Joss Whedon Back on TV

tokenhillbilly writes "Joss Whedon of 'Buffy' and 'Firefly' fame has signed on to do another TV series on Fox starring Eliza Dushku (Faith from 'Buffy'). The series is going to be called Dollhouse, and the story surrounds a group of people 'programmed' to do missions out of a sort of high-tech dorm. '[The series] follows a top-secret world of people programmed with different personalities, abilities and memories depending on their mission. After each assignment -- which can be physical, romantic or even illegal -- the characters have their memories wiped clean, and are sent back to a lab (dubbed the "Dollhouse"). [The] show centers on Dushku's character, Echo, as she slowly begins to develop some self-awareness, which impacts her missions.'"

Comments

Sounds somewhat like Gunslinger Girl.

[Dorceon]

If the opening is "The Light Before We Land" by The Delgados I'm totally calling foul.

Watch out for episode 3

[LiquidCoooled]

In episode 3 Echo downloads a music track and spends the rest of the episode evading the RIAA.

Not wanting to be overly cynical

[fictionpuss]

But how many episodes before this invariably gets canceled?

Re:Not wanting to be overly cynical

[Sancho]

Here's my rant on this one.

--snip--
The show, however, is going to be on Fox. And Fox has a history of screwing up. A list of my fears:
- The show is called Dollhouse. No one who will be interested in the show is going to see it in their cablebox guide, wonder what it is, turn it on, and get hooked. The people who are going to turn it on and get hooked are 8 year old girls and soccer moms. And maybe people who saw Welcome to the Dollhouse. This means that the show must rely entirely on promotions and word-of-mouth.
- Fox tends to under-promote shows. Fox also tends to move new shows to new timeslots constantly in an effort either to mitigate the damage of an apparently failing show, or to try to get new viewers. Neither of these is good for shows.
- Fox tends to stick genre shows in a dead time slot. Friday nights at 8 is the norm for sci-fi. Every time it happens, I visualize an executive at Fox saying, "Hey, this is a show for geeks. Geeks have nothing better to do on a Friday night than to watch TV. Let's not clutter up the schedule by putting this somewhere where it might get a wider audience, let's just toss it on Friday." They also forget that geeks tend to DVR shows or buy them on iTunes/Unbox/Video-Site-du-Jour. This is a deadly combination that leads to devastating viewership when combined with a crappy rating system like Nielson.
- It's Joss Whedon and Tim Minnear. They are cursed when it comes to Fox.
- It's Joss Whedon. He commands a fairly high salary, and Dushku probably does too. The show sounds like it's going to be rampant with special effects and stunt work. This means it's going to be way more expensive than your typical hour-long drama, much less a reality show that could fill the same spot and rake in tons more money.
- Did I mention that it's called Dollhouse?
--snip--

I'm wary of this one. Joss tends to have good writing, even if you don't care for the content itself. He's smart, snappy, and witty. But there's a lot going against this show, and I'm not sure it's going to last much longer than the last Tim Minear project on Fox.

Just extrapolate

[benhocking]

First data point: Buffy
Second data point: Firefly
...
...extrapolating...
...
This show has already been canceled.

Re:Just extrapolate

[Belgand]

So is it also the same (as far as personnel go) as it was when they canceled Arrested Development in spite of it's many, many Emmys?

Even with Firefly they only showed about seven episodes, out-of-order, and crushed it. They also canceled Family Guy, Futurama... need I go on?

Fox is just plain notorious for canceling excellent shows with a strong fanbase. I'd think that after his terrible treatment last time he'd know better than to even consider working with them. Go to somebody like the CW who at least let Buffy run for a damn long time and are desperate enough for something good to keep them afloat.

What also isn't going to help it is the name. Much like Firefly/Serenity had a name that made a lot of sense to you if you already knew the story this promises to be a case where only fans will understand the name. Everyone else will likely not be interested in the program based on the name alone and will avoid it. I mean, if I didn't already know the reasoning and that Joss was behind it I'd probably have little to no interest in a show called "Dollhouse". Hell, I'd probably assume it was some lame new reality show.

Glad to see Whedon is doing something new...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's refreshing to see a new series by Joss where the main character is not a girl with superhuman martial art abilities taking on nearly unsurmountable tasks while not being aware of the subtle manipulations of an unknown dark and nefarious nemesis.... Oh wait.

Oh not you don't , asshole

[geekoid]

I am NOT going to watch another show just to see the best, most clever, smartest and funniest person die.

SPOILER for Buffy Finale

[AceCaseOR]

You mean Anya, right?

He's like an abused spouse

[Steeltalon]

Sooner or later there needs to be an intervention and his friends and family need to tell him that, no matter what it says, Fox doesn't really love him.

Re:He's like an abused spouse

[unsigned integer]

Fox: "Come on home baby. This time it will be different. We won't cancel you halfway this time. We'll change."

