Television

A Joss Whedon universe is always a strange and fantastical place to visit. It doesn’t matter if it’s populated by vampires and demons or space cowboys. If Whedon’s name appears anywhere on the credits, you know you’re going to be in for one hell of a ride. It’s been a little while since Whedon’s been back in the saddle. His most recent series, Firefly, was fraught with problems with the network. It was very badly handled, and the show died an undeserved swift death after just a few episodes. Whedon appeared somewhat bitter after all of that and disappeared from the television radar for a few years. They say you can’t keep a good man down, and now Whedon is back with his latest mythology-heavy series, Dollhouse.

For a lot of fans, it looked like Dollhouse was heading down the same black hole that Firefly flew into. There were numerous delays in getting started, not the least of which was the writers’ strike just days after the series was given the green light. Whedon had his cast and crew already in place, but it seemed they were all dressed up with no place to go. Once the strike ended, they quickly punched out the pilot episode from the series. Unfortunately, the new pilot had some issues. Whedon and the network hadn’t exactly been on the same page, and as quickly as it had been made, the pilot was scrapped. Fans were getting restless. It was just this kind of pilot debacle that started so many of Firefly’s problems. Fortunately, a second go went quite smoothly, and the show was off the ground. Ratings were not exactly the atmospheric numbers FOX was expecting from a Joss Whedon series. There was already talk by the middle of the first 12-episode run that the series was in danger. Then there was a problem with the number 12. Apparently FOX and Whedon had another one of their, by now, classic misunderstandings. The network was expecting not 12 but 13 episodes. The result was a pretty unconventional final episode that just might have saved the series as it turned out. Finally, the show finished production with no word on renewal. The show was considered on the bubble, with most predictions leaning toward its cancellation. It seems that the curse was going to make Dollhouse just another of its many victims. But then something unexpected happened, and the marginal show was renewed. But that was to be a short-lived reprieve. The series is gone now and these final 13 episodes are all that you'll have left to remember it.