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Fox executives: We'll leave Dollhouse alone this time
After a series of hiccups during the first season of Fox's Dollhouse series—including scrapping the original pilot—executives of the network today promised they would leave creator Joss Whedon alone during the second season to do his thing.
"[The mandate is] to keep doing what he's doing," Kevin Reilly, president of entertainment for Fox Broadcasting, said in a press conference in Pasadena, Calif., as part of the Television Critics Association summer press tour. "That is really the gift of Joss. Some people can create a good show. Joss was pretty open about those hiccups. I think in the second half of the year, he found the show and started having fun with it. I don't think he was having a lot of fun early on, but he was fantastic to work with all the way through. The fact that he found that, it will be much smoother sailing this year."
Whedon was frank about the development issues, which also included the network's demand for more stand-alone episodes, as well as production halts and rewrites early on.
It came as a bit of a surprise when Fox picked up the low-rated series for a second season, and Reilly credited the fans' "Save Dollhouse" campaign with proving an audience for the show. "You mean on the 'Save Dollhouse' campaign that started before we even started making the Dollhouse episodes?" Reilly joked. "It didn't factor in from a fear place, [but] from a more positive place. Those fans were there every week, they nurtured the show, stuck with it the way other fans don't. Joss he gave us a consistent [demographic] rating that we felt [it deserved] another chance to give it a shot."
The Fox prez also addressed the future of Futurama, Matt Groening and David X. Cohen's animated sci-fi spoof series, which began as a Fox Sunday-night series, was canceled and is being resurrected on Comedy Central. Could Fox pick it up again?
"Well, it's going to do its run on Comedy Central, and [we'll] see how it fares," Reilly said. "It's not unprecedented. That's the Family Guy story. They saw a lot of commercial interest and fan interest. If we see a renaissance with the show—it's a good show, we really like the show—sure [we might pick it up]."
Fox has the option to bid on new Futurama episodes first, but Reilly indicated he won't take advantage of that. "There is a negotiated window," he said. "We've not committed to airing it."
By tati at 2:40 PM ON 08/06/09
They should have left TSCC alone, too...and Firefly..and who knows what else :P
By BillieDoux at 3:12 PM ON 08/06/09
Miracles do happen. Twice! I didn't think it would be renewed, either.
By Bluesman at 3:14 PM ON 08/06/09
About time some one at FOX grew a brain.
By MUADIB at 3:15 PM ON 08/06/09
NOW IF ONLY FOX ()RUPERTS BABY) WOULD LEAVE THE COUNTRY ALONE THING WOULD BE OK.
By drwhat at 3:36 PM ON 08/06/09
Yeah muadib, that will fix everything. In case you cant tell thats sarcasm.
By Muldfeld at 4:06 PM ON 08/06/09
If Fox is the reason those few early episodes I checked out sucked (which caused me to stop watching altogether), then, if Fox leaves the show alone creatively, I will watch when the season premieres. Nice to see some execs have respect for the artists.
By kernel_thai at 4:43 PM ON 08/06/09
Havent posted here in months cause the captcha is so bad.
FOX's announcement today was the cancellation notice for Dollhouse. Sorry. It's too bad cause the show was starting to find its legs. How do I know? It's almost word for word what was said when TSSC was moved to Friday. They werent going to interfere with the shows producers and it would stand on its own merits. La la la.
FOX hasnt grown a brain, its playing with urs. Dollhouse is in the same crap time slot with a worse lead-in. Most of it's audience streams or DVRs the show, which means less than nothing to FOX. FOX is just covering their furry butts for when the ax falls.
By DaHoot at 5:31 PM ON 08/06/09
That's all and very nice of suits the stay out of Joss' work. All I want (and all my friends too) is Firefly to come back to TV. It is so popular now, it would be a huge ratings bonanza for FOX. Why take chances on other new series??? FOX suits need to sit down with Joss and say "the idiots that messed with Firefly and showed episodes out of sequence - well, they're long gone. We are smarter and we want you to bring Firefly back." I hope someday soon that happens!
By gorehound696 at 5:54 PM ON 08/06/09
Fox Sucks and I do not like Dollhouse anyways.Should of cancelled that and left TSCC alone.
By mredder4 at 5:57 PM ON 08/06/09
Have to admit, I'd rather see Futurama on FOX rather than Comedy Central. NOT a fan of limited 13-episode seasons.
Want. More. Futurama.
By jedimom at 6:14 PM ON 08/06/09
oh man that Reilly. The TSCC fan movement was waaaay bigger. They should have left TSCC alone.
By critterdvd at 6:43 PM ON 08/06/09
Okay, I just have to say something about TSCC. I loved the show. Really. Truly. Thought it was the best thing since ANGEL. But as much as I hate to say it I think FOX made the best decision chooses DOLLHOUSE over TSCC. The reason?
TSCC was given two seasons to find an audience. The first episode premiered to more than respectable numbers (I think somewhere in the ballpark of 13 million) and FOX has said they would have been more than happy with 7-8 million viewers. But when the show returns from hiatus the viewers won't there...
First and foremost TV is a commercial industry. When you have a TV show that is being beaten my 'America's Next Top Model' repeats on the CW week after week... there is a problem.
DOLLHOUSE on the other hand, like they keep saying has the potential, and A LOT of fan interest. From all the news stories to the DVD releases the show still has a chance of finding a footing that a show 30-odd episodes into wouldn't stand a chance.
By xdeathknightx at 8:37 PM ON 08/06/09
I hope they keep Futurama on Comedy Central. Fox will just get when it proves to be popular and at the time this popularity drops they will cancel it before you can blink with your eyes.
Fox has started some good series but is so very crap at keeping them alive.
By SighFyeGuy at 10:26 PM ON 08/06/09
If only FOX idiots had had that attitude back when Whedon had Firefly on...I just bought the series on DVD and I almost forgot how much I loved that show. I hate Fox for cancelling it... but maybe Whedon can convince them now to bring it back....?
By ML at 1:40 AM ON 08/07/09
The only reason Dollhouse is coming back, is because FOX got it on the cheap. There's going to be major budget cuts on this show this season.
By Brian at 8:41 AM ON 08/07/09
"Joss he gave us a consistent [demographic] rating that we felt [it deserved] another chance to give it a shot."
It's hard to tell whether the editing helped. In any case, this is gibberish.
By InfiniteMonkey at 11:08 AM ON 08/07/09
I wholeheartedly agree with all the rants about FOX. They just keep making bad decisions and seemingly they are okay with this. That is really tragic. If they (Executives) think they have the best interest of the shows direction, why don't they write it themselves instead of the real writers and creator of the show? Well, we know they can't even begin to know how to do that. Hopefully this is the start of a thawing out process of their freezed out brain functions in the past several bad decisive years. Cheers!
By InfiniteMonkey at 11:12 AM ON 08/07/09
Sci Fi Wire, your captcha tech is defective. There are times when I triple check the characters and it still doesn't submit properly and I have a T1 line. Please check this out.
By Hadden at 6:03 PM ON 08/07/09
The thing is, I have absolutely no confidence in Whedon's ability to tell an extended story. Buffy had some good seasons, but was hit and miss. Angel was fine at the start, and then Whedon ruined it. Firefly was brilliant ... but only because it was cancelled. Whedon was forced to tell that story quickly in Serenity, a wonderful movie, but he couldn't have sustained that over multiple seasons.
Dollhouse started out slowly built on a highly flawed premise and wasn't going anywhere good. I don't expect this reprieve to solve that problem.
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Hadden:
The thing is, I have absolutely no confidence in Whedon's ability to tell an extended story. Buffy had some good se...More »