Yes, Fox gave “Terminator” a full season pick-up. And where are they relocating it to?
Friday nights. The official Fox genre death slot, where a dozen SF series have gone to die.
And what are they putting as its lead in? “Dollhouse.” Because Joss Whedon’s last project did so well on Friday nights that they just had to put his newest one in the same slot.
And when are they launching it?
In February on Friday the 13th.
It’s Fox. It’s SF. It’s Friday. It’s Friday the 13th.
What could possibly go wrong?
PAD
• 
Boy, I hope Joss doesn’t go postal over this.
Not that I’d blame him.
Hopefully you learn something from this experience, PAD. 🙂
What could go wrong is that it could be a hit, and then Joss would continue to think that selling his shows to Fox is a good idea.
My eyes cannot roll far enough back into my head!!!
You forgot to mention that that’s the Friday before the Monday Presidents’ Day holiday, which’ll further limit audience for the premiere.
Oh frak.
I disagree about the pairing with Dollhouse being a bad idea. Two shows in the same genre back to back makes sense. They can build up an audience on that night.
As for Friday night, that doesn’t seem so good. The Sci-fi channel has kinda staked out Friday nights for all their best stuff. On the other hand, BSG only has 10 episodes left, Stargate Atlantis is ending, and there’s no Doctor Who for the next couple years except the occasional special. The competition might not be so rough after all.
Actually, according to both zap2it and comingsoon.net, T:SCC will be the lead-in for Dollhouse. I think it makes a little more sense that way. And personally it works for me if not the rest of the country. Now if they’ll just show the episodes in actual proper sequence…
Hmmm… So I guess I should put Dollhouse: The Complete Epic Series DVD Boxset on my Christmas 2009 wish list now.
I hope they at least (A) let us see the thing in the right order and (B) let us see all the filmed episodes before yanking it.
I fear they’ll be able to put out Drive: All Six Episodes With Absolutely No Resolution To Any Plotline and Dollhouse: The Complete Epic Series together in one 3-disc set with plenty of room for extras and commentaries. (D*mn you, FOX!)
PAD asked:
“It’s Fox. It’s SF. It’s Friday. It’s Friday the 13th. What could possibly go wrong?”
The answer: EVERYTHING!
I will not be watching because I’ll be over at the Sci-Fi Channel catching the final episodes of Battlestar Galactica.
And Fox loses my viewership of Bones by moving it to Thursday night because unless it’s preempted or a rerun, I’ll be watching Smallville on the CW.
The bášŧárdš are counter-programming against BSG, just because they can, not to mention the added schadenfreude for having fooled Joss Whedon again after he swore he wouldn’t let them do it one more time.
Gødšdámņìŧ, we don’t all own a TiVo or have DirecTV’s equivalent service.
I’m not thrilled with the move but considering that SCC has a relatively large DVR/online audience it may not matter when it airs. It doesn’t look likely for a third season, but at least this way we have a decent chance of seeing the entire season.
As for Dollhouse I realize this may be blasphemy but maybe it’s simply not very good? There have been mutiple retooling efforts and attempts to fix scripts. Now when joss is on he’s on, but there has also been stuff that’s pure crap. Of course if it does fail, he’s got a built in excuse again and the fan base will continue to proclaim that he’s just misunderstood by the suits
It migh work if they have a sci-fi Friday theme???? Right? Maybe? .
Over on Whedonesque, they’re saying this date is also the 5th anniversary of the cancellation of Angel. So that’s another bad sign.
Someone else listed all of the cancelled Sci-fi shows that were originally sentenced to Fox’s Friday Death Slot:
The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (1993)
MANTIS (1994)
Strange Luck (1995)
Sliders (1996)
Millennium (1996)
The Visitor (1997)
Harsh Realm (1999)
Freakylinks (2000)
Dark Angel (2000)
The Lone Gunmen (2001)
John Doe (2003)
Firefly (2003)
I think I was a fan of 9 of the 12…
They left out V.R. 5 (1995) when they put the list together.
I was a big fan of 7 of those shows.
They also used the death slot for dark fantasy as well. Brimstone (1998) was a show I loved to death. Died a fast death on Fox Friday Nights,
I agree with most of the above examples (I also loved MANTIS and Brimstone; also Firefly after the fact), but Dark Angel lasted two seasons (the second being far worse than the first) and if Sarah Connor and Dollhouse “only” last as long as Sliders, I won’t complain too loudly.
Man…I need to dig up a copy of Freakylinks….
Why doesn’t SciFi ever show that one?
Bones moving to Thursday…that’s might be rough even with the DVR….
-Chris
Brisco County was sci-fi? I thought it was a western.
I was really only a fan of one of those shows: Strange Luck. Ðámņ, that was a good show. I’ve never even heard of some of those other shows, so, yeah, excellent job, Fox marketing guys.
