Hollywood Reporter and EW.com both are reporting that Dollhouse has officially been cancelled. Latest from the rumor mill is that Fox still plans to air the remaining episodes during the winter doldrums, but at this point even that may not be guaranteed.
Not totally surprised given the low ratings and, quite frankly, unexpected reprieve that allowed season 2 to go ahead in the first place. A shame, because the concept and most of the episodes were fantastic, but at least they’ve canned it with a couple of episodes still to produce. Knowing Joss Whedon he’s now going to be working around the clock so try an ensure that the last episode should be something really special.
The articles said they were talking about airing the remaining episodes, not shooting them. It’s possible they were already shot before news of the cancellation came so won’t have any closure.
I’d be surprised if Joss didn’t take the possibility into account. Though I think the “missing” episode on the end of the S1 dvds is the series wrapper, whenever it happens…
Joss has publically stated that he knew the thirteenth ordered episode could well be the last this season, and the season was written so that the episode would give “enough” closure to satisfy, but still leave room for more if the series continued.
The unaired episode of Season 1 was the closure.
Check the HW link (the same info is linked from CNN’s front page too, which is where I first heard about this from). Both state that Episode 11 is currently being filmed, so it’s still possible to tweak or even completely re-write the finale, if Joss is so inclined. Then again, a post below says it’s already been written as a finale rather than a cliffhanger (likely, since this seems to be par for the course for Joss’ shows), so other than maybe trying to wrap up a few more loose ends, I guess it’s done. And there’s always the “unaired” S1 Ep13 for *real* closure if the S2 finale doesn’t cut it for you…
Then again, perhaps we’ll get something like the “Buffy Series 8” comicbook series, or even a movie like “Serenity”, for Dollhouse, but I won’t be holding my breath on that.
I wish I could say I was surprised at the news. Sadly, it had been pointing this way for a while.
However, I choose to view this not as a loss, but view the second season a win. At least they treated the series (somewhat) better than Firefly, which didn’t get a chance to grow. Every episode we saw was a gift. :-)
I hope they wrap it up with the events leading up to Epitaph One, and then if they ever land a movie deal, the end of Epitaph One would be a pretty good starting point.
I watched this hoping that FOX would be able to give Whedon the space to make his show. Is it really so hard to find a network that will back a good show and give it the space to develop its following?
It would help if they stopped putting his shows in the Friday night Deathslot. Stick American Idol or something else with a guaranteed following there and let Joss have a time earlier in the week.
Anyone curious what this new ‘Project’ we’ll know about will be? The speculation I heard was that it would be web based, and/or Dr. Horrible related.