Dollhouse Fans Wants To Save The Show From Cancellation Before It Even Airs !!
By fred | May 28, 2008
You’ve probably heard about Dollhouse, the new show coming from the mind of Joss Whedon, creator of shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Firefly, re-uniting him with ex-slayer Eliza Dushku. It’s one of the new shows Fox will add to their schedule next season, and by next season I mean mid-season, as the show isn’t set to premiere before 2009 !
Still, it looks like it might be a pretty good show (find a preview of Dollhouse here), and I haven’t hidden the fact that of all the new series to come next seasons, the two ones I’m most interested in were Fringe, and - indeed - Dollhouse.
And already some are worried about the show’s fate, because it’s a new series on Fox, because it’s sci-fi, on Fox ! Did I mention we’re talking about Fox ?? Clearly, that network has an history of pretty quick cancellation, and of great shows, and many remember what happened to Firefly, and they don’t want to see it happen again.
Which is why some people are willing to work on that. And while some might already be mocking them, I think this is actually a pretty good idea !
People will probably smile at this, because of headlines that basically reads “Dollhouse fans wants to save the show from cancellation before it even airs” (hey what’s that finger you’re pointing at me!?) And many comments will go along the lines of…
1. How can they be fans of a show they haven’t seen yet ?
2. Why talk about saving from cancellation a show that hasn’t even premiered yet ?
But when you think about it, and look at it closely, it’s a pretty good thing. Yes, I totally agree about the first point, no one can - at this point - call himself a fan of Dollhouse. It’s just like with music, when you’re a fan of a band : you can be a complete fan, you can love everything single song/record they ever made, but when a new record is about to come out, and no one has heard one song from it, you cannot possibly say you’re a fan of that record already.
However, you can say you’re a fan of the band, you know them, and based on your experience you’re pretty sure you’ll love the record. And here, we have people who don’t really call themselves fans of Dollhouse, but of Joss Whedon and his work.
And their campaign isn’t really about saving the show from cancellation, although the memories of canceled-too-soon shows triggered this, but about trying to ensure that the show will do as good as it possibly can, it’s about making sure it is given all the possible chances to succeed, that is making sure everyone knows about it and tunes in to see how good (or bad) it actually is, when it will premiere.
As they explain, it is “not such a negative campaign directed towards saving it from getting canceled, but something that will get [Whedon's] fans motivated to promote Dollhouse to friends/family/coworkers before it airs is smarter than doing it once it’s in danger!”
