Not much change from the aggregate fast nationals from 8p-10p where Dollhouse averaged a .7 rating with adults 18-49 and 2.1 million. And though it doesn't matter at all since it's not like they can cancel the show again, it's definitely kind of a downer since the 9pm episode ("The Attic") was one of the better episodes of the series.
Via @TravisYanan
Dollhouse (8pm)
- 2.131 million viewers
- 1.4/3 HH
- 0.7/3 A18-49Dollhouse (9pm)
- 2.058 million viewers
- 1.3/2 HH
- 0.7/2 A18-49
With those costumes, I can only hope that the obvious gambit of belly dancers wasn’t overlooked.
So why did Dollhouse fail to get and keep an audience? I love the show, not sure why it’s such an overwhelming dud in the ratings…
Confusing premise or story arcs?
Bad writing?
Bad cast or characters?
Bad time slot or lack of promotion?
It’s not the type of show that has broad appeal.
It certainly didn’t appeal to this broad.
Dollhouse was an odd premise to me. It essentially made people robots and lets face it sex slaves for profit. I love Eliza but never could get over the whole storyline of the house. I know I am older and old fashioned perhaps but it wasn’t my cup of tea. I love the cast, they are very likable as the characters and I know they will find a spot in another show.
Oh, come on, you could search high and low and never find a person who renounced the watching of Dollhouse by virtue of the “sex slaves” angle.
Well, it’s not like Joss is championing human trafficking. The whole point is that Echo/Caroline is trying to stop it. Not promote the “sex slaves” idea.
‘Dollhouse’, like it’s Ibsen titular antecedent, was simply a concept that was years/generations ahead of its time. In 1878, the feminist core of A Doll’s House was considered an unthinkable heresy to audiences of the Victorian age who thirsted for distracting whimsey.
So too today the plight of Mr. Joss Whedon, always a futurist-leaning dramatist, challenged with trying to pull audiences away from the comfortable landscape of pre-digested ennui that is American primetime television with a triumph of science fiction that is so watershed for its genre.
No show could do good when the network had given up on it before it even premiere. That’s no excuse. I don’t know if Dollhouse would’ve been succesful otherwise, but I know there’s no way it could’ve been with the treatment it received from Fox. Just ask people about Dollhouse. They’re not gonna say it’s a weird show, that they don’t get it. They won’t know what it is. 90% of the population doesn’t even know what Dollhouse is
Kenneth,
As to the all important “why” – the average viewer just can’t take sophisticated dialogues and subtle humour. They want their Chuck, Lost and NCIS. Sad, but true.
Susan, I needed the middle square in the first column in the last card. Bingo!
Kenneth,
I believe and have heard that there were several reasons that it didn’t catch on. Some people genuinely seemed turned off to the show by what they believed to be rape. Some lost interest in the first 5 Episodes of Season 1. Some mentioned displeasure with the acting of Eliza Dusku and/or Tahmoh Penikett. The show was probably a challenge to effectively advertise. Obviously Friday nights are not the day and time when the largest possible audience is available.
But ultimately, the premise did not seem to be one that had widespread appeal and I think that that was the greatest single factor in it’s poor performance. It’s a shame that even though millions of people might enjoy a show that it still is canceled, but that’s been the reality of TV for decades and the hard truth that has had to be faced by hundreds of previous programs.
It’s unfortunate because television shows have the ability to develop characters and settings in a much more profound way than movies can. Many people argue that the premise wasn’t catchy enough, or that the acting wasn’t good enough. Maybe it’s just that people now-a-days want action and drama here and now; juxtapose that to a good book like Crime and Punishment. People want something easily fed to them in a short period because they are too ADD to appreciate the development of a show like Dollhouse. I don’t blame FOX, they at least were making and effort and taking a chance to share something like Dollhouse with a larger audience, but the true interest of the American population shines through.
Dollhouse creator Joss Whedon’s interview with Maureen Dowd sheds a lot of light on the tensions behind the scene. http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/12/dollhouse-fox-joss-whedon.html
Fox backed away from the original concept of exploring people buying what they want/need (sex, emotional fulfillment, etc) in a serial format even before the pilot and tried to turn it into a sort of action-adventure procedural. So the writers basically had to ignore the whole point of the show to please the network, who stuck it in the Friday night slot of death anyway. And the concept itself was hard to explain. Probably 2/3rds of the first season was basically filler, as viewers were given no clue what the show was about. I also don’t think the lead was remotely qualified to handle being up to three totally different characters in a single episode. After the unaired season one finale, which finally showed the point of the show, the series has improved immensely as the lead has improved her acting skills in the second season and the show has become more of an ensemble and relied more on some really talented supporting actors.
Fox, given the ratings, would totally have been justified in canceling Dollhouse after the first season. So props to them for giving us this kickass second season, even if nobody is watching at this point.
Dowd? Shirley you mean Ryan, BT?
And those were two absolutely kick-ass episodes. I don’t give a flying frak about the ratings at this point.
I knew this show was going to be a dud before it even premiered. FOX must have had low expectations for the series since they scheduled it on Friday nights from the begining. Oh well
I don’t think the issue was Eliza’s acting skills. I think the issue was quite simply the ROLE. In season one, she had no consistent identity at all. You can’t do that with the lead character in a show. In season two, Echo has rapidly developed her own personality and become what she should have been since episode one – someone on the outs from the Dollhouse and working to bring it down, with a consistent personality from week to week.
The last four or five episodes – the ones starting with Summer Glay’s appearances – have been excellent but the damage has been done. Although Joss appears to have corrected the most egregious problems season one had, he took too long.
I do find the frequent shifting of Adelle from bad to “good” back to bad back to “good” to be amusing. At the end of last week she’s back to being one of the “Good Guys”. That must be confusing to a lot of viewers.
The end of season two should have been what season one was all about.
I loved that you picked The Tale of Two Victors picture. Whatever happened behind the scenes with Fox or Joss just weary to create a show that is all mythology, I’m just glad these last episodes are so darn good.
Honestly I’ve done the experiement where I introduce my friends to Dollhouse from “Man on The Street” on, needless to say they liked it and doing the whole DVD catch-up thing and trying to catch the last few episodes now.
Interpret that as you wish.