Club Jade

The new show, Dollhouse, created by Joss Whedon and starring (and executive produced by) Eliza Dushku, turned in lower-than-expected ratings for its premiere on Friday.

• Sci-Fi Wire take a negative tone on the news: Worst ratings for a drama premiere this season, except for NBC’s Crusoe. But it did better than Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which led it in, but had low ratings for its switch from Monday to Friday.
• TV Week points out the positive on the same news – it did better than previous FOX friday shows, like Don’t Forget the Lyrics. Hollywood Insider also waxes positively about the numbers – will the Friday timeslot actually help the show?
• Buzz among the Whedonites? Mixed – some were bored, some enjoyed it, and most are willing to give it a few more episodes to make up their mind. Let’s see if FOX will give the viewers that chance. Ken Tucker at EW starts to rethink his grade of the show – did he underestimate it?

But more importantly, those promo bits of having Summer Glau (Cameron on Terminator) and Eliza Dushku (Echo on Dollhouse) talking about the similarities in their roles – just seemed kinda weird. Maybe it’s just Summer in her Cameron makeup just seems weird to me. An interesting concept: the commercial breaks were preceded by a quick message letting your know how long they were (60 seconds, 90 seconds) – great for Tivo and DVR playback – you know exactly how long to zip forward!

And for the ladies: Guess who spent more of the first episode showing off their well sculpted body? Eliza Dushku was in a slinky dress at the beginning, but Tahmoh Penikett went all-abs for more screen time.

Still haven’t seen it? You can watch the first episode, ‘Ghost’, on Hulu.

Battling for genre Friday viewers, FOX has the premiere of Joss Whedon’s new show Dollhouse, starring Eliza Dushku, tonight (9PM Eastern & Pacific), with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles as the lead-in (8PM Eastern & Pacific). But hey – that’s the same time as the back-to-back episodes of The Clone Wars (9PM Cartoon Network), but luckily before Battlestar Galactica‘s new episode: “No Exit” or the new episode of Psych. Get your DVRs and VCRs ready!

So here’s what they’re saying about Dollhouse:

• io9′s Charlie Jane Anders, after having seen 3 episodes, says: “I’ve already totally fallen in love with this show. I was excited for it before I saw it, and now that I have, I am filled with a fevered desperation to watch a hundred more episodes. I wish I had a half-dozen DVD box sets of this show.” (and disagrees with the point on the interwebs say that the second episode may be better than the first).
• Ray Richmond of the Hollywood Reporter sums it up as: “Dollhouse” fascinating, but tricky to embrace: [Dollhouse] might be seen as a futuristic merging of “Buffy,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” though in this context the latter would be more like “perpetual conflict of the repeatedly rebooted brain.”
• Entertainment Weekly gives it a B-, worrying about the concept and not having a consistent hero to root for each week, if the protagonist is playing a new role each week – but is willing to give Eliza and Joss a chance. Elsewhere on EW, someone muses on giving the show a Friday night timeslot – good idea or bad idea (Hey – FOX had both The X-Files and Firefly starting on Friday nights?).
• Tom Shales of the Washington Post calls it “a pretentious and risible jumble” that “begins to play like a Flomax commercial”.
• Mark Perigard at the Boston Herald thinks the show is broken, but can be rebuilt with some minor improvements. Amy Amatangelo gets a little interview in with Dushku on the show and her other projects.
• USA Today sums it up with “The result is a show that [Joss Whedon's] most devoted fans will debate and embrace, and a mass audience just won’t get.”
• Z at the Baltimore Sun searches for a feminist theme on the show, but comes up feeling that it is nothing but Friday-night fantasies of teenage boys.

Martin Anderson over at DenOfGeek.com muses on cellular memory, integration, and other scientific explanations, based on other genre works, for how the titular system of Joss Whedon’s upcoming show, Dollhouse, might work? Will Eliza Dushku eventually realize she’s actually Faith? Dollhouse premieres February 13, 2009 on Fox.

Eliza Dushku talks to SciFi Wire about the negative rumors surrounding Dollhouse.  Since there are many spoilery bits in the story, in short, she says that the Friday “death slot” no longer matters in a DVR world. (ed. – They’ve changed the ratings system?  I didn’t know that.)  And the reshooting of the pilot and retooling of the episodes was strictly a creative decision when Joss realized the show worked better as an action series, than a film-noir style.

Knight Rider might or might not be in a bit of trouble.  Production has been shut down short of the number of anticipated episodes.  But it’s not cancelled.  Apparently, renewal will depend on how the remaining episodes do.

The new Lost cast photo is making some people nervous about the fate of one character and speculative of the symbolism.  Hey, it worked for Battlestar Galactica.  E!’s Kristin does have a sneaky peek video to share, as well.

It’s like deja vu all over again.  Fox has decided to place the new Whedon show Dollhouse on Fridays at 9pm, Eastern.  Fans of Firefly are probably having flashbacks to its own deadly timeslot of Fridays at 9pm.  And it’ll be in competition with Clone Wars and whatever lands on that slot on SciFi, once Stargate Atlantis is off the air.  But they’re pairing it with The Sarah Connor Chronicles, so hopefully that will help it a little.

i09 is hopeful, though, and thinks this will be Joss’ best show ever.  Think those shiny thoughts, people!

While I don’t doubt there were still plenty of Star Wars fans still roaming around Saturday and Sunday, with most of the panels being on Friday there wasn’t much new floating around. Well, except for the Mandalorian wedding. (Oye vey.) And Cinematical posted a brief review of Fanboys. And the official site has more pictures, of course, while Rebelscum continues exhaustively documenting the booths and products of every licensee.

• The Dollhouse panel featured Joss Whedon, Eliza Dushku and Tamoh Penikett.

• SPOILERS: They showed the entire first episode of Heroes S3. That’s so not cool. Well, for us, anyway.
• Sorry Paula, but they just won’t shut up about Battlestar Galactica.
• Video: The Movie Blog nabs a few minutes with Paul Ens; Naomi Novik gets a gift from a fan; See a teaser for Pixar’s next, Up.
• Also: Neil Gaiman’s new project, Lost, Futurama, Terminator Salvation, and The Sarah Conner Chronicles

Gosh, everyone has a trailer these days.

Thus concludes unofficial Joss Whedon day here at CJ… OR DOES IT? Stay tuned.

It’s Fox upfront time, and now we have an ETA on Dollhouse: Look for it on Mondays in January, paired with 24. (A better deal than Firefly, as I guess 24 is still considered a hit… And let’s not forget Buffy started midseason as well.) J.J. Abram’s Fringe, a series that is nearly never mentioned without some sort of X-Files hat tip, is their “big draw” and will be headed for Mondays in the fall, paired with The Sarah Connor Chronicles or Prison Break. (Or, Sarah Connor may go to Wednesdays.) More details at USA Today and Variety.

Amy Acker, who was Fred on Angel, will be playing Dr. Claire Saunders in Joss Whedon’s new show, he revealed on Whedonesque.

Well, we don’t have to worry about totally losing the pretty factor when Battlestar Galactica ends its run. Tahmoh Penikett (the very pretty Helo) has been cast in Joss Whedon’s new show Dollhouse.

Speaking of BSG, Edward James Olmos (Adama) wouldn’t mind terribly much if everyone dies off in the end. Not that we really know, at this point. The writers have regrouped in the wake of the strike.

Don’t forget that SciFi is airing two season kick-off specials, tonight. (Friday.)