New Blogger and Why Fox Sucks - A Lot

So, since Jenna has like a baby and a life and a house and a job, and I have a whole summer ahead of me of studying for the bar exam, we thought it would make sense for me to co-blog with her, since I generally have a lot to say about TV, Books and Film, and my husband gets tired of listening to me complain or rave about the same things over and over again. So, now you get to read about my raving and complaining about the same things over and over again. Today's topic: Why Fox Sucks - A Lot.

I'm a big Joss Whedon fan; Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, all of it. So, naturally, when I heard that he was developing a new show - Dollhouse - I was incredibly excited. Then I heard that it would be airing on Fox. Really? Joss, did you learn nothing from the Firefly Debacle.* But my hopes were high anyway. After all, if Joss was willing to work with Fox again, then he must be confident that they wouldn't give him the shaft like they did before.

Then I find out that the show is going to air in the no man's land of televisions - aka Friday nights. That's essentially a death sentence, especially on FOX. But I tuned in anyway, sure that even if it was going to be yet another Whedon series cut short by the short view executives at Fox, I would at least get one season out of it. But the first few episodes weren't that great. They were all stand-alones with very little insight into the big picture of the show, and they just weren't very Joss. I am not usually on top of the buzz around shows, but recently, when I've been rabidly trying to find out if Dollhouse is getting cancelled or not, I've been reading some stuff online. Apparently, the reason those first few episodes weren't so great (and probably lost a lot of the Buffy/Angel/Firefly fans who might have tuned in at the beginning) was because Fox was forcing an episodic version of the show. No wonder it was a mess.

Sidenote: Why did they put it on Fridays when they had an obvious lead-in show in Bones? Come on, you've got a Joss-alum starring in a Fox show already, why not use that to get Joss fans on board with both shows? They tried that with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but Summer Glau isn't as big of a draw as David Boreanaz. They should let me do their programming for them.

But since about the fifth episode or so, each episode has been better than the last. Last week's episode, the penultimate episode of the season, was the best yet, by far. And yet, thanks to the complete lack of support from Fox, it's still very likely that it won't be back for a second season. The worst part about all of this is that Fox won't just be cancelling this one show that I love. Most likely, it will be pushing Joss out of the television medium altogether. He's already on the brink, so cancelling the show would probably be the end. That would mean that my favorite creative genius would no longer be working in my favorite medium, so I would not be very happy about that.

So, that's it. That's why Fox sucks. Now, I have to go watch my DVR'ed American Idol.

*For the uninitiated, Firefly was cancelled by Fox before the season was even over. They didn't even air all of the shows that were produced. Luckily, Joss's rabid fanbase mobilized and the movie Serenity got made to give some kind of resolution to viewers (and to just generally be awesome), but Fox still made a major error in not giving that show the time it needed to grow an audience. You'd think they would have learned something from that.