Victim of Culture

Shock to the world, Fox mulls Dollhouse return

Here’s a shock—Fox is considering renewing Dollhouse.  Not just considering, that seems obvious that they may consider, but actually leaning towards doing so.  This courtesy of James Hibberd’s blog for The Hollywood Reporter.  But why bring back a show failing in the ratings?

At the end of the day, it comes down to money for Fox.  Dollhouse, even weak in the ratings, is a lot more valuable than other shows they could put on their fall schedule.  For instance, despite the fact that Dollhouse’s season one finale had the lowest ratings of any episode, the show in general still fared better than Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  Getting horrible ratings is always a bad thing, but when  your horrible ratings are better than anything else you could put into the time slot, sometimes you have to grin and bear it.

There’s also the little matter that Fox produces Dollhouse, and therefore stands to make a lot of money from syndication and DVD rights, something they continue to milk with Buffy and Angel.  Has Fox perhaps learned a bit of a lesson from Futurama, Family Guy, and Firefly?  Don’t count on it.  It is likely they will ask for concessions for Dollhouse to stay on the air, likely in the form of reduced episode budgets.  Creator Joss Whedon has faced this before when for Angel’s final season the budget of the show was slashed considerably, leading to many episodes that took place entirely within the Wolfram & Hart set.

So, is it a done deal?  Hardly.  But there is more hope right now than anyone ever considered in recent weeks, including yours truly.  Keep your fingers crossed for Monday when Fox announces their fall television lineup.

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