I’m going to go with a 0.8. Slightly down on last week, but with the better “first five minutes” and with Dushku doing the talk show circuit this week (albeit only two shows, and with Jimmy Fallon being the only one where they discussed the show – and who the hell watches Jimmy Fallon? Aside from people who want to watch him get his ass kicked. Which Dushku did. So it might have worked. Maybe), it might not have fallen as far as it could have done.

I’m hopeful that that is true and that this morning’s numbers don’t give them any reason to rethink that.

In general, there are no new, big broadcast TV hits. If they’re new, they’re not big. If they’re big, they’re not new.

Although maybe Big Bang Theory is the closest thing out there. It’s in its third season, and it’s big. I can’t think of another example.

“Too low, Boris. 0.7.”

If only the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists “got it,” there would be no need for speculation.

“Even though Fringe is in ‘Orange’, it has a ZERO chance of being cancelled.

“Dollhouse, who knows?? Trying to apply the normal rules to this show is pointless.”

Uh-huh.

Lanie Grace says:
August 29th, 2009 at 9:27 pm

“Dollhouse will Rock the Grindhouse with Summer Glau in it and will get a renewal for a back set of episodes.”

I take it the “normal rules” are limited to describing the odd case in which you happen to blunder into a correct prognostication.

Dollhouse, who knows?? Trying to apply the normal rules to this show is pointless.

~Lanie~

“Nobodies watching House for the medical mysteries…”

I wouldn’t go *that* far: http://www.politedissent.com/house_pd.html

“Lie To Me I think has the same potential to be for lack of a better description a character driven procedural where the stories aren’t as important as the characters and their interactions at which point the B stories can be phased out a little. Lie To Me has the potential to grow into a big hit if Fox are patient with it.”

This indeed is the crux of the matter. The proposition does depend on the audience being willing to sample the program, though. It would seem that at some point, House will have exhausted its ability to induce this outcome, so I’m not so sure that “24″ per se is apropos.

Brothers was a shockingly funny sit-com. Way better than Do Not Disturb or ‘Til Death. Still, it’s good it’s getting canned.

When I say Lie To Me has the potential to be the ‘next House’ its has nothing to with the timeslot or even the promotion of the show, its all about the creative set up of the show which is also why I think the House/Lie To Me combo is a brilliant idea that Fox should stick with even at the expense of 24. Unfortunately they won’t.

If you look back at the early days of House it was very focused on the ‘disease of the week’ concept and the idea that it should be a medical mystery show but as the characters became bedded in the ‘disease of the week’ concept faded into the background in favour of character arcs and the character interactions. Nobodies watching House for the medical mysteries they’re watching House for House and the rest of the cast. I think Lie To Me has the exact same potential, even the A/B story set up doesn’t worry me because again look at House and how the clinic cases have been reduced dramatically in recent times.

Lie To Me I think has the same potential to be for lack of a better description a character driven procedural where the stories aren’t as important as the characters and their interactions at which point the B stories can be phased out a little. Lie To Me has the potential to grow into a big hit if Fox are patient with it.

Not so much, no. They’ve already gone on record as saying that the parallel dimension in Fringe wasn’t planned to be revealed until Season 3.

So if someone is wondering why Fringe seemed so great in the second half of last year – that’s because they compressed two and a half seasons of mythos into those ~8 episodes (and largely cut out the monster-of-the-week episodes to make room).

(Abrams has had nothing to do with Lost since the first half of Season 1. And Alias had quite a bit of plot rearrangement as well, mainly due to pregnancies and the like.)

They put Fringe there because they know it’s a strong show, and it’s the only way they can compete at all on the night.

They could also put 24 there next year… that could help their numbers!

I don’t think Fringe will be canceled but they might want to move to another night next season. I can see it going Monday at chip away at ABC and NBC does not have a chance unless they can come with something that ticks their numbers up. CBS will be hard to take out now with Chuck Lorie’s sitcoms taking that hour.

I hope that there will some miracle occuring on Friday so “Döllhouse” can live on. Unlikely, I know.

Everyone wins. Fox makes a small amount of money off of the sale, and viewers get to see the entire story arc.

