I made the mistake some time ago of referencing LG’s “T:SCC canceled” hoax (T:SCC was eventually canceled, but it’s fair to say LG’s story was fiction) when I tried to persuade DH fans it was not a good idea to hitch DH’s fortunes to a sinking ship. As a result, nothing I said was taken seriously, even though the central point, that T:SCC was a sinking ship regardless of whether LG was trolling or not, was obviously correct.

I’ve made it clear I don’t trust LG’s posts, and as a result LG insists on treating me as a fan of T:SCC, a show I’ve attacked since the second season started last year.

I normally make it a policy not to respond to LG, but in this case I’ll make an exception if only to ensure nobody else makes the same stupid error I did and in case there’s anyone stupid enough to actually think I really hate DH, a show I’ve been raving about since Ep. 6.

The only people that rabidly hate Dollhouse are you and the other 43 active (I’ll be nice here) Terminatorwiki “fans”.

Dollhouse will be fine.

Apparently the people that mattered thought DH was a better show with more potential and the DH fans obviously communicated a stronger desire to keep their show

~Lanie~

there is, of course, another scenario. one of the telling weaknesses of dollhouse is that even the whedonesque.com hard-core whedonites are kind of split on dollhouse. that’s like the republican presidential candidate struggling to win south carolina.

if dvd sales disappoint, i think we can all agree, it’s over. but they might not. it’s good when the people decide, not a few executives in a room.

So from my point of view, it’s highly improbable that ratings will get worse unless the show itself gets worse. But I don’t think 1.0-1.2 is sustainable in the long term for the reasons you point out. It just takes Fox to get a pilot for a show it thinks can make it on a Friday and which doesn’t cost substantially more, and Fox has to consider other things to do with Dollhouse.

The good news (from my point of view) is that there are more options with Dollhouse than there were with T:SCC. T:SCC was so expensive, and DVD sales so poor, that moving it to another network was never an option. Dollhouse may be able to move, if DVD sales are at least reasonable. I’m just not confident they will be.

once that happens, the ride is over for dollhouse fans. kevin reilly might be content to break even with a cheap sci-fi show in the short run, but in the long run, he wants to build a dominant night, and he knows dollhouse will never be part of that.

the thing i’d say he forgot is what most fans forget: the effect of other shows. there’s no way that horrible lead-in sitcom hour will deliver the closely-matched audience that sarah connor did for the first nine episodes. fox ruled sunday night for years with the simpsons/x-files tag team, but animation is different. animation nerds and sci-fi nerds are two mutations of the same family tree. friday night has no synergy. dollhouse’s ratings will inescapably go down.

and, i’m not sure how big this will be, but nbc even scheduled a show at 9, medium, that might actually peel off some of dollhouse’s fringe-y audience, which can’t lose a single person as it stands.

i think we all agree, the prognosis is not good.

1. Most likely

Ratings stay flat, DVD sales low, show canceled most probably after 13 episodes, though possibly allowed to lumber on, T:SCC style, to end on a full season if Fox sees it as better than cheap filler material.

I think ratings will stay flat because I’m finding people actually hate the show. I don’t mean in an American Idol type way, I mean as in I’ve defended it before and been treated as if I just said Hitler is a pretty cool guy. I mean that literally, you have no idea how hysterial people are in their hatred of Dollhouse. The fact it portrays an evil system dispassionately, and the people running it as human beings rather than evil archetypes, really rubs critics up the wrong way. I love the show for those strengths, but alas I think it’s too complex for general audiences to appreciate. Add to that the fact it’s already not attracted a large audience, and the issues others have raised about the “main character” not being identifiable, and you don’t have something that has a large pull.

DVD sales will be low partially for the above, and partially because the DVD set is relatively expensive for relatively little. $32 is the heavily discounted price. It’s not even on my wait order list, and I love the show.

2. Second most likely

Ratings remain low, but DVD sales are good. Fox finishes series 2 (including mid-season pick-up), with S3 onwards moved to FX

I’ve already explained why I think ratings will remain low. There’s more of a chance I’m wrong on DVD sales, largely because the DVD set contains some extras many fans will feel are critical, in much the same way that fans of Firefly felt obliged to buy the DVD set because it had content missing from the network run.

Why finish the series and put S3 on FX? Well, if DVD sales are high, and ratings don’t go lower, then there may well be enough of an audience to justify showing the show on cable especially as the cost is low and the DVD sales will help drive up revenues. Dollhouse would also appear to fit some of FX’s demographic. Why bother canceling it if the show is ultimately profitable? It’s better to find a way to keep making the show, it’s just putting it on Fox with such low ratings makes no sense.

