After a reassuring pat on the back from creator Joss Whedon that Dollhouse just might be returning for a second season, last Friday's showing did little to salvage the case of the sci-fi series. The show's one-week hiatus may have been fatal as "Haunted," the show's tenth episode, reeled in a new series low at 2.99 million numbers. And with just a couple of more episodes to air, perhaps it's high time for Dollhouse fans, no matter how scarce they are, to say their goodbyes.
Fox suffered an all-around beating Friday night with Prison Break also registering sad numbers at 3.05 million. Dollhouse was beaten by a couple of newsmagazine programs, ABC's 20/20 and NBC's Dateline, and police drama Flashpoint.
Whedon described last Friday's episode as a "quirky little piece with a lot of guest stars."
"I'm a little nervous about it. I think Eliza's great in it. But I'm wondering, are people going to go, 'Now wait a minute, [where's the mythology]?' But it was my decision in the middle of all this [i.e., the development of ongoing stories] to say, 'Wait a minute, we can't just be about our own mythology. Let's try this other thing.'"
Reviews for "Haunted" are generally mixed. It is a common sentiment, however, that while it wasn't an all-out terrible episode that merited the dismal ratings, it also wasn't as "engaging" as the last two episodes.
As Whedon feared, the standalone element of "Haunted" proved that
Dollhouse doesn't exactly do well in that department, with fans perhaps preferring the mythology that everyone grew fond of. Overall, it showed the series' inconsistencies and may explain the drop in the ratings. The next two episodes will fortunately go back to the bigger plotlines that every
Dollhouse fans would like to see resolved.
- Glenn Diaz, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source:
Zap2it,
IGN
(Image courtesy of Fox)