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Four Reasons why Dollhouse might be Renewed

Four Reasons why Dollhouse might be Renewed

Joss Whedon’s eagerly awaited return to television through FOX’s Dollhouse has been seriously impacted by a Friday night death-slot, reviews describing it as lackluster, dubious fans, and low television ratings.
But hope is not lost as the show might still be renewed by the notoriously-fickle network.
Here are four reasons why I believe Dollhouse could still be renewed for a second season.

Reason 1 : Fourth Media Dilemma
Sure, TV ratings were atrocious last week, and fairly disappointing last night, but to be fair, we’re talking Friday nights here, also known as the death slot. Meanwhile, Dollhouse iTunes sells are skyrocketing, pushing the show from the nineteenth place to the number one spot in a little over two days (#1 on Monday evening). People are actually paying en masse to watch the show, when it’s available for free on Hulu and other outlets. Dollhouse is a FOX-produced show (unlike The Sarah Connor Chronicles), so being in-house means they should in theory also count iTunes sells, among others, in the renewal decision. This really puts FOX into a corner regarding the future of the show, and ultimately television. The networks must realize that a series being a fast-seller on iTunes doesn’t mean it is going to harm TV ratings, on the contrary, it allows people who couldn’t tune in the previous week to catch-up. In the long run, it might even help boost the TV audience, or at least keep it stable, a thing FOX hasn’t been able to do in years regarding the Friday slot. Adding to Nielsen ratings DVR, DVT, DVD, iTunes and Hulu numbers should show that this is a cycle, underlining the real potential of Dollhouse and not what the other mediums keep from television. So, yes, Dollhouse is probably the first example of the “Fourth Media Dilemma”: if a show is a success on the Internet but not on TV, should said show be canceled/renewed based on an outdated and obsolete rating system, given a second TV chance, or jump platform altogether?

Reason 2 : Pity renewal
By canceling Firefly, FOX unwittingly created a massive fan movement for the show, the Browncoats. Hopefully, the network has learned the lesson, and may even try to bank on it, keeping Dollhouse long enough for a fan movement of its own to be created (“The Dollers” anyone?). For once they might want to try nurturing the geeks instead of crushing their hopes and dreams: a “pity renewal” one might say. And instead of getting completely different viewers by replacing Dollhouse with another pilot, say, a cop show, or a girly drama, FOX may try to keep fans’ cash flowing into their pockets and let the series grow to become a cult show, and ultimately “Must-See” TV for any self-respecting geek. A renewal would also ensure a Comic-Con panel that will surely bring in massive attention to the show, and secure dubious potential viewers that waited to see if the show would be renewed or not.

Reason 3 : Eliza Dushku
A self-explanatory reason. Her presence in various magazines, photo shoots, talk-shows, websites, etc. (before, during and after the season) intrigues potential new viewers and allows the male viewership to stay interested in the show and, let’s just say, “invested” in it. Buffy the Vampire Slayer stayed alive during its first couple of years (at least) thanks to Sarah Michelle Gellar’s sex-appeal, so why not Dollhouse with Eliza Dushku’s?

Reason 4 : Geek appeal and Joss
Geek is chic. You know it, they know it. Joss Whedon has a great geek appeal, why do you think the show was ordered in the first place? On a simple log line? Whedon has a brand, Whedon is a brand. Lost will soon be gone, so is Battlestar Galactica, and Heroes is just not what it used to be. Except for Flash Forward and a couple of other shows, sci-fi television is unlikely to be as present next year, with loads of procedural replacing current series. Save for Fringe, Dollhouse, if renewed, would probably be the main science-fiction show on the major nets, also giving Joss the chance to perfect the flawed show in time for geeks (and others) to join in massively. Despite some negative reviews regarding the pilot, the second episode was much better, and Whedon can tighten the ship and go full steam ahead on the mythology and characters.

Hope is not lost yet, and the ball is in FOX’s court.
Only three things we can do: Watch, Wait, and See.

Is the future…

… of animation here?
Possibly.

But in other “future of entertainment” news, there’s a new kid on the block.
After Hulu, meet TheWB.com.

What’s that?
Oh no, the network is indeed six feet under (for 2 years now), but the brand is coming back…on the web.
On August 27, the site will launch (unfortunately only for US-based peeps, thank you geo-blocking). It is currently in Beta (as you can see by the flash vid above).

