I kept turning Fringe on out of habit. After one episode I was struck that it had suddenly, unexpectedly improved and found that it remained so from then on.

I wouldn’t classify either as significantly better than the other though. I guess that for people who need things to be “clearly defined” then Fringe is better, though Dollhouse became more clearly defined by the end of it’s run. I guess for people who need to “root” for characters and become “emotionally invested” in them then Fringe is better at that. However, I’m not one of those people that needs that. For example, despite the fact that I enjoyed watching Buffy there was essentially no character on that show that I liked or became invested in. Pretty much every show has characters that are likable and for whom it is easy to root for, I like the fact that in DH we don’t have that. Or if we do want to root for a character then we have to be prepared to accept the good with the bad, that there are significant barriers to being too “emotionally invested” in anyone. The fact that DH made it more difficult to easily root for anyone might have doomed it to cancelation, but it made the show quite a bit more interesting for me.

If we get a 2nd Season (despite the unlikelihood of that happening) then we’ll get a better sense of what the relationship between Ballard and the DH would be. But I would say that his working for them was by far his wisest course of action. If he hadn’t gone to work for them then they might killed him and even if they didn’t, what would he have gone back to? Look at how the FBI regards him? We know that the NSA definitely IS aware of the DH’s existence, but they have a different agenda. And just because he is working for them now, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have plans to turn the tables on them at some future point. Working for them gives him access, lets him find out more information and allows him to wait for the perfect moment, if he does have his own agenda (which I would guess that he does).

In contrast, you are right that it seems like Walter has done some very questionable things in the past. Also, look at the FBI in Fringe. How many agents have been revealed to be working for ZFT? And it’s obvious that Peter has done some ambiguous things in his past and I have heard a couple of rumours that he has additional darker secrets that will be coming out. I think that we could, at least for now, clearly count Olivia, Astrid, Rachel, Charlie and probably Broyles as “good” people (though it seems like Broyles knows more than he is letting on based on some of his conversations with Nina). That’s more than DH, but it’s not a lot and obviously a good number of the characters in Fringe are depicted more much in greys then then are in black and white.

Also, Fox’s advertising focused on Summer Glau and she was pretty much nowhere to be found. Whether or not you agree with that advertising approach, I felt like the content of those initial Friday episodes were guaranteed to turn off whatever new audience might have been tuning in to see Summer. When the show was so close to cancelation and so much was at stake then it could have either increased the action, increased Summer, increased all that made it appealing in S1… or it could have done the opposite, which is what it did imo. I’m sad for losing what it COULD have been, but it’s hard for me to mourn losing that which it was.

Re: your first post, I personally enjoy shows and movies that are far more complicated than the simple “right vs. wrong” division. Although you suggest that Fringe isn’t in this category, I disagree due to the multiple occasions where a character has pointed out that they don’t know what they’re doing or whose side people are on. If Walter & Co. was experimenting on children in an effort to prep them to be our saviors in an upcoming war, you have to ask yourself if they are the “bad guys” or if they’re the good guys going about things in a scurrilous way. Although neither Dollhouse nor Fringe is ENTIRELY upfront about who is good/bad and why they are, Dollhouse is a bit more explicit about it. Fringe has us believing that Walter and his ex-posse are CLEARLY bad, but all those vague hints (if you spot them and believe the people dropping them) have you questioning everyone’s ultimate alignment.

All in all, I have become attached to both shows and although I can certainly see why people my not attach to the Dollhouse characters, I find that I have. This primarily stemmed from catching glimpses of their histories and feeling empathy for the tough spots most of them found themselves in that would lead them to sign such a contract.

Also, Amy Acker is wonderful. Can she please be in more shows now? Kthnxbye.

You know what, “Robert said it well in response to a comment in an earlier post on TSCC,”

“Separately, I just watched the finale of TSCC. I won’t make any commentary on the episode other than to say that “leaked script” (that was subsequently pulled down) was a total fraud. The only things it seems to have gotten right were the bits that were in the video clip montage of the last few episodes that came out a month ago.” http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/04/10/say-goodbye-to-terminator-the-sarah-connor-chronicles/16514#comment-70750

Please, stop acting like you’re an authority on the matter.

@ Cap’n Jack, no there were many great episodes, not just the first and last in season 2, ill name a few in season 2:

“Allison From Palmdale” one of my fav eps (ep4), we discover the human Cameron is based on, was some of the best acting i have ever seen and set up the season with us knowing something is off with Cameron etc.

“The Mousetrap”, another exciting episode in which Charleys wife is kidnapped, later then dies, another great performance from the cast.

“Mr. Ferguson is Ill Today”, a very well edited/directed episode in which a story unfolds from each characters perspective, yet another exciting ride in which Cromartie is killed at the end.

As for when it came back only the last episode was great, no the last 6 were great!

“Ourselves Alone” is where Riley figures out why she was brought back in time, what her purpose is – to die. A really memorable episode and ultimately lead to an amazing “bitch fight” between Jesse and Riley, in which really either could die since Riley held her own, but ultimately was killed. Another interesting note, cameron put small explosive near her chip incase she turns again and gives John the trigger!

“Today is the Day” – a fantastic 2-parter in which we learn of Jesse’s past, we see her mission of the submarine (which is commanded by metal!), we learn why Jesse is the way she is and why she will do anything to stop them. This is an example of fantastic writing, they took a character we didnt like/hated and within an episode made us understand her and actually feel sorry for her! But the Conners find out everything, did Derek kill her ? What was that liquid-terminator talking about “join us?”. Just a another exciting/interesting episode.

“To the Lighthouse” – The Conners leave their house, its time to move. We meet Charley again, Derek and Cameron are attacked followed by the Conners, we later find the boat gone meaning they got away, but looking down at the sea Charley gave his life so John could escape. John-Henry is compromised, there is someone out there trying to destroy him (is this a Resistance fighter or sky net?..)

“Adam Raised a Cain” – second to last ep, where Savana is kidnapped..by the Conners as someone sent a Terminator to kill her. I guess Catherine Weaver is not all buddy-buddy with Skynet ? In the fire-fight Derek is shot by the Terminator, this was a real death, not a slow-motion “omg” everyone starts crying because that is not real, you push on and thats what they did. They meet up with Ellison to give Sevana back, only to be ambushed by police, Sarah is arrested, then comes a very creepy/hearty song by John-henry & Sevana, over Dereks burriel, in the same graveyard as his brother.

and as for the last ep, you already know about that. So there you go, there were the last 6 great eps, yes there were a few fillers before them but really, they wernt that bad!

I agree that they should not do that in a series like this as the story needs to push on, this is no GW where there is a mystery every week, this show is better than that and IF it gets picked-up id prefer a 14 ep run rather than 22, as i believe series which have seasons of 12-14 episodes have many more high-quality episodes as there is no room for fillers!