Whedon: "I'm in a co-dependant relationship with Fox ... I have no choice but to go back, for the sake of the children."

Re:He's like an abused spouse

[Frogbert]

Exactly, I fully believe that one could create a very successful company based solely on continuing production of the shows Fox cancels.

Re:Joss Whedon and Fox

[thittesd0375]

Or it was Universal that made the film and Fox had nothing to do with it.

Re:Not a troll

[Phroggy]

Buffy was painful, but funny enough that I enjoyed it anyway, and the crazy stuff they did (an episode without dialog, an episode without music, an episode with the dialog in Swedish, an Rodgers & Hammerstein style over-the-top musical, a dream sequence where a character is walking between sets in ways that seem impossible, killing a regular character in the middle of a season, introducing a new character who "had always been there" with no explanation whatsoever until several episodes later, etc. etc.) is what made me a big fan.

Angel was just as painful, but tried to take itself way too seriously. Had good moments, but nothing that really hooked me. Firefly was brilliant.

Hit and miss with me.

[pavon]

All his shit feels the same and looks the same I can't agree with this, as I have reacted differently to everything he has done. Roseanne, Buffy, and Firefly are each very different shows.

I was always fairly indifferent to Roseanne, it was funny sometimes, and annoying sometimes, but for the most part didn't do much for me. But what people did like about it was that it was very down to earth and completely non-PC. Then you have Buffy, which was practically the opposite. The dialog, while often irreverent, was delivered in a very liberal-arts pseudo-intellectual manner, which I absolutely hated. And then he turns around and makes Firefly. I absolutely loved that show - the premise, the characters, the mix of comedy and emotion, everything.

But most importantly, none of those shows were the standard run-of-the-mill sitcom - they all did something different, some of which I liked, some of which I didn't. My impression of Joss is that he is a good writer that takes risks, unlike most of the formulaic crap on TV. His type of writing will never appeal to everyone all the time, but the people who do like it *love* it. I'd much rather have more of that on television, and so I'm curious to see what he does with this new show.

Re:Another show about some "company"

[SydShamino]

How many malevolent companies/groups/governments/cabals can we be expected to tolerate.

Given how many we tolerate in Real Life, I expect we'll tolerate a bunch more of them on TV.

No extrapolation needed

[fm6]

You're making a joke (and not a bad one), but you pretty much describe what happened to Firefly. The decision to buy the show came from a top, but there was a huge faction at Fox that hated the idea of putting on an "anti-Star Trek" and did everything they could to sabotage it. These are your standard network suits who hate Science Fiction (especially "space opera") because it costs a lot to produce and only targets a narrow audience. They much prefer reality shows and sitcoms, which are cheap and popular.

They did a lot of stuff that at the time I attributed to simple corporate ineptitude, like promoting the show with really badly designed web site, and putting out this really horrible souvenir poster (featuring a common housefly with a lightbulb up its ass!). Then they forced Whedon to water down the scripts, showed them out of order, and finally scheduled the premier on a night where it was sure to be delayed in many markets by late-running baseball games. I usually hate conspiracy theories (speaking as a former "conspirator") but here it's hard to avoid having one.

On top of all that, Joss Whedon is notoriously bad at corporate politics. So yeah, it's quite possible that his new show has already been cancelled.

SPOILER for Serenity now

[roystgnr]

This is just speaking for myself, but that ending was one of the very few times I've truly felt fear and suspense in an action movie. The standard trope goes something like: "Every one of Our Heroes is in mortal peril, and maybe the show plays it up by killing a Red Shirt, but you know that nobody you care about is going to bite it because they've got to be here for the next episode." Serenity was: "One fantastic character was actually killed, now another one's killed... dear God, this 'everybody might die' scene might actually end with everybody dying!"

If there had been a serious chance at bringing Firefly back to TV then I wouldn't think losing Book and Wash was worth the loss of Book and Wash, but for the movie's sake it was the right artistic choice to make.

fuck Nielsen

[Scrameustache]

Just what I was thinking. I like most of Whedon's projects, but the guy sure knows how to whine. I mean, I wish Firefly hadn't been canceled too, but c'mon, it cost a million bucks an episode to make and it was unpopular It wasn't unpopular, it wasn't aired when it was supposed to.
"Firefly, fridays at 8", nope, it's baseball. Worse, it's baseball with an ad at 8:15 for firefly at 8. I kept fox on mute all night while I surfed the web... you know when firefly came on? Me neither, but it was after midnight, because I checked at midnight, and at around 12:10 I realized it was on.
The next week, it wasn't on yet at 12:10, but it came on later (mute, web).
They claim they canceled it because it got bad ratings, but they killed it. On purpose (showed the episodes out of order, including "to be continued" episodes, aired the first episode last, skipped weeks, changed the airtime without any notice, etc.).
So fuck you and your willingness to accept the official story, hook, line and sinker.