Dollhouse

It’s difficult to define Joss Whedon’s success. For one, gauging his popularity as a television writer, creator, and producer on ratings alone would render his career as one of the medium’s elite fairly worthless. Critical acclaim was always present, awards never were. On the verge of his latest effort on the small screen, Dollhouse, Whedon has a lot riding on the show’s run...

It’s difficult to define Joss Whedon’s success. For one, gauging his popularity as a television writer, creator, and producer on ratings alone would render his career as one of the medium’s elite fairly worthless. Critical acclaim was always present, awards never were. Fan devotion always existed - but devotion alone could not save his shows from being tossed around from network to network, ultimately meeting their demise when show renewals were announced. For Whedon, something on television hasn’t quite clicked into place. Despite offering up some of the most intelligent, arch-driven story-lines, placed within painstakingly witty, sarcastic scripts, it’s almost as though the mass audience are allergic to his productions. On the verge of his latest effort on the small screen, Dollhouse, Whedon has a lot riding on the show’s run - including his accreditation as a creative mastermind.

Whedon is best known as the man behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show that was a relative ratings success for the young WB Network. While successful for the network in particular, its ratings hardly measured up against series playing on FOX, NBC, CBS, and ABC regularly pulled in. During its run of seven seasons, critical acclaim was poured on to the supernatural drama. The show itself, and its premise of a young, vampire-fighting ‘slayer’ and her gang of friends, has remained an iconic staple in the television medium, despite now being off-air for more than five years. It embraced a strong, independent female. It introduced mass audiences to openly gay relationships onscreen. It had an entire musical episode, ‘Once More With Feeling’ . Smashing boundaries in general, it’s odd then that an iconic show like Buffy, hailed by TV Guide, Empire, and TIME Magazine as one of the best series ever made, only ever won two Emmy awards - bestowed for makeup and music composition.

For Whedon, elements of success were always present with Buffy; elements that largely rested in the hands of television critics. But despite its consistent praise, a vast majority of the audience didn’t seem to know what to do with the show, much like they didn’t know what to do with Buffy spin-off, Angel. Angel, which ran for five seasons, was ultimately cancelled by the WB in 2004 in favour of reality programming.

Perhaps Whedon’s problem is that he’s too ahead of the cultural time. As a creator, he seems to be laying down the initial ground-workings of ‘what will be big’. Yes, vampires existed long before Buffy was around, but to look at present day hits like television show True Blood and the phenomenon that is the Twilight movie/book franchise, it’s easy to make the connection that Buffy had a lot to do with their creation and audience reaction. Other’s have taken Whedon’s groundwork and, as time has passed and audience open-mindedness has grown, made mass hits out of their re-workings. And maybe that’s why the television medium simply won’t work for Whedon. His ideas are too vast, too wide-reaching, and too complex for the normal hour-long slots allotted to him.

Simply put, audiences have a difficult time computing with the arching story-lines and waiting for them on a week-to-week basis. This would explain why Buffy and Angel have done so well on DVD. It would also explain why Firefly, another one of Whedon’s shows that only saw 11 episodes air on FOX, was revised for a full-length motion picture after excellent DVD sales followed its cancellation. While Serenity, the 2005 science-fiction motion picture based on Firefly, failed to draw in large crowds at the box-office, critics gave it generally positive reviews, though some commented that it failed to overcome its television origins. Whedon’s failure to draw in mass audiences on both the television and big screen point to something broader. For a man with ideas this big, it could be said that the only place that can really play host to them is the Internet.

Enter the 2007 to 2008 WGA writer’s strike. The strike, which lasted 100 days, brought a halt to television productions and meant an almost complete lull in original television programming. Whedon, along with brother’s Zack Whedon, Jed Whedon, and Jed’s fiancée Maurissa Tancharoen, decided to pen Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Streaming online in three acts, the musical was produced for a relatively low cost and funded by Whedon himself. It starred Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day, and Simon Helberg. Harris, in the role of Dr. Horrible, played an aspiring super-villain, vying for love against his arch-rival, Hammer (played by Fillion). Audiences, starved for original content, helped it become an Internet sensation. The online streaming of the film was in fact so successful that TIME Magazine added it to its list of “Top 50 Inventions of 2008”. Later DVD re-issues of the series were met with strong interest and pre-orders, vaulting it to the top of the DVD charts.

Above all, Dr. Horrible proved that Whedon was indeed capable of reaching out to mass audiences. Now knowing that he can draw a crowd, the question becomes whether or not his latest efforts will bring him all-round success.

Dollhouse, set to premier February 13, 2009 on FOX, will already start off with the difficult disadvantage of being on Friday nights. The time slot, generally reserved for shows that networks are on the border about, probably won’t mean easy ratings that many mid-week shows enjoy. Whedon is well aware of the network’s attempts to bring down expectations of the show, maybe hoping that this time around, FOX will show patience in its development. The premise itself is still not light-hearted fair. The show, starring Eliza Dushku, who worked with Whedon in Buffy, revolves around a group of ‘dolls’, or programmable agents, rented by high-paying clients to carry out assignments. Dushku’s character, Echo, begins to become self-aware of her role in the world. Think of it as a more science-fiction based Jason Bourne television series.

Whedon knows that the premise of the show already sets it up for a specific audience - mostly prior fans of his work. The question becomes whether Whedon has enough fans to keep network executives interested. For the creator himself, he knows that people are waiting to see him fail, saying, “everyone’s been predicting the end of the world for Dollhouse since it was announced.” Despite his attempts to play-off the unimportance of the show’s initial reception, if Dollhouse is met with a general disinterest, Whedon might want to reconsider his role in the television universe and head straight to the online community. However, with complex storylines in TV shows like Lost and Heroes coming out in recent years, maybe the TV audience is just about ready for Whedon’s artistry onscreen.

Dollhouse premiers Friday, February 13 at 9 p.m. on FOX.