Dollhouse given the axe

[Crossroads Inc.]

My personal loathing of Whedon has little to do with his own work and more to do with his cock gobbling fans who think everything he does is the pinnacle of modern entertainment.

ESPECIALLY Firefly fans, who gripe constantly about how the show was never given a fair shake. Newsflash, the shows rating were not good, the movie was not very profitable, apparently it was the best science fiction that nobody watched!

It was the first thing I liked of Whedon, but probably because it didn't last long. Whedon has a very VERY annoying habit of taking "going against what people think will happen" to ludicrous extremes. I enjoyed the first season or so of Buffy, it was campy cute and fun.. And then the more it went on, the More Whedon says "lets see JUST how much misery I can inflict on the cast."

I mean, the norm is that Main characters don't die, or not very often. Whedon delights in not only killing off Main Characters but doing so with no real reason other then his own whims. Firefly never got to that point, but you can see it would of, in the Movie Serenity, Whedon goes and kills off three main Members, one of whom was whit the show form the start, and dies in an utterly pointless way. Somepeople say that "whedon is daring! he bucks the trend! hes not afriad of shaking things up!"

I say hes an ass

[LMSx]

The Friday Night Death Slot is a lie. The X-Files Succeeded in that slot.

That's one. How many other shows either premiered in that spot and then died, or got moved to that slot and saw their ratings collapse? And even The X-Files barely avoided getting canceled. Fox has consistently gotten its ass kicked in that time slot.

From AICN:

The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (1993)
MANTIS (1994)
Strange Luck (1995)
VR.5 (1995)
Sliders (1996)
Millennium (1996)
The Visitor (1997)
Harsh Realm (1999)
Freakylinks (2000)
Dark Angel (2000)
The Lone Gunmen (2001)
John Doe (2003)
Firefly (2003)
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008)
[And now Dollhouse]

I don't think their plan is working.

[Crazedwraith]

I mean, the norm is that Main characters don't die, or not very often. Whedon delights in not only killing off Main Characters but doing so with no real reason other then his own whims. Firefly never got to that point, but you can see it would of, in the Movie Serenity, Whedon goes and kills off three main Members, one of whom was whit the show form the start, and dies in an utterly pointless way. Somepeople say that "whedon is daring! he bucks the trend! hes not afriad of shaking things up!"

I say hes an ass

Three? Are you counting Mr Universe as a main character?

I think the deaths in Serenity pretty much make sense. Universe's s pretty much karmic. And Book's shows just how ruthless the Operative is and Wash's death ratchets up the tension to 11. Tell me you didn't think allthe main characters except Mal were going to die in the final scene.

[Thanas]

The X-files is a pretty weak argument, Shep, because given its ratings in the first seasons, Fox would have cancelled it. The X-Files also ran nearly completely unoopposed in their timeslot.

[Sarevok]

I think the deaths in Serenity pretty much make sense. Universe's s pretty much karmic. And Book's shows just how ruthless the Operative is and Wash's death ratchets up the tension to 11. Tell me you didn't think allthe main characters except Mal were going to die in the final scene.

Let'a rephrase the question. Is it better to have blatant character shields or half realistic death scenes ? Along with a particular death scene in the T:SCC finale Serenity stands apart from rest of filmdom.

[Darth Fanboy]

As ShroomMan said (and you conveniently ignored), the episodes were aired in the Friday night death slot,

Which, if the show was as good as diehard Firefly fans say it was, should not have mattered. I don't believe that Fox would pick up a show with the secret hope that it would tank so that they wouldn't be able to make money off of it.

constantly preempted for baseball,

The Simpsons has been one of the shows most preempted by baseball ever since Fox started airing the World Series (not just the new episodes, but the reruns that seem to be common among affiliates across the countr), it doesn't seem to have affected them much. Same with Family guy in more recent years.

and shown out of order.

The out of order airings I will admit are bad mismanagement, but to say that the network actively worked to get the show to fail is laughable to me.

Can you imagine Lost or Heroes or Buffy succeeding under those circumstances?

I would argue that all of those shows appear to appeal more to larger audiences. While they wouldn't be as successful in a Friday night timeslot, those shows might have performed well enough that their networks would have considered moving them. But can you honestly say that if Firefly was in a timeslot similar to any of those shows it would have been able to draw comparable ratings? I certainly don't, and if a broadcast network airs a show that underperforms badly in a premium timeslot they lose out big time. If Firefly had that kind of promise certainly another cable network, maybe Fox's own FX Network, would have tried to acquire it?

