Abrams wants RTV for FRINGE, so I think it will live on for FRINGE. If DOLLHOUSE is coming back then RTV may well live on there too.

My extremely limited understanding is remotefree tv is gone completely from FOX all ready.

However, a REVAMPED Dollhouse that addresses that might do better on a different night.

I promise you that HT will most definitely NOT air on Fris.

I could see them pairing Human Target with Dollhouse. Human Target has been tried and failed before. So I can see them hooking these two potential losers up on Fridays as another shot at “Friday Science Fiction” night (even though Human Target is not exactly sci-fi, it’s “comic book”, so close enough for horseshoes.)

Personally I think if they do that, they should get both shows OFF Fridays and take the risk of both bombing on a more important night. Who knows? It just might work and both shows might get better ratings being off Fridays.

Also, FOX has picked up three dramas for the fall (Glee, Human Target, Past Life, and it’s being reported that Maggie Hill may be picked up for midseasn). What would be paired with DH in the fall? An hour of reality tv? Sounds strange.

One thing I’ve learned about Joss’s work is that it’s almost always better when watched as a marathon.

Holy crap that’s good news if true.

That is all.

1) Glen Close and other big name members of the cast.
2) The critical acclaim.
3) The awards.

Dollhouse doesn’t have any of those things going for it, Damages is FX’s big prestige show that gets their name out their as a quality network that viewers should check out, that’s all important for cable channels. Monks’ critical acclaim and awards were a huge part of building up the USA original programming brand for example.

In general terms though I didn’t say Dollhouse’s numbers were bad for cable I just said they weren’t fantastic. Networks like USA and TNT aren’t going to jump at the chance to bring Dollhouse on board because the numbers aren’t strong enough and they’d likely fall should the move to cable be made. Whereas for the smaller cable networks the numbers and critical buzz aren’t big enough to warrant the price tag or the stigma of picking up a show that wasn’t successful on broadcast. More and more cable networks want to present themselves as an alternative to broadcast picking up their cancelled scraps isn’t the best way to do that.

As it stands shows like Dollhouse and Terminator just don’t have enough going for them to make cable networks interested in picking them up. The obvious upside just isn’t there. Its not like they’d be saving shows that pick up awards or that the critics absolutely love. Personally I’d guess that if none of the cable networks were interested in stepping in to pick-up Firefly then none of them are going to be interested in Dollhouse either.

Two reasons.

1) I liked season one. It had a few problems (the high school crap, some other minor things).

2) I liked the idea of a Terminator TV show. I kept hoping Friedman would pull it out sometime in season two, once it became apparent there were problems and the ratings weren’t good. Which is why I spent time criticizing the show and hoping the writers would pick up on the problems and fix them. Zack Stentz knew what I was saying since both of us were posting on the Sarah Connor Society forums – that’s HOW my name ended up in an episode of the show! Instead, Friedman made it much worse in the back nine, although he did pick up the pace slightly.

Now I’m just pissed off that one of my favorite shows and a show that had enormous potential to be a high water mark for sci-fi on broadcast TV for the next decade was instead run into the toilet and canceled.

Do you get a clue now?

How are Dollhouse’s numbers not good enough for cable when Damages (whose 2nd season finale topped at only roughly 1 million TOTAL viewers, if I remember my numbers correctly) got picked up for a third season…and with a heavyweight like Glenn Close as the lead actress, I don’t think they’re paying peanuts…

More seriously, there’s no way to put every show on the “right night”. Something has to be shown on Fridays. Fox reportedly wanted to make Fridays a “Science Fiction night” in an attempt to brand it and build up a particular audience. For a variety of reasons, that may be flawed (just look at the effect of major blockbuster movies coming out, which are always opening on… Fridays), but it’s not much worse than any other strategy. The alternative is probably showing repeats, which means two hours less of original programming per week.

I don’t think critical acclaim is enough to save it, but I suspect it helps a little, if only in making the schedulers recognize it has potential to do better than it’s doing. It’s not as if Dollhouse has had many breaks.

Why did u watch TSCC? everytime i see ur comments on any page u somewho bring TSCC into it always a bad comment about the show about how crap it was. Yes the show had problesm and yes it had a few bad episodes but lots of shows have crap episodes lost and Fringe come to mind alot.

if you didnt like the show WHY DID YOU WATCH IT????

Alex, it’s called “profit.” Since DOLLHOUSE is profitable, then it makes sense to try and see if you can fix the problems and go into season 2 and make more money. The show has been all about “bad news,” since before it launched. Going with a season 2 would theoretically say that FOX believes in the creative direction of the show more than the Media really let on. That could change it to a good vibe by season 2 premier. The Media seem to have changed their tune about the quality of the show as well.

Profit is the only reason to renew it, because ratings say can it and don’t look back.

The Dollhouse rumours continue to be incredibly weird to me and I’m not reading anything into them. Personally I don’t think the shows been anywhere near strong enough creatively to warrant a pick-up let alone its ratings performance, it has to be making some serious dollars for Fox to make this happen. As it is I’d prefer Fox (and Whedon) cut their loses with Dollhouse.

Even if Dollhouse was a great show, it will never do numbers to pleas Fox. Buffy nor Angel would have survived on Fox either. They are too niche.

Dollhouse is more like a cable show IMO…but really it is more like a half baked brainstorm session. It reminds me of the group project in school that had the nugget of an idea, but was tossed together in three hours on a Sunday night before it was due.