3. Third most likely

Ratings go up, DVD sales are high. Show continues to limp on, with a third season commissioned for the Fox Network.

I think both are improbable but if somehow ratings improve, I can see Fox renewing the series as they don’t have much of a justification for not doing so.

4. Fourth most likely: Ratings plummet. DVD sales low. Show is canceled after seven or eight episodes.

Highly improbable. I think Dollhouse has attracted a base of strong fans, so I don’t see Dollhouse dropping below the 1.0 it ended the first season on. But it’s also possible the second season will stink.

Me, I’m hoping for the second or third most likely scenarios. I just don’t see either as particularly likely. I don’t think ratings will go above a 1.2, and I don’t think DVD sales are going to be particularly good. But I’d be delighted to be proven wrong, as the show’s awesome.

“Very true, DH will need an enlarged audience over the current fanbase, I expect that will happen.”

Why? You’ve already cognized that it might fall to a 0.5, at which point “Kevin Reilly’s ego” would take the reins in grand Swedenborgian fashion, like the comet Kohoutek. This is “the same reason DH will at least go all of S2.” So why now has that 0.5 turned into an expectantly engorged audience? (Is this the “different” reason DH will “at least go all of S2″ to go along with the “same” reason?)

but apparently we’re still doing this. and actually, there’s actually a fair amount of agreement between everyone still left.

I agree with the whedon fans in that:

fox doesn’t really believe in dollhouse.

i disagree with the whedon fans in that:

the reason fox doesn’t believe in dollhouse is because they shouldn’t. it’s not a theoretical question any more, it’s been shown to the viewers and they’ve turned up their noses.

the big over-arcing problem here is that in the 1990s, joss was willing to fully commit his talent to getting the viewers to identify with buffy and sarah michelle gellar and reap the rewards of the viewers’ love for buffy. but joss’ ego has grown to the point where he now needs his writing to be the star of the show. it needs to be Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse. and in the immortal words of rocky the flying squirrel, that trick never works. joss can get his not-big-enough-for-prime-time internet army to show up for that, but normal viewers only bond with people who are on the screen.

but hey, joss has some big hits under his belt and more money than he can ever spend. if he wants to cut back on the intensity and rigor of his work so he can enjoy it more, well, a lot of writers do that in their 40s, i’m certainly in no position to judge.

it’s only when he tries to use a fragile moment in a young actor’s career as a temporary flotation device to keep his drowning show afloat that he turns into something evil. but i guess you could argue that it’s joss’ role to try that, and summer’s agent’s job to keep it from working. so whatever, we’ll see what happens, it won’t be decided here.

Thats a Dead On Comment, Summer’s performance will determine her reputation, not if the show fails or succeeds.

@Max452

Very true, DH will need an enlarged audience over the current fanbase, I expect that will happen.

~Lanie~

If I remember correctly, the X-Files did so-so on Friday but became big when it was moved to Sundays. More people than the “dedicated fan base” started watching, and it became a hit. Fox even reran old episodes from seasons 1-4 on Sundays, which are some of the shows best. If X-files didn’t do well on season 5 on Sundays it was done. There are interviews with Chris Carter saying they were trying to wrap some threads up in case they didn’t make it to season 6.

If all Dollhouse has is its “dedicated fanbase” and doesn’t attract new viewers, its done. When it comes to Fox, fan bases alone did not save Firefly, TSSC, Dark Angel, Briscoe County Jr, etc, etc, etc…

Movies are another matter. Anyone heard of Renny Harlin lately?

What would be likely to happen is that Summer is brought in to boost the ratings, they don’t boost, they go down, and everybody says what a shame it was that Summer was on another failing show.

Just like they did with TSCC after Firefly. That’s exactly what they said. As long as most people perceive her character as engaging and her performance professional, she’s not going to have a problem with the show failing out from under her.

If Fridays are so bad what was the reason behind the X-Files massive success? Wasn’t the first four seasons of X-Files on Friday at 9pm?

If the answer is X-Files had solid writing, a dedicated fan base and all around good show that overcame the “Friday Death Slot” then why didn’t the robot show make it?

I am betting that Dollhouse will over come the Friday Death Slot and will not need a lead, hence it will be able to stand on its own, again, unlike the robot show and before anyone gets all in a tizzy, if the robot show could stand on it’s own, it would still be there.

But anyway GF,

Thank you for explaining,

~Lanie~

Forget fan demand. Forget DVR numbers. Forget ratings, or at least in the traditional sense.