MANTIS (1994)
Sliders (1996)
Millennium (1996)
As someone else pointed out, most shows should do as ‘poorly’ as SLIDERS which lasted, what, five seasons? Mind you, after they replaced Arturo with that bimbo, I lost a lot of the interest.
MILLENIUM might have lasted longer, but the studio/writers’ idea to ditch Black’s wife – the only ‘positive’ part of the show – ensured fans would drop out in droves. And I know quite a few who did, including myself.
M.A.N.T.I.S.? I still have the pilot somewhere. Didn’t ‘grab’ me. Didn’t help they had it on at a weird time, either.
Business Sense- noun, 1. The opposite of common sense. 2. The Fox Network
The M.A.N.T.I.S. series was better than the pilot. They made some changes and swapped out a few characters.
Brisco County was sci-fi *and* western, a combination that I think will always be doomed. As much as some of us might love the idea of cowboys who dabble in time travel, most of the TV audience just wants the shows to stick to one genre at a time.
Eh, that’s what DVR is for… Record it, watch it on Saturday!
I only liked “Dark Angel” and “Firefly” of that list.
Isn’t one of the classic signs of insanity when you keep repeating the same actions over and over again but expect different results?
Hmmm…
Brisco County is Steampunk in a western setting.
Very Jules Verne with lots of brass and weird machines. It had a great cast including Christian Clemenson as Socrates Poole.
::shakes head:: I just don’t get it.
[I]f Sarah Connor and Dollhouse “only” last as long as Sliders, I won’t complain too loudly.
Or at least last three seasons before getting moved somewhere better, like that other cancelled show that originally premiered on the Friday Death Slot, the X-Files. (Whose success in that time slot is probably the reason that shows like Millennium were put there in the first place.)
here’s a question–WHY is Friday such a death valley for SF? All the sci-fi geeks out on dates? Going out to see movies on the first night they’re released? Weekly D&D games? What?
Poor Joss. He keeps going back. Battered Writer Syndrome.
THIS KIND OF CRAP IS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN IN BARACK OBAMA’S AMERICA!
RE: “Dollhouse”
From many reports, there has been extreme friction, with Fox accused of wanting to “dumb the show down because it was complicated”.
If that is true, that is a shame, since I hate whem Hollywood takes something unique and interesting and tries to homogenize it.
However, as big a fan as Joss’s as I am, I am not ready to automatically assume he is being wronged. he is extremely talented, yes. But not everything he writes is automatic gold – or even comprehensible – and there is often wasted potential.
See various “Buffy” and “Angel” episodes, and “Serenity” in particular.
RE: “T;TSCC”
For the life of me, the thing I really don’t understand about making this a “sci-fi night” is the fact that they ARE going up against another SCI-FI night, literally, headlined by “Battlestar Galactica”. My only theory on this is that Fox looked at the limited success of SCI-FI’s slate, saw that their shows once had more viewers on Friday night, and that they could bring them back and even poach some of the competition with the followings both Whedon and the Terminator franchise have. Seems a bit risky to do with a new show that has had problems and a series that was near cancellation, but I guess that’s their reasoning.
Also, where else on the schedule WOULD be a good fit? And though it easy to bash FOX for their failures, at least they consistently produce genre shows. Maybe Whedon went to Fox because ABC, CBS and NBC would rather dream up reality shows, newsmagazines and formulaic sitcoms any day than answer his calls about a sci-fi/fantasy show. Couple that with CW’s smaller audience and Whedon’s problems with both parent companies of that network, and perhaps he is just grateful that FOX is at least giving him the glimmer of a possibility that his vision will hit the screen and reach the masses.
WHY is Friday such a death valley for SF? All the sci-fi geeks out on dates?
The really sad Sci-Fi geeks aside, yes they are. I used to have to set my VCR for X-Files since I was out with friends on Friday nights back then. A lot of people I hung out with were, barring the really hyped episodes, watching X-Files at 2 AM or with a Saturday morning hangover.
Even the casual fans that “matter” are mostly out at that time. The thing I’ve learned to hate about the ratings system is that a show with 3 million viewers can be seen as more of a failure than a show with only 2 million viewers if the “key 18-49 demo” of viewers in the show with 2 million viewers is twice that of the show with 3 million viewers. The show with more key demo viewers gets to charge higher ad rates than the show that actually has more viewers and, especially if the show has a larger FX budget, it makes the network more money.
I’ve always thought that the system was stupid, but I really started hating it when I started reading industry stuff online and sometimes seeing that shows I liked that were struggling were axed because a show with lower overall ratings had twice the key demo viewers.
Sci-Fi channel has been able to do very well with putting shows on Friday. The audience is definitley there on that night.
