FOX Blesses ‘Dollhouse’ With Friday Death Slot
Friday, November 7th, 2008
Well, I think the worst thing that could possibly happen (next to not airing at all) has happened for Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse.
Originally sceduled to debut midseason on Monday Nights with hit show 24, Dollhouse has now been given a Friday night slot, which is notoriously bad for television shows. In fact, the last sci-fi series FOX has launched successfully in that time slot was 1993’s The X-Files.
Also moving to Fridays is FOX’s Terminator: The Sarah Conor Chronicles, whose ratings have plummeted since last season.
Terminator: The Sarah Conor Chronicles gets the 8pm slot, followed by Dollhouse at 9pm. Dollhouse premieres Friday, February 13th at 9pm.
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The only good thing about this is that Terminator won’t conflict with Chuck anymore. Now I’ll be able to watch it when it airs.
Wow, they REALLY don’t want this show to do well apparently.
If anything could make it, its Joss Whedon’s new show. The problem with most shows that premeire on Firday is that they do so with no publicity. a Joss Whedon show has a built-in fanbase. Albiet, its not a very large fanbase, but a lot more then a B-level comdiean’s new sitcom would have.
The other thing to remember that even though Fox has not had a hit on Friday’s there are shows that do well on Friday’s. Friday Night Lights, Battlestar Gallactica, and Ghost Whisperer all do very well so it is not out of the question Dollhouse actually succeeding.
Don’t know if I’d use Friday Night Lights as an example considering it had pretty poor ratings last year and is being held until Jan. or so before it airs (it’s airing only on DirectTv now).
But Ghost Whisperer and Numb3rs does well on Friday. And I think Life (NBC) did well enough on Friday this season to move it to Wednesday.
Here’s hoping they don’t air it out of order like they did Firefly and they give it a chance. I think SCC and Dollhouse together is a good pairing at least, but I wish they’d pair at least one with American Idol to help ratings.
And with this economy Fox probably won’t be too patient with either Sarah Conner or Dollhouse, imho. Both seem like kind of expensive (especially SCC) shows to make.
No, already this seems to be going the path of Dushku’s last venture Tru Calling. But I agree with TNN that with Whedon’ fanbase it is possible.
P.S. On a Whedon-related sidenote, did anyone else catch the Buffy reference in Fable 2?
This doesn’t give me great confidence in Fox, not that I’ve ever had much. I like the pairing with T:SCC, but their ratings aren’t wonderful so it doesn’t bring big numbers with it.
I just hope they give Dollhouse a chance to find a fanbase and not cancel after three episodes. Drive anyone?
I think part of the reason Terminator’s ratings have been lower is because they tried to put it in a very competitive timeslot. When you are up against Chuck and Dancing With the Stars, it will be fairly tough to get the ratings. Plus, you’ve also got Gossip Girl and the Big Bang Theory/How I Met Your Mother duo in the same timeslot as well. There’s a lot of potentially geeky stuff in the same period, and the potential audience for Terminator isn’t quite as diverse as some of these other shows. I think it has suffered in the ratings because of this competition.
I know I haven’t watched it “live” since the first couple weeks when nothing was on against it. I’ve chosen to watch Chuck instead, and I catch up with Terminator online. I think the pairing of Dollhouse and Terminator is a good one, and I hope they advertise this well in advance. The timeslot isn’t traditionally a good one, but let’s hope it can overcome that, and both shows don’t suffer for it.