After ‘Dollhouse’ Cancelled – Joss Whedon Fans Wonder What’s Next
Joss Whedon may have lost his shirt gambling on Dollhouse, but his fans never seem to lose faith in him. Dollhouse was cancelled by FOX this week after failing to draw in competitive ratings for the show’s second season, but Whedon fans continue to believe in his talent despite his seemingly cursed track record of cancelled series.
No one probably could have predicted Joss Whedon’s series remake of the cheesy Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie would go on to run successfully for seven seasons. But Whedon managed to take an impossible concept and turn it into a riveting, passionate series that converted millions of viewers into rabid fans. Unfortunately, many of his other brilliant ideas have failed to pan out quite so well.
Firefly also had a rabid fan base of ‘Browncoats’, but not enough of one, and it was cancelled despite its fabulousness before it even really got off the ground. The Buffy spin-off Angel managed to struggle along for five seasons, but was always a pale shadow in comparison to Buffy. Now Dollhouse, too, has received the dreaded cancellation notice.
Yet, Joss Whedon is still revered as one of the most influential people in sci-fi and fantasy TV programming. J.J. Abrams once said Whedon is “an object of worship for viewers who like their television smart and funny and transcendent.” We have to agree, even when he just ups and kills off our favorite characters out of nowhere – seemingly just for the fun of it.
As Jessica over at SmallScreenScoop.com writes: “I mean, we call him a God as a joke but we also sort of mean it. Joss is God. We don’t always agree with him, but we always respect him.”
And as Jessica says, we hope Joss Whedon will “never stop doing your thing” even when it crashes and burns or never gets the appreciation it deserves. Because true art is art created out of love. Whether or not a Whedon project is a hit or not, you always know – as he’s often said – it was something done out of joy and the desire to try something unique and different.
So keep on keeping on Joss, we’ll be there, patiently waiting to see what awesomeness you’ll be pulling out of your bag next.
>> More on this topic: Dear Joss Whedon, Don’t Stop Believing
Quote from article – “Joss Whedon may have lost his shirt gambling on Dollhouse, but his fans never seem to lose faith in him. ”
That’s because there is no reason to lose faith in him. He makes entertaining, quality television. FOX is the problem here, not Whedon. Look at the huge list of series they haven’t even given a chance to get off the ground before executing. Are monkeys making their decisions? Case in point: the cancellation of Family Guy followed by the re-instatement of Family Guy and the subsequent addition of TWO MORE SHOWS created by the same person. So which chimp pulled the plug on such a big money maker?
If Mr. Whedon wants a show to air to it’s conclusion, perhaps it’s time to stop dealing with FOX. And maybe it’s time for the viewer to as well. I know I’m no longer interested in getting involved with one of their shows at the ground floor only to have it get pulled, unfinished yet again. Why bother?
I seriously can’t believe Fox keeps canceling Whedon’s shows, he is the best in film making IMO,
Firefly was an amazing series and Dollhouse is just as amazing, nothing beats an original story line that captivates audiences. Joss Whedon if you read this I think you should start your own network and air your shows how you want them to be aired.
Fox just doesn’t get what a great show is, come on this is the network that let Malcolm in the Middle stay on the air for what 7 seasons now if any showed needed to be canceled it was that crap. Joss could always just film the seasons and release straight to dvd or turn it into a web show like Dr. Horrible which was simply genius.
The reason I say Angel the series struggled along is because it did. Season one had problems – they had to kill off a main character not for dramatic effect (though this did happen, it was great storytelling) but because of his offscreen drug problems. This left a cast of two, when what they needed was a good A-team. Bringing in Denisof as Wesley helped, but not enough. They finally started getting the ‘group’ together when they had the horrible introduction to Conner with Cordy going bad – something even Joss and others who were a part of Angel said they wished they could erase. They actually said they wished they could erase that entire season. And season five is what got them canceled. If that isn’t a struggle, I don’t know what is. The reason it did well was because it had Buffy on the air to help them, and because The WB was a supportive network for quality shows (quality over ratings) and they loved that Buffy helped put them on the map.
For those who loved AtS, you’d never think it struggled because even when you didn’t like something, you still loved the show. But facts are facts. This show struggled to gain a foothold. When BTVS was gone, it completely crashed.
would have gd ratings if thay never kept taking shows of cos of the baseball
ballbase a sport so should be on a sports channle not a TvShow channle
and plp wonder why ratings go down
dont fox no that ….
A note to Joss:
Stop making shows for Fox!
They don’t know a good show to save their lives (Arrested Development, Terminator, Firefly, and remember that they tried to cancel Family Guy).
It’s definitely poorly researched: The Buffy spin-off Angel managed to struggle along for five seasons, but was always a pale shadow in comparison to Buffy. Now whos perspective? Maybe yours. The critics loved the show, same with the fans. And the ratings were fit, fit enough to stay on for FIVE seasons, since when is that a ‘STRUGGLE’? So many inconsistencies in this article, but i’ll leave it at this, it’s gettin late and it’s past my bedtime.
Are you kidding? The poster says ‘Firefly didn’t have enough viewers and got canceled, and then Angel /struggled along/’. Had it been a different paragraph, it would mean something completely different, but since this is the following sentence to ‘One of his shows got canceled due to not having viewers’. Lazy writing, or misinformation. Take your pick.
I see nothing here that is poorly researched. But I do think the commenters disagree with the author, which is just fine. Unless he has something else up his sleeve, Joss will always be known for Buffy. The others, not so much.
Sorry — I love “Buffy,” don’t get me wrong — but I totally disagree with this post. In my opinion, Whedon is at his best when he’s at his darkest. Until the sixth season Buffy never had a real moral struggle on her hands, which is why I love both “Angel” and “Dollhouse” better than “Buffy” — the heroes are hard to define, the tone is darker, and more philosophical questions are raised. It was more interesting to me to see Angel struggling to do the right thing than to see Buffy know what the right thing was and fight off the bad guys.
Just saying.
Well, the author did not say anything about Angel’s ratings. And personally I have to agree that Angel always seemed a rather “pale” knock-off of Buffy. It took two seasons for Angel to really start getting interesting and then it had a really good season and then not so much – and then it was dead. Regardless of ratings, Angel just never quite lived up to its parent show.
Considering Angel got better ratings than Buffy from time to time, I wouldn’t consider that struggling. I’d consider this, however, a poorly researched article though.