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Four Reasons why Dollhouse will be Cancelled

Four Reasons why Dollhouse will be Cancelled

As promised, here is my follow-up article to my previous Four Reasons why Dollhouse might be Renewed. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that Whedon’s Dollhouse is going to be gone soon, and there’s nothing we can do about it.
Okay, that may not exactly be what is going to happen, but if we’re facing the harsh and bitter reality, FOX, the “notoriously-fickle” network, is often going one-way with shows that are not instant hits.
It’s hard, but here are four reasons why I believe Dollhouse will get cancelled.

Reason 1 : Ratings The most obvious reason on this list: ratings are bad, real bad. Only 3.6 million viewers tuned in last Friday, the same numbers as for The Sarah Connor Chronicles season (series?) finale. The rest is pretty much straightforward: in the conventional TV world, bad ratings mean no renewal. And if you’re thinking of a pity renewal just there, Dollhouse as of yet still does not have as strong a following as Firefly has, so a pity renewal has yet to be seen regarding fanbase. Though the numbers have been steady, they are, at the end of the day, very weak, and weak is not good.

Reason 2 : Death Slot This reason is quite self-explanatory. It’s no secret that Friday is also known as the death slot. Movies open on Fridays, people like to go out on Friday nights, almost no one is left to watch some TV. And when you combine Friday night with FOX, you get cancellation. Take a look at the 20 shows that were in this same death slot and were subsequently cancelled in the last 10 years, or just ask Firefly and Wonderfalls. Friday nights on FOX have always been the place where shows go to die in pain. Also, Tim Minear is producing the show, and we all know that Fox and Minear do not compute.

Reason 3 : Slow on the Uptale Last time we were here discussing in length the Dollhouse, I was talking about something I called the “Fourth Media Dilemma”. Picking up for a second season Dollhouse, despite its atrocious ratings and FOX’s precedents regarding the death slot, would mean in some way recognizing the (good) iTunes and Hulu numbers of the show, and therefore officially giving some power to the Internet, or at least acknowledging it. I doubt FOX execs have the balls to give some credit to the Internet just yet and basically vet the Fourth Media in relation to a TV show’s fate. TV execs are known to be “slow on the uptake”, or at the very least having a hard time acknowledging new technologies and new forms of content. This is basically no different, if not greater than that. A renewal would mean showing faith in iTunes sales, and this is a one-way leap of faith. Is FOX really ready to take that step?

Reason 4 : Direct-to-DVD Last Thursday was announced that the “real” first (and only?) season finale of Dollhouse would only be available on DVD and not be shown on FOX, à la Middleman (although there the finale wasn’t actually produced, albeit available only in comic-book format). The official reason behind such a move is because FOX has already fulfilled its 13-episode order via the pilot’s reshooting. Tim Minear explained this better:

Because we scrapped the original pilot — and in fact cannibalized some of its parts for other eps — we really ended up with 12 episodes. But the studio makes DVD and other deals based on the original 13 number. So we created a standalone kind of coda episode. Which is the mythical new episode 13. The network had already paid for 13 episodes, and this included the one they agreed to let us scrap for parts. It does not include the one we made to bring the number back up to 13 for the studio side and its obligations.

If you believe in the show getting renewed, you’re going to show what looks like the best episode of the series and show it to the world as soon as you can.
If you don’t, on the other hand, no point in wasting your precious broadcast time for a dead show walking.
You’ve gotta admit though that FOX not even bothering to broadcast the final episode shows a certain lack of trust in Dollhouse‘s future to say the least.
Ultimately, my previous “renewal” reasons are still valid, and, depending on your dubiousness, you can side either way on Dollhouse‘s fate.
Hope is still not lost, and FOX might still have the balls to renew Dollhouse (and The Sarah Connor Chronicles for that matter).
Like always: Watch, Wait, and See.

3-D is coming

3-D is coming

I came across last night two articles on the Time website about how 3-D might revolutionize the entertainment industry.

There is some talk about 3-D history, but if you’re really interested in the origins of 3-D movies, I suggest you check out this book.