It's perfectly reasonable to say the show didn't get a fair shake, even if you believe the show wasn't good enough to be successful under any circumstances.

Maybe so, but the show being mismanaged does not negate any and all criticism of the series like the Whedon-fanboys whom my loathing is directed at would tell you.

Also, I point out once again that despite high expectations, Serenity underperformed greatly as well despite all of the browncoat predictions I heard about it being poised to be one of the most incredibly high grossing films of the year.

[Nephtys]

Sci-Fi shows just plain don't attract the same number of views than other shows. There's still a stigma associated with watching such, and they only appeal to a certain audience.

Saying that 'Ghost Hunters' is 3 or 4 times better than 'Firefly' or 'Battlestar Galactica' because it gets more ratings says nothing. People as a whole have terrible taste.

[Patrick Degan]

constantly preempted for baseball,

The Simpsons has been one of the shows most preempted by baseball ever since Fox started airing the World Series (not just the new episodes, but the reruns that seem to be common among affiliates across the country), it doesn't seem to have affected them much. Same with Family guy in more recent years.

A false argument. The Simpsons had already been well established before Fox got MLB and the World Series from CBS. Family Guy had the entire off-season and a prized slot following The Simpsons to establish its audience. Firefly had neither of those advantages in addition to being in the Friday Death Slot. So your comparison on this point is not valid.

[Havok]

Can you imagine Lost or Heroes or Buffy succeeding under those circumstances?

I would argue that all of those shows appear to appeal more to larger audiences. While they wouldn't be as successful in a Friday night timeslot, those shows might have performed well enough that their networks would have considered moving them. But can you honestly say that if Firefly was in a timeslot similar to any of those shows it would have been able to draw comparable ratings? I certainly don't, and if a broadcast network airs a show that underperforms badly in a premium timeslot they lose out big time. If Firefly had that kind of promise certainly another cable network, maybe Fox's own FX Network, would have tried to acquire it?

I wanted to chime in on this point.

Firefly was aired at a time when I actually watched network TV, or any TV for that matter, other than football. I was a pretty die hard The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine fan so I wasn't oblivious to Sci-Fi airings. I watched the X-Files and even Space: Above and Beyond. I also was a closet Buffy and Angel fan so I was well aware of Whedon.

I didn't even know that Firefly existed until well after it was canceled. Maybe not until the movie was made.

Now, I do NOT watch network TV aside from football (This means CBS, NBC and Fox) which was the same thing I watched plus regular programing back in '02 and now I can tell you about every sci-fi show on network TV. Lost, Heroes, nBSG, V, The Sarah Connor Chronicles etc because they are plugged to fucking death. You know what other show I never heard of? Dollhouse. Why is it that the two sci-fi shows Whedon has created for Fox get no fucking plugs or advertisement but every other sci fi series under the sun does?

[Ghost Rider]

Why is it that the two sci-fi shows Whedon has created for Fox get no fucking plugs or advertisement but every other sci fi series under the sun does?

I think Fox hates him and they have him contracted for three shows, so they can fuck with him however they want to.

It might be more shows, but I know he has a contract with them for a number of shows and he wasn't done when they aired Dollhouse.

[Simon_Jester]

As ShroomMan said (and you conveniently ignored), the episodes were aired in the Friday night death slot,

Which, if the show was as good as diehard Firefly fans say it was, should not have mattered. I don't believe that Fox would pick up a show with the secret hope that it would tank so that they wouldn't be able to make money off of it.

It's not a work of supreme genius or anything, but even good work has to be presented well for people to notice it and appreciate it. Put something in a crappy time slot, run the episodes out of order, and jerk viewers around by rescheduling it half the time to make room for something else in that slot, and its quality doesn't matter very much.

All this is especially important in the first season, when the show is still trying to build up a viewership base. For the show to catch on, you need large numbers of people who have never seen it before to watch several episodes in a row and decide that they like it.

constantly preempted for baseball,

The Simpsons has been one of the shows most preempted by baseball ever since Fox started airing the World Series (not just the new episodes, but the reruns that seem to be common among affiliates across the countr), it doesn't seem to have affected them much. Same with Family guy in more recent years.