I’m making an assumption here, but I think shows on Sci-Fi don’t need to rate as high as shows on Fox to be considered hits.
Yeah, Terminator is dead. Fox has proved to be an even more relentless pitiless foe.
Conor,
Your assumption is correct. The problem for SC-FI, is not only do their shows attract less viewers, but they attract a large number of people who TiVo them instead of watching them when they air. Advertisers are not going to throw major dollars at a show where a large segment of viewers zip through their commercials without watching them. It follows that SCI-FI and other networks will then cancel such shows in favor og those they can make more money on
Jerry Chandler,
Kudos on the whole “Sci-Fi fans actually go on dates thing. It is a ridiculous, easy, lazy stereotype too many people readily accept.
However,the whole demographic thing in regard to networks deciding which shows to keep and which to axe is not stupid. It is simply logical. The younger demographics represent new consumers without which any business – or political party – will eventually die. They spend more money and are more likely to have no brand loyalty yet. If you’ve been drinking Coke and eating at McDonald’s for 25 years, chances are you are not going to change your preference. So the advertisers want to target their message on those on whom it will more likely register.
Fridays? I’m usually home, wiped after long hours at work. It’s Saturday evening that I’m (usually) out or with friends. Of course, that’s mostly moot nowadays as all the crap they throw on over the image (from station logos to “You Are Watching” ‘banners’ which cover 20-25% of the screen) have, with only a couple of exception, literally turned me off watching shows ‘live’ and wait instead for pristine DVD season sets.
(The exceptions? HOUSE, M.D. and BIG BANG THEORY)
Sci-Fi channel may get less viewers than other channels, but it gets more viewers on friday than any other night of the week. So comparing fridays for Sci-Fi channel against any other day for Sci-Fi channel shows that there’s no particular reason to think that Friday is cursed.
As for Terminator, its ratings this season have been so low that Fox was already justified in canceling it. The fact that they instead moved it to a different night is a good thing.
There are two things that determine if a time slot is succussful for a show: ratings and the network’s expectations.
Ratings: Right now Terminator is going up against several shows at the same time slot fighting for the same target audience. If they move it do a different night with less competition, that might help. The shows that were on Friday when Firefly was around aren’t on anymore, so Friday doesn’t necessarily mean the same ratings it used to.
Network Expectations: There’s no way to judge this. If they think Friday is going to lead to huge ratings, then they will be dissappointed. What I can say is that the executives running Fox now are not the same people who were in charge when Firefly was cancelled. That’s part of why Joss Whedon was willing to work with Fox again, because with different people it’s essentially a different company. So network expectations are at least not guaranteed to be the same as before.
I have no idea if this move will be good for either Dollhouse or Terminator. But I don’t think it’s especially bad. Fox has cancelled plenty of good shows on Tuesday, Sunday, Wednesday, and the rest.
A couple things… First, IIRC, Fox banished another one of my favorite shows to the Friday death slot… that being Wonderfalls… Second, if Sci Fi stays true to form, it’ll be running BSG at 9pm (Central), allowing everybody to catch T:SCC and Dollhouse (at 7) on Fox before flipping over for BSG! I’m hoping Fox gives the new Friday night shows a chance before pulling them… that is, more than 4 episodes.
By mid-February, based on the January schedule, SciFi’s Friday lineup will be:
8:00 pm Invasion
9:00 pm Moonlight
10:00 BSG
Of course, Scifi’s record of acquired network series on Friday nights has been worse than FOX, showing a couple of episodes and either pulling it or banishing it to daytime rotation blocks. Most recent examples have been Threshold, Odyssey 5, and Charlie Jade. It may be a repeat of the previous week’s Galactica in the 9 pm slot by then.
“the “key 18-49 demo” of viewers”
When are the Idiots That Be going to wise up? It’s a new world out there… as the sci-fi loving generation gets older, we don’t lose our love for the genre… we don’t lose our passion for great stories and twisted concepts… and we have more money to spend to indulge our obsessions now that our kids are on their own… the whole ratings system is frakked… I still take “risks” and watch genre shows even knowing that I’ll probably be left angry when it’s cancelled in the middle of a great plotline… We need Dennis Hopper as a spokesman – he doesn’t need to be doing retirement plan commercials – he needs to represent US!
I do not belive Fox (being owned by Rupert Murdoch) cares about TV, they only care about Newspapers and the mass media of cable networks and publications they own. They also do not care about anything Joss does, the fact that they put it on a night when few people are actually watching TV, speaks volumes.
Argh! Mike D. *had* to go and mention “Wonderfalls”. Now I’ll have that stupid Oasis “Wonderwall” song stuck in my head all day.
