Let’s talk TV. Let’s talk genre. The writer’s strike was hard on a lot of science fiction, crushing in its wake Bionic Woman, Journeyman, The (superb) 4400, and leaving Battlestar Galactica with at least a few broken bones. It slashed at the momentum that shows like these need to complete their arcs, their legs if you want to get prosaic, and shed their more mainstream devotees. It was a bleak time for the writers and their audience, who together had the most to lose. Refreshing, then, was the season after — this last year — which was quite a healthy one in the genre. The Sarah Connor Chronicles survived for a whole season, Fringe premiered, for better or for worse, and Whedon’s latest — Dollhouse — saw light. The light of oncoming headlights, that is.
How Dollhouse averted death, given its steady trudge from 5 million viewers to half as many over the course of 12 episodes, given its negative buzz from the internet elite and general propheteering, given tiresome executive influence of the sort one has come to expect with every genre TV show in the ‘States these days; given all this, Fox has announced it will be back next year against all laws of nature (and reason – Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was not only higher rating, and considered more bullish by critics, but was also debatably a better show). One may find, when Dollhouse returns, that it eats brains.
The other major networks have chimed in like Shakespearean crones, summoning forth death and birth equally from the bones in their cauldron. This is no doubt old news to some, but NBC have announced (announced is too strong a word, perhaps regurgitated?) a new apocalyptic SF called Day One. Meanwhile, ABC have decided to apply the titular effect to their Pushing Daisies and replace it with Eastwick, which being adapted material and popular culture was a safer bet I guess, but doesn’t look as much fun. CBS has just axed Stephen Gallagher’s Eleventh Hour. It’s like the French revolution, just twice a year. Er … Let me rephrase that: it’s like the French revolution.
Dollhouse’s renewal is particularly interesting because Fox cites streaming, DVR, and DVD sales as part of their decision to keep funding the show. Could they mean it? Scripted TV in particular, but especially genre stuff, has a large online audience. Viewers of science fiction, like this one right here, are generally tech savvy enough to access most of their video using iTunes, hulu, the BBC iPlayer, or through piracy, and are therefore less likely to be accurately counted in the Neilsen Ratings. Scripted shows like Dollhouse have a significantly longer market lifespan than reality television or news, so the fact that post-broadcast “sales” (even if they are just views on hulu) are not given equal weight to overnight figures hurts them considerably. It’s how the networks move into a decision-making model that accommodates the denizens of the internet (like all of you) that will decide the future of scripted drama, and ultimately television in general. After all, that’s where their coveted 18-39 demographic spends most of their time!
The push into original Web Drama like the famous lonelygirl15 and Kate Modern seemed like the firestarter for this sort of thing, but the moment never struck. Only people like myself are willing to watch media in front of their computer for longer than a few minutes at once. I suppose TVs need to become computers, not the other way around, before the networks see the gold. And you know that always gets them running.
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