THE TV COLUMN : Will Friday the 13th debut spell doom for Dollhouse?
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008
This is the time in the TV season when we start looking for signs of which shows will make it into the new year and which won’t.
All those freshman series that started out with a 13-episode order are waiting by their phones for news that they’ve been rewarded the “back 9” to make a full season.
Exceedingly rare is the new series that gets a full 22-episode order upfront. And even if a show has a 13-episode order, you and I well know that if it’s not pulling its weight, it’s kicked to the curb early.
Sometimes a series comes trailing such a glorious pedigree that network honchos and critics start salivating months before the thing is due to hit the airwaves.
That was the case last summer when Fox touted Joss Whedon’s midseason offering Dollhouse. The sci-fi series will be a showcase for Whedon’s sultry star Eliza Dushku.
Dushku will play one of a group of operatives who have different abilities and personalities imprinted in them to enable them to carry out assorted missions.
In between assignments, their memories are erased and they all live happily and simply in the Dollhouse, a dorm and laboratory with a sleek, modern Asian decor.
Fox Entertainment president Kevin Reilly was gushing during his executive panel session on the TV critics’ summer press tour.
“Joss was a gift,” Reilly told us in July. “He’s respected Eliza Dushku as an actress. He’s wanted to work with her. They got together. He left that lunch and said, ‘Dammit, I’ve got an idea. Now I’ve got to do it.’ And he just showed up, and the answer was yes. I’m really enjoying working with the guy. His reputation is well-earned. We’re having a good time.”
Whedon, you’ll might recall, is the cherubic, twinkle-eyed, creative genius who brought us Buffy, Angel and Firefly.
The latter was a brilliant Fox series that was frittered away by the network and died well before its time.
I wasn’t the only one who thought Reilly was high on Dollhouse. The Los Angeles Times reports that Reilly said about Whedon and his sudden series pitch: “He had me at ‘Hello.’ I was kind of drunk with the surprise of it all.”
Well, that was then; this is now. Reilly seems to have sobered up. Last week Fox announced that Dollhouse would premiere Feb. 13. That’s Friday the 13 th.
Triskaidekaphobia aside, Whedon and fans have more to fear from the Friday part than the 13 th. Fridays are notoriously bad nights on which to launch a new show.
Why the Friday Dead Zone ? One reason may be that Fox is wallowing in riches. Fringe, another new sci-fi series, is doing well and American Idol and 24 are waiting in the wings to stomp the competition early next year.
American Idol is such a ratings juggernaut that other networks program around it.
In addition, since Whedon and Dushku gave us a personal tour of their sprawling set, things haven’t always sailed smoothly on the Warner Bros. lot.
The Times reminds us that Whedon shut down production in September to rewrite scripts and even ended up reshooting the pilot.
Are all these signs the series is doomed before it begins ? Nothing in Hollywood is ever certain. When we toured the massive set of Firefly, Whedon exhibited the same bubbly enthusiasm and almost childlike glee at having this enormous toy with which to play.
Seriously, the entire Serenity spaceship was re-created on one of the largest soundstages in Hollywood. You got into the thing and forgot you were, essentially, in a giant airplane hangar.
Let’s hope that Dollhouse hits the ground running and Fox has the foresight to allow it to germinate and grow even though it’s on a Friday.
COMINGS, GOINGS Single With Parents. Alyssa Milano fans are rending garments because ABC has taken a pass on her pilot sitcom Single With Parents. Evidently the thing just got bogged down, so the network bailed out. The series was to star Milano with Beau Bridges and Annie Potts as her divorced parents. Four on the floor. ABC still has four other midseason series in the works. Dramas Castle and The Unusuals and comedies The Goode Family and In the Motherhood. Also on the schedule are Scrubs (moving over from NBC ), and (for some unknown reason ) According to Jim returns Dec. 2.
Lost. Mark the date: Jan. 21 (that’s a Wednesday ) at 7 p. m., ABC. Samantha Who ? ABC has ordered seven more episodes of the sitcom. Why not nine ? See above for the ton of midseason shows waiting to debut. Rita Rocks. After six episodes, Lifetime has given a full-season order (20 episodes ) to Rita Rocks. Nicole Sullivan stars as a wife and mother who forms a garage band. It’s cable and only about a million viewers tune in each week. Life. NBC has awarded Damian Lewis and his crime drama Life more life with a full-season order. Better yet, the network moved the thing from Fridays (see above ) to Wednesdays at 8 p. m. Keith Olbermann. MSNBC knows who their golden goose is. The network has signed the blunt and proudly liberal host of Countdown to four more years of shooting off his mouth. Knight Rider. The series has a full-season order, but is dumping three stars after the 13 th episode. Heading for the off ramp are Bruce Davison, Sydney Tamiia Poitier and Yancey Arias. Inside sources say the revamped show will look more like the previous series in an attempt to boost anemic ratings. Kath & Kim. NBC added the “back 9” episodes even though the series has only managed about 6 million viewers each week. The TV column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. E-mail:
mstorey@arkansasonline. com
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