What is interesting to note is that, other than showing “known shows” like Buffy, Angel, Friends, The O.C., Smallville, Gilmore Girls, and Roswell, there will be a whole lot of original content. That’s right, shows specially developed for the web, and for the website, also aimed at the “youth demographic”. And we’re not talking about products made by nobodies, unless Josh Schwartz (among others) is unknown to you. But if that’s the case, what are you doing here reading about “youth demographic”.
It probably won’t be as good as The Doc, but it clearly shows that the future of TV is, at the very least, strongly linked to the Internet.

Welcome to the world of tomorrow.

The Dark Hero

The Dark Hero

I finally saw last night The Dark Knight.

I had not a lot to do yesterday actually.
I went to that American bookstore. I was disapointed by the small choice of books they had. W.H. Smith is so much better if you ever need an anglophone bookstore in Paris.
I bought a book I’ve been wanting to read for a long time now, The Road by Cormy McCarthy (you know, the guy that wrote No Country for Old Men).
I went over to the movie theatre to see when TDK was showing… I had 2 hours to kill.
Long story short I came back to the theatre over an hour before TDK was supposed to be shown. I bought my ticket (7 euros/11 dollars, ouch) and waited in front of the movie theatre. 20 minutes later, a dozen of people had already morphed into somewhat of a queue in front of the movie theatre. We were fortunately allowed to wait inside. Half an hour later, the queue had grown to over 200 people.
It should be noted that TDK just came out yesterday here in France.
I think there were even more people waiting to see a “normal” screening of TDK than there was for the premiere of Cloverfield I went to the day before it came out!

I came out of the theatre ecstatic.
It was amazing!

But why I am talking about that now?
Well for once because I might become amnesiac.
And more importantly because, yet again, it got me thinking. Yes, I think about stuff, deal with it.

It especially got me thinking about a post I read a while back about (super)heroes and their flaws.
I believe TDK correlates directly to that idea, especially for both Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent.
To make a hero believable, we need him/her to be flawed. We need him/her to have limits. We need him/her to be vincible.
Bruce Wayne is a human that becomes a vigilante at night. But he is still a human behind his (too-much-technologically-advanced) suit. This is reminded to us early on in the movie when he is bit by a rottweiler (physical failing).

What is interesting to see is that Bruce Wayne can be faillible as a human (at least to the audience) but Batman, the facade, must be invincible. The emotional failing that is Rachel towards Bruce Wayne is absent in Batman (I’m talking here in the POV of the Gotham people, not the audience), to avoid an obvious correlation between the two, and therefore Batman’s identity being revealed. The Joker quickly finds the emotional weak spot of Batman/Wayne and exploits it brilliantly when he forces Batman/Wayne to make a choice between the woman he loves (Rachel) or “a greater good” (Dent). Knowing that Batman/Wayne will choose Rachel instead of Dent, the Joker “mixes up” the address, leading Batman/Wayne to save Dent (the Joker’s “Ace”).
The hero ultimately overcomes his personal failures and realizes that the facade must become a scapegoat in order for the legacy of Dent to continue. This realisation incidently is induced by Lucius Fox’s comments (in the role of the mentor).
On the other hand, we have Harvey Dent. Unlike the “superhero”, he doesn’t overcome his flaws and therefore becomes a villain. Like Bruce Wayne, this white knight has problems of his own; after all, he is also human. He is a hero to Gotham City as well as Batman’s glimmer of hope for a normal life, but his nobleness is actually a facade as well, as he is easily manipulated towards his other flaw (besides Rachel), that is “the luck of the draw”. Like Batman, he relies on what he believes in, although when what he loves is taken away from him, unlike Batman, he goes beyond his values and is consumed by vengeance, therefore becoming what he was fighting against all along.

Examples of flawed heroes (and therefore believable heroes) can be found now everywhere in fiction:
Tony Stark must overcome his physical problems to become what he wants to be.
The next volume of Heroes, Villains, will most likely delve into the dark side of some of the heroes.
The James Bond franchise successfully reinvented itself by giving Bond real flaws that could be really exploited by his ennemies. This will be directly seen in the next Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, when Bond, for the first time impacted by the events that have transpired in the previous movie, goes in a blood-filled quest for vengeance (the trailer says it all).
Buffy “The Slayer” Summers is also a faillible hero that goes to “dark places” in seasons 5 and 6.
Willow Rosenberg can be compared to Harvey Dent, especially at the end of season 6. When they both lost their loved ones, they both went to the only refuge and haven that was left for them: magic for one, luck for the other.

In a realistic setting, the line between a hero and a villain is ultimately a small one. A flawed hero can easily be tempted to “cross the line”.
Those flaws is what helps us identify to our heroes.