FOX is taking a chance on ‘Dollhouse’ and will announce today that it has been renewed for a further 13 episodes. NBC has also ordered new episodes of ‘Chuck’, but ‘Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ has been canceled. More details after the break…
Once again, it looks as if heavy “save our show” fan campaigns do indeed work - especially when they are started before the first episode even airs on TV, as was the case with Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse”. Early indications about this show seemed to doom it from day one - negative critical reception, it was airing on FOX (See: Firefly) and had been relegated to the worst possible slot on Friday nights following what was guaranteed to be a poor lead in from the struggling “Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles”. But, “Dollhouse” fans stayed loyal and fiercely supportive of their show, and of Joss Whedon himself, launching Twitter campaigns, websites, MySpace pages and by organizing phone calls and e-mails to be sent to FOX in the aim of reminding them that the show has a strong base in which to build on. We now know that this fan pressure worked, and beyond all regular logical sense, FOX will renew the series for a further 13 episodes despite dreadful ratings and continuous lukewarm overall critical reception. “Dollhouse” stars Eliza Dushku, and will return for a second season in the fall.
Another show that was not so lucky on the FOX Network was “Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles”, which has been axed as expected. Reports leaked earlier this month that sets were being recycled, sold off or destroyed which prompted immediate fears that a cancellation was imminent. The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which stars Lena Headey, Summer Glau, Thomas Dekker and Brian Austin Green debuted to gigantic numbers when it first aired last year, but continued to fall dramatically in viewership from the get go. Season Two was mostly uneven and directionless in it’s storytelling, something which may have been salvageable with better show-running, but it seemed to be doomed from the mid-season point when ratings bottomed out to an unacceptable level for a show of it’s expense. A similar fan campaign to that which helped Dollhouse get renewed was launched, but despite stellar efforts from fans across the world it was obvious that FOX would have to choose between this show and Dollhouse, and we’re sure the deciding factor was that they considered the PR hit from a cancellation of another Joss Whedon show to be far more negative than that of this franchise.
Personally, I think that if any other person were behind Dollhouse other than Whedon, FOX would have pulled it before the seventh episode even aired, and both it and The Sarah Connor Chronicles would now be off of the air. Most of the speculation recently has been that FOX are very down on Dollhouse, but are encouraged by strong fan campaigns which prompt huge spikes in DVD/Blu-ray pre-orders and download sales.
Chuck fans can also let out a sigh of relief, as the show has been picked up for another season by NBC, a move which has seemed likely for quite some time.
