Dollhouse

Question: I have a bad feeling about Dollhouse with all the changes that Joss Whedon is having to make. Actually, I had a foreboding right from the beginning. There’s no question Whedon is a genius. There are episodes of Buffy that no one else could have conceived, or even conceived anything remotely like them. There will certainly never be another science-fiction series like, or maybe as good as, Firefly. On the other hand, Whedon is not a very smart genius. Read the transcript of almost any interview or listen to his commentary on any DVD episode and several things become clear. One is that he’s his own greatest fan. Another is that he has no respect for what he considers the "average" viewer. His attitude is that if you don’t get it, he doesn’t want you in the audience. So he gives each brilliant series an unattractive or at least uninformative name and then can’t persuade the networks to properly promote or (in the case of Fox and Firefly) even properly broadcast it. So, actors doing wonderful work with delightful dialogue and plot go unappreciated by the vast numbers of people who would have loved them if they had found them. It’s looking very much like Dollhouse, which sounds like something produced by Hugh Hefner, is going to go the same way. — Glenn

Matt Roush: I would certainly take issue with the notion that Joss Whedon doesn’t respect the "average" viewer, even if it’s true he may be trying to attract those who aren’t particularly interested in the ordinary. And it’s not his fault that Fox treated Firefly so badly. But where Dollhouse is concerned, qualms are understandable, both on the part of fans who worry that Fox won’t let Joss be Joss and on the part of the network and studio that are taking a calculated risk in letting Joss be Joss. The good news is that everyone involved is taking time and making corrections at this stage of the process. Who knows how it will all turn out, but better to put the brakes on now while they can than for things to fall apart once it’s on the air. Though I’ll admit it is unnerving to read of so many stops and starts. Once it’s on the air, they won’t have that luxury. As for the title: What’s in a name, as someone once said. If the risk pays off and Dollhouse becomes the next cult thing, we won’t think twice about it, just like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which once sounded so silly tripping off the tongue) has unashamedly become part of the pop-culture lexicon. The one worrisome aspect of all this is that, much as with Fringe, the buzz factor is such that if the show isn’t an immediate critical or popular success, there will be those willing to write it off instead of letting it develop into something that could become the next X-Files or Buffy, both of which were allowed to gestate fairly quietly for a while before attaining cult status.