Is Dollhouse a piece of My Own Worst Enemy-like garbage?

Let me start out by saying that 60% of me writes this out of jealousy, 20% out of disappointment and, the last 20%, of understanding.

60% Jealousy
Last week (or perhaps the previous week), FOX sent an early screener of the new series Dollhouse out to just TCA members. Not only did the small group of those get an early look at the pilot, they were sent a cool doll/figurine based on the series. I asked my contacts at Fox about when we might be seeing a copy of the screener. They informed me that only TCA members received it, the rest of us getting it sometime later. I’m betting we don’t get one of those collectables.

20% Disappointment
The Futon Critic posted their early review of the pilot, and they’re not impressed with it. At all. In fact, as I was reading their initial description of the series, I came to the same conclusion they did later in their review: this sounds a lot like the failed, craptastic My Own Worst Enemy. And now they’re going to throw it on Friday nights, to help insure its early demise.

Gone is the Joss Whedon brand of humor that was reported in the initial pilot, before Joss was basically forced to rewrite a new one by the network (something he’s gone on record as saying wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t hear him lacing his tap shoes in the background). It’s very possible that Joss’s stamp of funny will come in subsequent episodes of the series, and we’d all better pray that happens.

20% Understanding
FOX sending the screener of this series only to TCA members stinks a lot like moments when networks refuse to release a screener of a series to critics at all. It would seem that FOX may have learned from that mistake, instead letting the pilot trickle out to a smaller subset of people first before unleashing it upon hundreds of others. Maybe they thought TCA critics would candy-coat their reviews, throwing them a little toy to butter them up a bit (although, FOX is notorious for sending impressive press kits)? Maybe with some early criticism they could possibly retool the pilot? Then again, it could just be that the pilot’s simply not 100% complete, and they wanted to get something out to TCA members before the January tour.

The reason behind the Dollhouse screener release schedule is a moot point, really. I’d say Joss Whedon’s got quite a bit riding on the success or failure of Dollhouse, especially since being taken so high on the success of Dr. Horrible recently. Now is really not the time to have his name stamped on something that stinks — he should be riding that wave of success into bigger and better things.

I think all of us Whedon fans are eager and hopeful of his return to television writing and directing. If Dollhouse bombs, there’s a good chance he’ll hang up that hat for good. And once again, we can all blame FOX.

Clacked by Keith McDuffee
on Dec 30, 2008 @ 12:56 EST5EDT