I remember back on the days when Veronica Mars was on and touted as the greatest thing since sliced bread, I tried several times to pick up the show and got bored to tears each time because I hadn’t watched from the start and couldn’t understand what was going on because the story arcs were so complicated. It wasn’t till I went to the trouble of getting the dvds and watching the show from the start did I appreciate it. Dollhouse, sadly, is one of those types of shows unlike a procedural you can just watch off and on. That’s why I don’t believe it’ll ever really catch on with anyone except the core audience it’s already got.

ABC fanatic – I agree with Brothers, Dollhouse, and Til Death but I have more faith that Fringe will get a third year, and if Lie to Me continues doing OK after House it will get a full year but may get shifted to fridays.

I’m sorry, but did JJ really have a five year plan for Alias? It seemed like he might’ve had a plan for it but after the awesome superbowl episode, the whole show changed drastically. He made it seem like he wanted to take the show in a new direction so new viewers wouldn’t feel alienated from the already established arc from the earlier season and a half.

And you can’t tell me he had a 5 year plan for LOST. I refuse to believe that. you know they were making it up as they went along until ABC gave them an end date.

Joss on the other hand did claim he had a five year plan for Dollhouse. Epitaph One is proof of that. I do believe Fringe has a 5 year plan as well. Hope they both get to make it to that point.

Also, I think it would be an embarrassment for DOLLHOUSE to go down before ‘TIL DEATH. Why is that show even still on? Perhaps because ‘TIL DEATH episodes are, for the most part, stand-alones. I guess viewers just have a really hard time remembering what happened last week even with recaps. It’s a sad day when a show with a continuing story line gets canned so that mindless sitcoms can go on.

I don’t think Fringe will get a 3rd season.

Lie to Me is safe.

It kind of reminds me alittle like Bones early seasons, just ok.
I’m sure FOX would like to be able to move LTM after this year, so it can promote something else after HOUSE, and with 24 potentially ending.
Both Fringe and Mentalist got moved this year, so LTM and NCIS:LA got there plum spots.

-You guys posted that BONES was renewed for two more seasons earlier this year.
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/05/16/bones-renewed-for-2009-2010-season/18779
-Same deal for THE SIMPSONS. It got picked up for seasons 21 and 22.
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2009/02/the-simpsons-renewed-for-two-more-seasons-by-fox-.html
-THE CLEVELAND SHOW got picked up for a 13 episode second season before the first episode even aired.
http://www.zap2it.com/tv/news/zap-fox-cleveland-show-season-2-order,0,4833947.story
-FAMILY GUY is renewed through 2012, which is old news not even worth a link.

Maybe Fox should try to establish a second animation domination night on Friday’s. Certainly couldn’t do worse than they do now.

Alex – Im interested to see what will get the post Idol slot tuesdays. Its either Lie to Me or Past Life but 1 is likely to get sent to fridays at 9.

“I still think Lie To Me has the potential to be the next House if Fox sticks with it and shows some patience, all the elements are there it just needs to hit its stride.”

Which elements? Obviously, some people are hanging around after House, but I don’t know anyone who persisted past two or three episodes. The A/B story format certainly doesn’t strike me as an asset.

(Oddly, Fox was running ads for LTM on the local public radio station for a couple of weeks, and I can’t imagine they helped much–”tune in to have the world’s greatest-ever prevarication expert grab you by the seat of your pants!” etc.)

Having said that I’d be amazed if Bones wasn’t (once again) bounced around the schedule in favour of airing some Idol Thursday specials to give Fringe a boost mid season.

Elsewhere on Fox I’ve given up trying to predict what they’re going to do with Dollhouse. I’m sticking to my guns on all 13 episodes seeing the light of day but beyond that I have no freaking clue. The Friday comedies seem to be a lot easier to predict, ‘Til Death will stick around as long as Sony continues to give it away and Brothers will be yanked.

Glee and Bones are both safe baring unforeseen disasters later in the season. And all of the Animation Domination block and House are all locks for next year at this stage as well – don’t Fox already have enough episodes of Cleveland ordered to fill half of a second season? All of which leaves Fox with problems for mid season and next year.

If Human Target and Past Life both hit (and with post-Idol slots they should) and Lie To Me sticks around where the hell do they find space for new shows next year? They’re going to have enough trouble fitting the current slate of shows on at mid season….

I understand that syndication = lots of money. However, I still thought they needed stations/markets to want to pay to air the show in syndication?? Who and how much is someone going to pay for a show that never did well on broadcast and only made it to syndication by basically giving the show away for free?