It’s M O N E Y. Personally, I very much buy Nick C.’s story that Dollhouse could be produced very cheaply, that’s the pitch that sold the show for a second season. Think about it. They get an hour’s worth of television for the price of a half hour sitcom, and its a sci-fi drama that they wholly own and produce. So they see all the money from DVD sales and syndication, and it’s a Whedon project, guaranteed fanbase. Plus they get all the advertising revenue. Win win for the network, it’s a guaranteed money maker. Of course, if the ratings really tank, that’s another story.

Even then, they’re not overly enthusiastic about the show’s chances. If they were, why keep it on a Friday, where television shows go to die? Why lead off with a Freshman comedy, Sons of Tucson, followed by a failing sitcom, Til Death, which was only renewed because of Sony’s cheap deal with FOX? Dollhouse’s ratings tanked badly with a non sci-fi lead in, do they really expect much better with two shows that have very little audience overlap with Sci-Fi viewers? If they were optimistic about it’s chances, it would have been paired with Past Life or Human Target.

It’s not. It got renewed because it was very cheap, FOX will give it another chance to improve, but they’re not expecting much. Show’s going in to the Fall 2009 season already on life support.

Michael’s boss invites him to play golf. But Michael doesn’t play golf. So he goes to the Dollhouse and gets imprinted with Tiger Woods’ golf-playing abilities. But the boss hates playing against a great golfer. Michael learns to be himself. It’s more of an emotional episode.

i’m not sure you’ll find a lot of precedent for kevin giving a THIRD season to shows without viewers. the shows he’s famous for nurturing, 30 rock, the office and the sopranos, outgrew their awkward phases and built decent audiences. when sarah connor did a second season with dollhouse-like numbers, kevin pulled the plug.

will the second season be 13 or 22? like boris says, we can just wait to find out. it’s not up to me. and it will have more to do with when fox has its new friday night ready than dollhouse itself.

by the way, if you’re such a joss whedon fan you shouldn’t really celebrate these pathetic charity pickups. the whole time dollhouse is scraping along at the bottom of the ratings it’s quietly eroding joss whedon’s ability to get future movies and tv shows made. if you recall, in the 1990s he did stuff that was interesting AND successful. now he hasn’t had a hit in ten years. at some point they start to notice stuff like that.

“DH will run for a 22 episode Season 2, you can count on it.”

~ Isn’t this what wagering is for? ~

Dollhouse won’t get canceled in mid season 2 if even it had a 0.5 rating!

Kevin Reilly’s rep is on the line and his ego would never allow it! That’s the same reason DH will at least go all of S2.

DH will run for a 22 episode Season 2, you can count on it.

Besides, I really think JW will adapt and the ratings will be better than S1.

~Lanie~

it’s a sucker move, summer might want to do it out of loyalty, but it’s her agent’s job to keep desperate producers from glomming onto her like this.

“Summer won’t be RESPONSIBLE for the ratings whether she’s a regular or a recurring character. However, she will undoubtedly HELP the ratings, meaning either the ratings will go up or they’ll go down slower than they would otherwise.”

So, she would have an indisputable effect that is nonetheless beyond any possibility of quantification?

if summer waits six months, takes an interesting movie part or two, someone hot like j.j. abrams might develop something just for her this winter or put her on the crew of the enterprise or something. that’s the way to play it if you’re summer’s agent, you don’t go down with dollhouse.

Like this. Michael Strahan has a headache and he takes a handful of what he thinks is aspirin but turns out to be Viagra. So he has to go to the Dollhouse and rent out Sierra for the weekend. But they mess up and give her a nasty personality like Doris Roberts on Everybody Loves Raymond. Michael has to take a long cold shower.

There are lots of stories like this, they can do this one if they want.

(P.S. If you thought that joke was bad, my advice is don’t watch “Brothers” this fall. Because that’s pretty much most of the jokes that were in the pilot.)

In the end, a show’s ratings depend on the story and the execution, not any given character.

But Joss would be insane not to get her on the show if he can without hurting the STORY. And, yes, there are probably other actors you could say the same about, but Summer is a known quantity to him, just like Eliza is.

Everyone I know tells me: a perverted whiteboy asking what is identity? I’m all over that shit!

Dollhouse and Michael Strahan! All the way, baby!

Maybe if Joss adds Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw as Dolls, the Michael Strahan audience will grit their teeth and stick it out through Til Death.