As for Lie to Me, there is a lot of potential there, but the creator of The Shield…..? Seems like an odd mix. They could take the show in a number of directions without screwing up the core concept. I think Fox is smart to give it another whirl and maybe tweak it a bit. It will be interesting to see what kind of mark Ryan makes on it.

If there’s one thing about TSCC’s fate that angers me, it’s the way the cancellation news is being handled. I simply do not understand what benefit FOX derives by stringing along fans and not telling them the show is over. Life, Pushing Daisies, Eli Stone, Prison Break, and other cancelled shows all received their news before the Fall Upfront. It amounts to giving fans hope where none should exist. There’s going to be a flood of email and letters regardless of when the cancellation news is announced. So why wait? Why torture fans? Why delay the news? Why not get it over with? I just don’t understand this, really. It’s not a cry in anguish, it just makes little sense to me.

But in my opinion DH has a better chance than TSCC. They gave Terminator 2 breaks already. The first was a second season when its first season numbers continually dropped. Then, in season 2 when the numbers kept on dropping they gave it the 9 back extension. Also, TSCC wrapped up nicely with most things covered. John is in the future with Derek, Kyle, Allison, John Henry and Weaver. It pretty much ended.

DH, however, got the bum end of the stick. Putting it on Friday night was a shocker to most. Everyone knew it wouldnt do well and it seemed like Fox was trying to destroy it before it got started. Ill bet Fox is thinking, that it owes this show and the people involved a break. Fox is much more lenient on its shows these days. And Foxs bad rep on pulling plugs stems from Whedons other show Firefly, and Eliza’s Tru Calling.
I still wont watch DH if its renewed, but i do feel its fans should get a break like TSCC received.

Halcyon owns the Terminator rights, so both the movies and the TSCC series but kept a firewall between them so neither McG nor Friedman would get in each other’s way.

The time period between T-2 and T-3 has the richest story telling for a TV series that doesn’t require massive special effects that would be involved in telling stories set after Judgment Day. The future episodes of TSCC were the most expensive of the shows produced for the series. They require the most expensive CGI and special effects and the most expensive sets. Stories set in the present would also resonate with audiences more over the length of time of a TV series (as opposed to the two hours of a movie like T-4) than stories set in the future.

All Friedman had to do to make TSCC a hit was drop irrelevant subplots like the high school stuff in season one, pick up the pace substantially both within episodes and the overall story arc, make sure the details were realistic, concentrate on the two core subplots of the franchise – dodging killer robots and stopping Skynet – and then push the envelope with serious exploration of the relations between humans and AIs, partly by emphasizing the relationship between John and Cameron.

It wasn’t and isn’t rocket science.

As for another Terminator series. One set after the events of Salvation would be worth trying – probably on cable this time.

As I indicated above, I think WB still wants A Terminator show on TV – just not this one. A reboot, i.e., brand new show, would be difficult but not impossible. I just hope they’d keep the same cast because Lena, Tom and Summer were just excellent in the three critical roles.

—-
“Ok, I’ll write this here to get it out. It won’t be liked. But I’ve always been realistic about these things. Ok, so, here’s what I got:

The Castle guys are preparing everything for a new season – acquiring writers and directors. They haven’t gotten the official pickup yet, but they so sure about the renewal that they are convinced it’s just a matter of time before they get the call. The Dollhouse producers are making formal pitches to the network. Pilots are coming in.

Now look at our situation: Remember last year… Even _before_ the official announcement on April 21st that we’re getting season 2, we heard that they’ve hired directors for the first three episodes. This hasn’t happened this year, we instead have JF’s “I haven’t spoken to Fox in weeks”.

These are very clear signs. Unless we hear in the next days that JF has made a formal pitch to Fox, TSCC is not coming back.”
—-

There are still people clinging to hope, but I’m not one of them. The signs are clear. Too clear. Come Monday, I’m prepared to see a Fox schedule for next season without TSCC on it.

A lot of people wanted TSCC moved behind Bones or whatever, where they thought it would do OK compared to the beating it took against DWTS and Monday Night Football on Mondays. But I don’t think that would have saved the show either. The problems with the show itself were too great. But it might not have died quite so fast as it did on Fridays.

Debuting Dollhouse on Fridays pretty much showed Fox didn’t have much expectations for the show – OR they really thought they could pull off the “Sci-Fi Fridays” thing. I think it would have failed on any other night, but maybe not so dramatically. Or maybe MORE dramatically…Dollhouse has some serious problems of its own and unless it gets a season 2, it won’t have the option to try to overcome them.

I wonder what they would happen if they had put Fringe on Fridays with TSCC and both viewing numbers were below 4 million, after the ratings Fringe is getting i bet it would make them think twice about “porting shows” to fridays.

Why dont they put shows like Family Guy on fridays ?! That seems like the more logical show to air on firday nights (in my opinion).

TSCC has nothing whatever to offer Fox. The T-4 movie will have zero effect on any hypothetical rebooted Terminator show.

I think WB would like to have a Terminator show on TV between movies, but only if the show itself has good ratings and earns a profit. TSCC has shown it can’t do that.

So the show can only come back as a total reboot – meaning as if TSCC never existed. New name, new concept, new plot lines. You could theoretically keep the same lead cast, since the three leads were excellent actors. TSCC ratings failure had nothing to do with the performances of the actors.

But even then it would be a struggle to regain an audience that might simply dismiss ANY Terminator show as crap based on TSCC’s performance. It would require considerably promo on the part of the studio and the network that buys it to overcome the negativity attached to TSCC.

I’d like to see WB try it again – but not if they try to just continue TSCC.

Good ones.