John, FOX is not just one guy, sitting in a chair saying, “Today, I shall think about newspapers.” The people who make the decisions about the FOX network are the people who *work* at the FOX network. They don’t work for the newspaper, they don’t work for the news channel, their job is the FOX network. So yes, they do care.
John,
If you would stop being blinded by an apparent distaste for Rupert Murdoch, you would realize your assertion that Fox doesn’t “care” about TV is ludicrous and ill-informed. On many levels.
Fox is the only network launched in the past 30 years that can be credibly called a major network.
It has deals for sports programming, including marquee events like the Super Bowl, World Series and Daytona 500 that WB/UPN/CW could/can only dream about. It has produced what was easily one of the Top 5 cult/genre shows during that time with “The X-Files”, which was a hit on Fridays I believe – to the extent that many people stayed home to watch it. They have one of the most popular and critically acclaimed shows ever in “The Simpsons”, have nurtured that show for two decades, and used at as a linchpin for a Sunday evening with an almost all-animation slate. I dare you to name another network that would have taken that chance or that has. And what about “24”, “House”, “Melrose Place”, “Beverly Hills 90210” ad all the other hits they’ve had over the years
They have positioned themselves as the hip, groundbreaking network with far more viewers and affiliates than those who would claim the same.
In fact, part of the reason the network does not have a national news program on it’s regular broadcast network is because it’s affiliates make a ton of money with local news and/or syndicated programming during that time. Murdoch and the other people involved with Fox would be silly to annoy them unless they could promise ratings as good or greater. And with Fox News, they can satisfy almost everyone.
And as someone said, “T:TSCC”‘s ratings took a huge nosedive after getting a ton of promotion and being on a “friendlier” night. They could easily have canceled it, but are instead giving it a second year that shows like “Blade” and “Painkiller Jane” never got. They have to put SOMETHING on Fridays.
And for some shows it’s worked. “Law and Order” was a Wednesday staple for years but was bleeding viewers. They switched it to Fridays and pushed their Season Opener to January instead of September. Did that mean NBC didn’t like Sam Waterston? No. They were trying to maximize the potential of a show that was slipping.
When the Writer’s Strike hit, they were one of the few shows with plenty of fresh episodes in the can and bounced back.
As for “caring” about Joss. If they didn’t care or respect him at all, they wouldn’t waste their time investing money in another one of his shows. Can we at least see what happens with “Dollhouse” before making Joss a martyr yet again?
There’s a reason why I’m not making ahuge effort to catch SCC: It’s on Fox, and I don’t expect them to be able to carr it off. Already they’ve shown a gross mismanagement of the show. Last season it was well supported…with the advertising budget from the dormant 24 season that never happened last year. So it got a huge boost through exposure to tons of people that would never have seen it. It got great ratings, even against MNF.
Season two, what happens? Not nearly the advertising blitz it got the first time around. Fox did repeat the first season right before the second premiere, but failed to advertise it much, so anyone that missed any part of the first season likely didn’t see it the second time around. And now it’s up against Chuck, which is by far NBCs better genre show.
Moving to Friday, were it not for Sci Fi’s/BSG’s dominance of that night, might be a good idea. But too many of us are familiar with this story.
Adding Dollhouse comforts me not at all. Espcially considering that Fox appears to be messing with the production, calling for a reshoot of the pilot, requesting that the tone and pace of the show be changed, mid-production. It’s all too familiar. Now all we’ll need for the circle to be com-plete will be for the Dollhouse episodes to be aired out of intended broadcast order.
I continue to fail to understand the broadcast mentality…Sci Fi does well with genre shows on Friday…so Fox thinks it can do well, too? There are only so many sci-fi/genre fans watching TV, and most of them are going to be invested in the last episodes of BSG. Also, Cartoon Network has Clone Wars, which may still be airing on Fridays at that point, and will also have an invested audience. I’d rather find some night when those 7 million genre fans are looking for a CSI/Survivor/Dancing with the Stars alternative than gamble on being able to take away fans from an established show.
The real problem with Dollhouse is that it’s conceived as a vanity showcase for a terrible actress. No wonder Fox sent it to the cornfield to die.
Well, no FOX has never been kind to genre shows… but it looks like they’re maturing… at least they didn’t shut down SCC after 6 episodes. ( but they’re gonna keep the Simpsons on for another 3 seasons- 23 years … go figure. I think it jumped the shark about the same time Futurama went out)
So show a little faith… maybe they’ll realize that Friday may not be the death sentence it used to be.
Bob A
Well, the sci-fi geeks may be at home, but us alone are not enough to be considered a “hit” at Fox. A lot of “casual”, non-geek viewers ages 18-49 are what has to happen to have a “hit.” And the casual viewers, unlike us, have lives.
Dammit, now I’m reminded that I’ll be at a conference that Friday and I won’t get to see it. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.