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Joss Whedon, writer and creator of awesomeness such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and most recently Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog has a new show in the pipeline, Dollhouse. The bad news? It doesn't start until February, and many are already predicting Dollhouse's demise. The good news, though, is that it is filming now, and people are already writing about it on the internet!
Dollhouse is set in the future, where a secret group of scientists have engineered "actives" or "dolls," people who can have memories and personalities added to and subtracted from so that they can be hired to perform tasks. When the dolls return to the "Dollhouse" or laboratory, they are wiped clean and start over. Dollhouse stars Eliza Dushku, who Buffy fans will remember as "Faith." Of course, this raises ethical issues with some who catch wind of this organization.
In addition to the excitement of seeing what missions the actives will go on every week, an F.B.I. agent hellbent on chasing down what most think of as an urban legend relentlessly pursues the truth about the organization. I'm very excited that the agent is played by Tahmoh Penikett, who was one of the highlights of Battlestar Galactica as Karl Agathon (Helo). Check out the trailer for Dollhouse at the official site and get your (optional) frothing on.
What bloggers are concerned about at this point is that Dollhouse, which promises to be awesome for fans of Whedon's style and the sci-fi/action genre is that Fox is placing it in the same timeslot as Firefly. Many believe that Firefly, which, worryingly to fans was also sci-fi, could not pick up an audience because of its Friday-night ghettoization. Club Jade worries that Dollhouse has other problems, such as the fact that it will compete with Clone Wars on the SciFi Channel.
Fox's scheduler Preston Beckman defends this strategy, responding to concerns with:
“If we put it on Monday and it didn’t do well, we might have to yank it,” he said. But because Fox’s winter lineup should be solid on Saturday through Thursday nights, “We can afford to let these shows run their course. We can give them 12 or 13 weeks to find an audience.”
Fair enough, says Ian Blessing of Dollrific, but:
The biggest downside to Dollhouse's Friday shift isn't the night's low viewership—that'll either be overcome or it won't, based on the show's merit and word-of-mouth buzz—but rather the drastically lower advertising budget a Friday night show typically receives. A couple months ago I imagined Dollhouse receiving the Fringe treatment: constant radio, TV, and billboard spots. Now that Fox has thrown Dollhouse to Friday to see if it "surprises" them, this seems highly unlikely.
Sarah from Sarah, Et Cetera is reliably on hand to provide snark on these matters. Here's what Sarah says about the February/Friday night announcement:
So, let’s review:
* Joss Whedon’s new show Dollhouse is dystopic sci-fi with ass-kicking chicks. This may feel conceptually familiar to you.
* Dollhouse will air on Fox.
* Fox didn’t want to air it in the fall when most networks traditionally rush out all their “good” shows. Fox is different.
* Fox didn’t like the original pilot. After they saw it, they asked Whedon to make another one. We can only assume he and Minear banged it out over a weekend with three things in mind:
1. Shoot it so Carey Meyer takes a pratfall off a moving vehicle.
2. Make it clear that Eliza Dushku is both badass and extremely moral.
3. Act 3 needs to be really long and talky and introduce a bunch of guns because this show is gonna last, baby! Yeah! Seven seaons! \m/!!!
* As soon as they started shooting, there was a production shutdown. It’s raaaaain! On your wedding day! It’s a free riiiiide! Oh, wait… not ironic. File under “big series of bummers.”
* Production resumes and they send out a press release about the premiere date of the show: FRIDAY, February 13th. There is not enough “INORITE” in the known universe