She apparently passed on a movie recently because it involved some risque scenes involving kissing another actress. But I doubt she’d pass on any Joss production unless she really didn’t like the role.

As for the Joss quote above, he said nothing about Summer NOT being on Dollhouse. He just re-iterated that he wouldn’t do it unless he could craft a useful role for her. But it’s quite obvious that her presence on the show would lift ratings somewhat, so I’m sure he’s thinking about it. We don’t know yet what direction the show is going to take in season two, and I think he’s more concerned about that right now than adding Summer. Once he figures that out, he may well see a place for her, at least as an occasional guest star.

As for whether there would be a “feud” between Summer and Eliza, Nick C said a while back that he didn’t believe that, since Eliza would be cool about Summer being on as long as it helped her show. However, as Lanie suggests, they could always create such a feud just for PR reasons. That probably isn’t a good idea, in my opinion, since such things can damage someone’s public perception. However, as the Church of the SubGenius always says, “There’s no such thing as no PR!”

i understand why you might want to see it and why joss whedon might want it. but why would summer do it? at this point she wants something developed for her, where SHE will be the star, something that has a chance to find an audience. why buy a ticket on a death ship like dollhouse? we know and she knows that dollhouse doesn’t do numbers. who wants to be cancelled twice in six months? that’s serious career damage.

and even if somehow summer lifted dollhouse on her shoulders and made it a hit, she’d be the person powering a hit show, but the star and executive producer would be Her Majesty The Straight-To-Video Queen Eliza I. summer’s career trajectory is up, eliza’s is down. summer’s agent would never let her be a second banana to eliza at this point in time. it should be the other way around.

Because Joss Wheddon will not relegate her to a background object with more lines in the promtionals than in the actual script. That’s why.

~Lanie~

if summer glau is such a ratings powerhouse, if she’s gonna save dollhouse, how come nobody watched sarah connor? sarah connor was an okay show and its ratings stunk just as bad as dollhouse’s.

The infamous Terminator Wiki doesn’t even seem to really show any interest in the “resurrection” anylonger…very few people even mention it anymore on the site. The whole board has devovlved into a fanatical Summer Glau worship site of the ilk that most celebrities steer far and wide from. You know, the freaks!

Dollhouse is going to have a great success this Season 2 and I am confident there will be a Season 3. It will out perform TSCC in ratings, revenue and viewership which is why it was renewed.

~Lanie~

Won’t work though, a lot of TSCC fans absolutely *hate* Dollhouse and bash it in any way they can. Hell, they bash _me_ at the wiki because I dare to like Dollhouse. Or are you saying other fandoms also fall for your crap? Well, even if that’s the case, this won’t work for another reason: Even if Summer will appear on the show (not a given at all, read the ling squiggleslash provided), she will NOT play a doll. The least you could do is read Joss’ words on the matter.

But, to answer your question, yes, it is too greedy! Nielsen doesn’t want this data published regularly, and certainly not in the bulk/detail you are asking for. And all DVR info, including all broadcast and cable shows and also 18-49 increases…I don’t blame Nielsen for not allowing that to be published freely.

BTW, I’m not sure we’ll be able to publish ANY regular “top” lists of DVR data when the fall comes, but will be happy if we can even post even the top 20 regularly. I know that won’t satisfy the folks like you who are extremely curious. If it makes you feel any better, we didn’t see the cable data.

“Summer Glau will apear at some point in Season 2 of Dollhouse. It will boost the ratings huge and will be followed by a ‘Fan Fueled Fued’ real or inagined, between Summer Glau and Eliza Dushku over who is the ‘Alpha Doll’”

It would be more kewl if they could separate the audience into putative FOREX traders and those who invest in rare pennies, no?

