[To mark tonight's series finale of Dollhouse, we present a guest article by Jon Eric offering a controversial take on the show's cancellation. We've already had a lotto say about the series; see if you agree with Jon about the justification for the cancellation. And come back on Monday to hear the podcast panel's analysis of the final episode and of the series as a whole.]
For real this time.
Today marks the series finale of Joss Whedon’s most recent baby, a sci-fi drama named Dollhouse. It was a rough two years, and perhaps the biggest surprise was the show’s longevity—Whedon’s last attempt at a weekly television show was cancelled after only half a season, so his fans were especially vigilant this time around: “Save Dollhouse” websites had cropped up before the show even premiered.
But in between the appearance of the first “Save Dollhouse” website and the airing of the first Dollhouse episode, Whedon’s fans seem to have turned on him. What happenedx? Maybe it had something to do with the promotional materials – how can you encapsulate such a high-concept science fiction show in a :30 TV spot? – or maybe the perception (justifiable, even if incorrect) that Joss’ Dollhouse was nothing more than a particularly highfalutin whorehouse. In the face of controversial subject matter, Whedon loyalists had a hard time coping, and some lost their faith. After all, it’s difficult to defend, let alone recommend, a show whose first-season advertising was dominated by this:
Look at how they repeat-edited the words “Dominatrix scene!” Like the network was salivating over this one little bone Whedon and Dushku had thrown them: “At last, something we can use to market this nerdy show to the hornballs who actually watch Fox on Friday nights!”
But in fact, the “Dominatrix Scene” in the show is little more than what we see in that trailer – it’s an establishing shot, a throwaway scene. She’s returning from an engagement we never see, for a client we never meet, and why should we? It’s just your standard submissive john. Why would we be interested in some standard dominatrix encounter when there are so many more interesting stories to be told?
Somehow, the die-hards missed the subtext. Whether it was Fox’s failure to communicate the concept, or the netroots feminist movement crying out against Joss’ handling an admittedly delicate subject matter (or both), Whedon’s already-small fan base fragmented itself and Whedon’s self-proclaimed feminism came under fire.
Here’s the problem: when a core audience as small as Whedon’s fragments, the resuling fraction isn’t enough to sustain a show on a major network. Especially when it airs on a Friday night. Dollhouse didn’t have a large advertising budget, Fox didn’t seem that interested in pushing the ads, and it’s not as though the concept were easy to pitch, so the series never really had a chance at an audience any larger than the supposedly-loyal Whedon fanbase. As it happened, they got something quite a bit smaller, and now the show is cancelled due to poor ratings.
It’s easy to blame Fox for all the mishandling. Fox has killed so many worthy series in the past; what’s one more? I don’t deny that Fox’s lack of care with their product helped to ensure an early demise… But some of the blame rests with Whedon, too. I submit that Whedon’s show was terminally flawed from the start, that its premise defied an audience, that its writing team is guilty of fatal sloppiness — in short, that unlike its predecessor, Dollhouse deserved to be cancelled.
It’s been weeks now since I first sounded off about Dollhouse. In my first post, I was pretty hard on the show, claiming that it was unpleasant to watch, and would probably be cancelled no sooner than it deserved. My main complaint was the lack of likable characters who liked each other, which I still maintain is Joss Whedon’s main (only?) strength as a creator. I speculated that the show’s heady premise—a house full of brainwashed supermodels who, for a price, can be programmed with any personality and skill set—would preclude the development of any lasting relationships between characters.
The season finale of Dollhouse aired on Friday, and while the fan base waits eagerly to find out if it’s been canceled or not, I thought it might be nice to revisit the series.
The new Joss Whedon show Dollhouse is doomed. I don’t mean it’s doomed in the sense that it’s going to get cancelled within the month. (Although it almost certainly will. I mean, Friday night, Fox? Really? Really?) I mean it’s doomed in that it’s going to suck.
The thing about Joss Whedon is that his strength as a writer/show-runner doesn’t really involve hot chicks kicking ass, ridiculous high-concept premises, or elaborate mythologies. His more successful shows have featured these, true, but they have succeeded despite them, not because of them. What he does well, above all else, is heartwarming banter: funny little moments that bring out the affection that his characters have for each other. The best episodes obviously have a lot more going on, but banter is his bread and butter, and this, honestly, is what I tune in to see.
Unfortunately, the premise of Dollhouse makes this kind of writing impossible. Problem one: Eliza Dushku basically has to play a new character every week, which means she has no continuing relationship with any of the other characters. Thus, no affection. Thus, no funny little moments. This in itself wouldn’t be a crippling weakness if the other characters were able to make with the sweet bantery goodness…. but this brings us to problem two: all the other characters are flaming assholes. Oh sure, Dushku’s watcher “handler”–played by Harry J. Lennix doing his best Morgan Freeman–seems like a good egg, as does the loose-cannon FBI agent who’s trying to bring the Dollhouse organization down. But for obvious reasons these characters can never even meet, let alone establish that critical Whedonesque rapport.
Could the show surprise me? It certainly could. If nothing else, the Dushku-of-the-week gimmick should allow Whedon to mess around with a wide variety of genres, which is another of his major strengths. (This week was wilderness horror, a little in-joke for fans of the 2003 Dushku vehicle Wrong Turn. Next week looks like a retread of The Bodyguard, which was at least funny when the Simpsons did it.) I plan to keep watching until it’s cancelled… but we’ll see. There’s always the chance that it will suck without getting cancelled, which is the most depressing possibility of all.
.