The two articles were interesting reads, especially since they basically said the exact same things I blogged about last November (“the third sea change to affect movies after sound and color”).
As Nikki Finke would say: TOLDJA!

More to the point, the first linked article talks about limits of 3-D technology that I consider currently ridiculous, and most likely will become completely preposterous limitations a few years down the line (and since we’re talking about the future here…).

Let’s take a look at the first “problem”: glasses.

Imagine the popular resistance to the first talkies if audiences had to don headsets to hear Al Jolson sing “Swanee.” What would the odds on the success of three-strip Technicolor have been if people had to wear specs to see Gone With the Wind or The Wizard of Oz, or the 99% of movies now shown in color?

The similes are completely wrong here.
The correct comparison would be saying people had to put on headsets not only the talkie part of the movie, but sound itself ; or put more speakers for a clearer, more immersive, sound experience.
Guess what, people are doing that.
Putting specs to see color is equally as ridiculous of a question.

Regardless, saying the current glasses limit this barrier between the screen is false as current technology reduces loss of colors.
Everyone would be wearing contact lenses if glasses were that annoying to go see a movie.

Glasses will get better, thinner, until they’re gone completely.
3-D TVs already exist without the need for glasses.

Now, about the genre thingy.

Paul Blart, or the kids from Slumdog Millionaire, would not have benefitted from the in-your-lap urgency of 3-D.

This comes down to one word: gimmick.
Like I pointed out in my TOLDJA! moment back in November, a technological revolution is not one until it transcends that “gimmick” barrier.
Cellphones were considered only gimmicks a few years ago.
The same can be said about sound and color. None of them were believed to be true advancements back in the days (technology already existed before their official introductions).
We’re talking about a shift in the use of 3-D technology.
Black and white movies are still being made, yet how does “Paul Blart” benefit from being in color?
3-D hasn’t for now surpassed the gimmick stage.
I believe Avatar will change that.
In a few years, the technology will not be a novelty item anymore.

Moving on to the home entertainment business:

Even Jeffrey Katzenberg acknowledges that 3-D won’t be a major factor in home viewing for quite some time. And he’s talking only about DVDs. What about pay-cable? How would HBO show the 3-D version of Monsters vs Aliens — on a separate, 3-D-only channel, with glasses that came with your cable bill?

That sound you hear is my head bashing against the wall.
First things first. There is no special equipment needed to show 3-D, case in point with Chuck.
All you need at best are glasses. Not only is that solely on the viewer’s side of things, but technology already exist to suppress the need for glasses in 3-D TV.

And if you still think glasses = automatic failure, the 3-D home version of Journey to the Center of the Earth was quite a success last year, even though 3-D was mostly still a gimmick effect there, and you needed basic anaglyph glasses.
Once this stage is passed, home entertainment will catch up.
Hell, it’s already starting to as a matter of fact, thanks to 3-D sport.

And in conclusion:

As a rabid movie watcher, I’m not immune to the pleasures 3-D can bring to certain genres. It’s an advance in visual appeal similar to, but not greater than, Blu-ray. Which is to say, a difference in degree, not in kind. And with Blu-ray, you don’t need the damn glasses.

The hole in my wall is getting bigger.
DVDs are doomed, and so is Blu-Ray for that matter.
Also, comparing 3-D to HD is ludicrous at best.
Of course you don’t need glasses to see HD, that would be like you saying you needed special glasses to see colors or headphones to hear the “talkie” part of a movie.
Oh, wait. You did say that.
Please keep your metaphors straight next time.

Given the fact that you have most likely seen only gimmicky 3-D movies, including every single 3-D movie ever, you haven’t seen the barrier being breached yet.
3-D is not the same kind of advancement as High Def.
3-D is a major technological shift in the entertainment industry similar to, if not greater than, sound or color.

Battlestar Galactica: A love-hate relationship

Battlestar Galactica: A love-hate relationship

Battlestar Galactica was always a special show for me.
It is probably the only show that was both on my Top 5 list, and whatever you call the worst show list.