~Lanie~

Top 20 Viewers Live+7
Rank Programs Net Persons Live (000s) Persons Live+SD (000s) Persons Live+7 (000s) Same Day DVR Viewers (000s) Total DVR Viewers (000s) % of All Viewing By DVR % of DVR Viewing On Airdate
1 AMERICAN IDOL-WEDNESDAY FOX 22,432 25,532 26,878 3,100 4,446 16.5% 69.7%
2 AMERICAN IDOL-TUESDAY FOX 21,368 24,743 26,308 3,375 4,940 18.8% 68.3%
3 DANCING WITH THE STARS ABC 18,601 19,767 20,402 1,166 1,801 8.8% 64.7%
4 CSI CBS 16,501 17,432 19,151 931 2,650 13.8% 35.1%
5 NCIS CBS 15,729 16,804 17,989 1,075 2,260 12.6% 47.6%
6 MENTALIST, THE CBS 15,413 16,290 17,668 877 2,255 12.8% 38.9%
7 DANCING W/STARS RESULTS ABC 15,481 16,315 16,880 834 1,399 8.3% 59.6%
8 NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL NBC 16,001 16,248 16,271 247 270 1.7% 91.5%
9 DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES ABC 12,944 14,441 15,869 1,497 2,925 18.4% 51.2%
10 TWO AND A HALF MEN CBS 13,218 14,113 15,095 895 1,877 12.4% 47.7%
11 CRIMINAL MINDS CBS 12,873 13,715 15,067 842 2,194 14.6% 38.4%
12 GREY’S ANATOMY-THU 9PM ABC 11,500 12,891 14,785 1,391 3,285 22.2% 42.3%
13 CSI: MIAMI CBS 12,729 13,173 14,304 444 1,575 11.0% 28.2%
14 60 MINUTES CBS 13,671 14,143 14,292 472 621 4.3% 76.0%
15 SURVIVOR: GABON CBS 11,416 12,914 13,810 1,498 2,394 17.3% 62.6%
16 HOUSE FOX 10,306 11,906 13,622 1,600 3,316 24.3% 48.3%
17 CSI: NY CBS 12,163 12,529 13,500 366 1,337 9.9% 27.4%
18 WITHOUT A TRACE CBS 11,756 12,049 13,023 293 1,267 9.7% 23.1%
19 SURVIVOR: TOCANTINS CBS 10,408 12,105 12,997 1,697 2,589 19.9% 65.5%
20 24 FOX 9,557 11,182 12,741 1,625 3,184 25.0% 51.0%

Top 20 Adults 18-49 ratings Live +7
Rank Programs Net 18-49 Live (rating) 18-49 Live+SD (rating) 18-49 Live+7 (rating) Increase From DVR Viewing % of All Viewing By DVR % of DVR Viewing On Airdate
1 AMERICAN IDOL-WEDNESDAY FOX 7.75 9.24 9.85 27% 21% 71%
2 AMERICAN IDOL-TUESDAY FOX 7.49 9.13 9.84 31% 24% 70%
3 NBC SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL NBC 6.02 6.15 6.16 2% 2% 93%
4 DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES ABC 4.38 5.15 5.84 33% 25% 53%
5 GREY’S ANATOMY-THU 9PM ABC 4.01 4.76 5.72 43% 30% 44%
6 HOUSE FOX 3.82 4.62 5.45 43% 30% 49%
7 CSI CBS 4.15 4.55 5.30 28% 22% 35%
8 LOST ABC 3.33 4.24 5.17 55% 36% 49%
9 TWO AND A HALF MEN CBS 4.30 4.71 5.12 19% 16% 50%
10 DANCING WITH THE STARS ABC 4.19 4.65 4.89 17% 14% 66%
11 OFFICE NBC 3.10 4.01 4.86 57% 36% 52%
12 SURVIVOR: GABON CBS 3.49 4.20 4.64 33% 25% 62%
13 OT, THE FOX 4.37 4.45 4.45 2% 2% 100%
14 HEROES NBC 2.90 3.58 4.44 53% 35% 44%
15 24 FOX 2.92 3.65 4.33 48% 33% 52%
16 SURVIVOR: TOCANTINS CBS 3.06 3.84 4.30 41% 29% 63%
17 RULES OF ENGAGEMENT CBS 3.57 3.91 4.23 18% 16% 52%
18 BACHELOR, THE ABC 3.52 3.97 4.19 19% 16% 67%
19 FRINGE FOX 3.09 3.54 4.17 35% 26% 42%
20 BIGGEST LOSER 7 NBC 3.30 3.80 4.15 26% 20% 59%

While I was being very sarcastic about the “Summer Glau Exterminator” remark I am very serious when I say the following

Summer Glau will apear at some point in Season 2 of Dollhouse. It will boost the ratings huge and will be followed by a “Fan Fueled Fued” real or inagined, between Summer Glau and Eliza Dushku over who is the “Alpha Doll”

Especially if you have an unamed blogger with a reputation for stirring up fans were to promote it.

Thats my prediction for Dollhouse Season 2.

~Lanie~

…”but we didn’t honestly go into the season going, ‘Now how can we figure out how to service Summer?’ when we already have a huge ensemble. I adore Summer and she’s phenomenal, but I have to service the cast I have first. If something comes up that’s good enough, my God, I’d hound her. But the rumors of her becoming a big part of the show are greatly exaggerated.”