Yes, but by now they are well known enough to survive that. If the Simpsons is rescheduled, it doesn't matter; people still know it's funny* and will watch it again in two weeks when it's on at the normal time again. Or even go out of their way to watch the rescheduled episode. A show just starting out doesn't have that advantage.

*Even if it isn't as funny as it used to be, whatever, it's still accepted as funny and not without reason.

The out of order airings I will admit are bad mismanagement, but to say that the network actively worked to get the show to fail is laughable to me.

I don't claim sabotage, but I do think the network fucked up so thoroughly with the presentation that it amounts to depraved indifference to its success. They had something that quite possibly could have done fairly well in that time slot, if they had cared enough to make it work, but they didn't care, so they effectively destroyed it by making a series of decisions that harmed the show.

So while they didn't actively work to make it fail, they didn't actively work to make it succeed, either, even on the bare minimum "give the show some freedom from being actively screwed with for minor reasons" level.

Also, I point out once again that despite high expectations, Serenity underperformed greatly as well despite all of the browncoat predictions I heard about it being poised to be one of the most incredibly high grossing films of the year.

Underperformed by what standard, exactly?

[Havok]

Just for the record on the X-Files, it was on Friday nights for the first 4 seasons and then moved to the much friendlier Sunday night slot for the last 5 seasons.

[Havok]

Also, I point out once again that despite high expectations, Serenity underperformed greatly as well despite all of the browncoat predictions I heard about it being poised to be one of the most incredibly high grossing films of the year.

Underperformed by what standard, exactly?

Oh come the fuck on. By any reasonable standard of a movie. It fucking bombed. It didn't even make back it's production cost worldwide.
It had no broad appeal and if you didn't watch the show, you had no idea what the fuck it was about. They weren't even smart enough to use the same name from the fucking show.
If you take it's domestic grosses and (generously) divide by 7, the price of a movie ticket, you get about 5,552,780 fans worldwide that paid to see the movie. That doesn't take into account the die hard fans that certainly saw it more than once. If you go with the more realistic ticket price of $10, it gets even worse as it drops to under 4 million fans worldwide that actually paid to see the movie. So by basically every standard, it was a complete bomb.

[Thanas]

It didn't even make back it's production cost worldwide.
It had no broad appeal and if you didn't watch the show, you had no idea what the fuck it was about. They weren't even smart enough to use the same name from the fucking show.
If you take it's domestic grosses and (generously) divide by 7, the price of a movie ticket, you get about 5,552,780 fans worldwide that paid to see the movie. That doesn't take into account the die hard fans that certainly saw it more than once. If you go with the more realistic ticket price of $10, it gets even worse as it drops to under 4 million fans worldwide that actually paid to see the movie. So by basically every standard, it was a complete bomb.

Actually, it made nearly double the production cost on DVD sales alone iirc.

[Anguirus]

They weren't even smart enough to use the same name from the fucking show.

I"m 98.9% sure that they couldn't use the name for legal reasons. Fox made the show, Universal made the movie.

[neoolong]

Actually, it made nearly double the production cost on DVD sales alone iirc.

Most movies are ultimately profitable once you take into account all of the revenue streams. That doesn't mean that a movie's deemed successful by executives in a financial sense though. It also depends on how the revenue is split.

There's also opportunity cost. If there was a choice to put the production budget behind Serenity or District 9 and Serenity was made, well somebody backed the wrong horse. There's other factors involved, but I don't think that most people involved are happy with how Serenity did financially.

[Havok]

It didn't even make back it's production cost worldwide.
It had no broad appeal and if you didn't watch the show, you had no idea what the fuck it was about. They weren't even smart enough to use the same name from the fucking show.
If you take it's domestic grosses and (generously) divide by 7, the price of a movie ticket, you get about 5,552,780 fans worldwide that paid to see the movie. That doesn't take into account the die hard fans that certainly saw it more than once. If you go with the more realistic ticket price of $10, it gets even worse as it drops to under 4 million fans worldwide that actually paid to see the movie. So by basically every standard, it was a complete bomb.

Actually, it made nearly double the production cost on DVD sales alone iirc.

And? DVD sales, while great for the company to ultimately recoup losses, has zero bearing on whether a movie is considered a bomb at the box office or if it 'underperforms', which is the context of this particular tangent.

As for DVD sales, that still isn't saying much since a DVD costs double what a movie ticket does. You could probably make the argument that the same exact people that saw the movie in theaters, bought the DVD and that can account for most of the sales, even if it is double the production costs.