Dollhouse

Talking ’Dollhouse’ and ’Virtuality’ with the head of Fox

At TCA press tour in Los Angeles on Monday, I spoke the Fox network’s chairman, Peter Liguori, about "Virtuality," the pilot "Battlestar Galactica" executive producer Ron Moore and co-executive producer Michael Taylor are making for Fox, and also about Joss Whedon’s mid-season show for the network, "Dollhouse."

We also talked about the relative value of the bi-annual TV critics’ press tour vs. San Diego Comic-Con, which the TV networks are increasingly emphasizing as they promote their fall lineups. An edited version of our talk is below.

MR: Which is more important, Comic-Con or this [critics convention]?

PL: They both have a heck of a lot of importance, it also just depends on your show. If we turn Comic-Con into a very broad convention, frankly Comic-Con is no longer giving status [to the shows that go].

MR: Yeah, “The Office” writers are going there this year.

PL: Personally, I think that’s a little bit of a mistake. I think if you’re presenting “Dollhouse” or presenting “Fringe,” that’s one thing. If you’re presenting “The Office,” that’s another. Newspaper critics are still the lifeblood of our business in terms of getting out and reaching out and having people review our shows.

MR: Is that really true? I don’t know any more.

PL: Well, blogs are important. There’s no doubt. But you know, where are you going to reach the greatest number of people? If a show’s going to be successful, it’s not going to be successful just through the blogosphere or just through the sci-fi aficionados. It’s going to have to be a broader, 4-quadrant [this is a term that refers to four important ratings demographics]

MR: Do you think the shows benefit more from engaging interest at Comic-Con?

PL: It’s like any TV show, any movie — what do you do when you screen the movie [for research], you screen it with real aficionados. If you make it with them, you have a chance to spread out [beyond that]. With a show like “Dollhouse” we want to make sure the loyalists are really reacting to the show and that does give us a fair amount of momentum. For a show to be successful, you’ve got to branch out beyond the sci-fi geeks.

MR: Yeah, when I saw the “Lost” pilot, I thought it was great, but I thought it might only appeal to geeks like me, but that’s only three million people.

PL: Absolutely. The show really broke out when critics were saying, “There’s a romance here, the acting is fantastic, the characters matter.” Then all the sudden it broke that barrier of entry to older women, younger women, it became a four-quadrant show.

MR: When you start to think about getting the word out about your shows, do things like this matter or do other things crowd into your consciousness?

PL: They matter. Granted, we’re dealing with more venues than we ever did. In my brief tenure at Fox, [previously] we really didn’t go to Comic-Con. Now you have to take care of the blogosphere, you have to take care of Comic-Con and we have to take care of you guys. Look, as long as people are talking about television, we’re thrilled.

MR: What’s going on with “Virtuality”? It seems like there’s so much positive buzz about it, but that doesn’t always translate into a pickup [to series].

PL: Yeah, look, this is why do you pilots. Especially, the more ambitious the show, the more important the pilot is – just being able to do that exercise and figure out, do we have the characters right, can we [execute] this. Ron Moore, honestly, he’s the real deal. When you sit there and talk to someone and say, “Does he have a strategy? Does he have a 100-episode plan, does he have a grip on his characters?” He’s got it. It’s a very ambitious pilot, it’s a very ambitious premise. I think we cast it really well.

Dollhouse MR: It sounds like you’re more inclined to go with the whole pilot model versus what I’ve heard other executives say.

PL: It depends on the show. [Fox entertainment president] Kevin [Reilly] and I really wrestle [with the idea] of going directly to series with some shows. “Dollhouse,” [we made a] series commitment (that cast is pictured at left). That’s when you’re sitting there with a showrunner who’s proven, he sits there and talks you through the first 6-, 8-, 12-episode arc, and given a writers strike, you say, “Let’s go, staff up, do your thing.” In some instances it’s worth doing that. In something like Ron’s project – it’s a very ambitious concept. Even he wants to try it out.

MR: What’s ambitious about it – a lot of green-screen stuff, special effects and all that?

PL: It’s this delicate balance act between the claustrophobia of the spaceship and opening the world with [the scenarios glimpsed through technology known as] virtuality. I am sure they are going to take a long time to edit that pilot, because you don’t know exactly what is the right balance.

MR: So there’s a gay relationship on the show. Can you talk about that, about things you find interesting about the show?

PL: What I think is interesting about it is, it’s the first 21st or 22nd Century office show, office drama. It’s a bunch of people working in a claustrophobic environment, working for a business with a specific mission. Where do you have to go to with that? You have to go to character, you’re not going to go to “Star Trek”-ian moments. You’re really going to go back to the characters to get to the core. And that is the genius of Ron. Plus there’s a social commentary, he does that in “Battlestar” and he has that here. The gay relationship is one part of that.

MR: When it comes to “Dollhouse,” do you have time to build that audience? We all love Joss but sometimes the faithful can be louder than the numbers.

PL: It’s the age-old question. Every show is different. You can launch a show and it’s a 4-share show. It’s not going to become a 24-share show. The thing with Joss, you launch his show and instantly it becomes somebody’s favorite show. To me, in this current television environment, if you can be somebody’s favorite show, you’d better be patient with that show.

[It used to be] and 18-share show, that was the bar you had to jump over. If you’re looking at a 7-share show in an 18-share-hit environment, wrap it up, move on. Done. Today, I sit there and say, you know, I sat there from a distance and saw “House” premiere at a 7-share. I know I have certain tools at my disposal for promotional platforms. And you know what, I’d rather know I have a very strong, loyal core that I can build on. That being said, getting out of the gate is important in this environment.

MR: It seemed like with the strike, there was less of a tendency to cancel shows that might have gotten canceled any other season.

PL: Admittedly so, partly because of the strike — we aired every episode of every show we ordered last year. We are going to have a fair amount of product next season, but I also feel we have proven showrunners – let the show go on.