I was there, in front of my TV screen, when the mini-series that launched it all was shown on Sci-Fi.
December 8th, 2003.

Out of all the shows on my Top 5 list, it is the only one I had the opportunity to basically see “live” on TV given my travels to the U.S.A., or rather it is the only premiere out of all the shows I saw “live”.
During the same season, the Angel series finale was to be shown as well.

Interesting how those two epis are in my mind amongst the best of their shows.

Anyway, when I’m talking about my “Top 5 list”, it is not of the best shows on TV, it is rather the five shows that had the most profound impact on me (as a person and/or a writer).
That is why I don’t have a “favorite show” or whatever.
Like for any art form, I believe the experience surrounding the actual piece shouldn’t be forgotten in the equation.
How you experience something is as important (if not more perhaps) as the thing you are experiencing.
Add that to your own involvement in the piece, and you’ve got yourself an adequate albeit subjective way to classify art.

I don’t deny that Mad Men, The Wire, or, hell, even The Sopranos may be amongst the best shows ever, but they are not really on my list.
What is on my list of my Top 5 shows might shock you.

But I digress.
Back to BSG.

I very early on started to love the show.
If I had to name one show at the time that had my full attention, it was this one.
Buffy and Angel were basically over with, Six Feet Under also had passed.

BSG had mythology I could sink my teeth into.
The first two seasons were great.
The Peabody they got was really in my mind for all the episodes during these seasons (save for Black Market).
I was floored by the season two cliffhanger, albeit afraid of how they would handle the time-jump, especially given how other shows continued with such a shift.

All in all, everything seemed great.

Then Season 3 happened, and the curtain dropped.

When a show you are passionate about for 2-3 years rips out of under your feet its whole mythology and voids the 2 seasons you spent on it…

Just looking back at who could and could not be a Cylon pre-Season 3 is pretty evident to how far they nullified their own mythos.

“The Cylon Plan” just disappeared as soon as they realised it wasn’t coherent at all.
I find it quite funny that they are trying to retcon the first two seasons and adding Season 3/4-mytho to it thanks to a special 2-hour TV Movie comically named The Plan.

Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyways, the word “betrayal” came to mind several times.
Yes, some shows can make you feel as strongly as that. I’m sure you have your own.

So, yeah, Ronald D. Moore having bashed the show to death due to poor planning and mythology, coupled with somewhat atrocious episodes throughout the two last seasons, lead me to loathe Battlestar Galactica.
I really did not understand all the praise it kept getting, even after it was painfully obvious how far away it had gone since its first couple of seasons.

The show had ended up for me at the polar opposite of where it had once started not too long ago.

But now we come to last night’s episode.
The final one, the end of a journey.

Series finales are always important and defining.
They always in my mind make or break a show (unless it is an unwitting series finale).
They will also often be amongst my favorite episodes of a show.

The Angel series finale is one of the finest hours of television I have ever seen.
The same goes for the Six Feet Under finale. Who didn’t cry during the end with that montage sequence on Sia’s Breathe Me?

So, sure enough, the Battlestar Galactica series finale had a huge load to bear on its (frail) shoulders.
I won’t comment on the first hour of the episode, which was basically the culmination of two seasons worth of craziness.
I also won’t go into the actual “answers” or resolutions to certain mysteries that, as expected, were ridiculous and frankly pointless.

The last 30 minutes, however, were simply astonishing.
Bear McCreary, as always, delivered sublime music.
The acting, as always, was great.

The conclusion to the various characters arc did somewhat deliver.
I even admit, the end had at various times some personal resonance.

The show had come full circle.

And just like that, Battlestar Galactica was back on my Top 5 list.
I came to accept the show for what it really is, and over-looked the ridiculousness of its 2-season mythology.

“All that has happened before will happen again”, they say.
Sure enough, what happened before, what happened during the first two seasons, happened again during those last 30 minutes of the show.
And, at the end of the day, and at the end of the page, that’s all that matters: We have to care.

And I did.
I cared.

Farewell Battlestar Galactica.