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Thursday, November 12, 2009

Dollhouse officially cancelled

11:21 AM / Television / 2 Comments

Source: EW.com

Well, I won't claim that I'm hugely surprised, or indeed hugely disappointed. The writing was on the wall more or less from the get-go, and the fact that it got a second season at all is, depending on your point of view, either a miracle or a sick joke. As far as I can tell, the remaining episodes of Season 2 will indeed be aired, but there is unlikely to be any coming back from this, not even if the viewing figures rise drastically (which, let's face it, isn't going to happen).

Broadly speaking, I'm in agreement with the opinion piece posted over at EW.com, which argued that there is a silver lining in this cloud,

because it'll free [series creator Joss] Whedon from a show that, let's be frank, was never going to climb out of the hole it was in. Dollhouse had too much viewer attrition and too little network support. It'll let him chase down the myriad other things he could be doing - writing more comics, making more Web content, and, perhaps (as more than a few people have suggested) getting in bed with a cable network that'll give him the latitude to do what he likes, how he likes.

I've been holding off posting my thoughts on Season 2 so far, given that we're only four episodes in (out of thirteen), but if you've read my review of Season 1, you'll know that I'm not exactly the show's biggest fan. That said, I'll be the first to admit that there have been moments of greatness. The last couple of episodes of Season 1 showed a great deal of promise, and out of the four episodes of Season 2 that have aired, the most recent was excellent... albeit primarily because it eschewed the show's focal point (Echo and Ballard) in favour of one of the secondary characters.

And there's the rub: it seems that, whenever Dollhouse is any good, it has precious little do to with series star Eliza Dushku and her character. The most memorable scenes almost always involve secondary characters rather than her, and the two most interesting episodes we've had so far - Season 1's Epitaph One and Season 2's Belonging - have barely featured her at all.

So there you have it. I'll continue to watch the remainder of the Season 2 episodes - assuming they all get aired, that is - and in the end will no doubt feel a twinge of disappointment over what the show could have become had things been different. I strongly doubt, however, that I'll be losing too much sleep over it.

2 Comments

 
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