Flashpoint Will Once Again Dominate Fridays From Next Week!

So! Welcome to another one of my random ramblings! Dollhouse is over. For the next few months anyway. Due to it's abysmal ratings, we think that it is holding on to any potential future by a very thin thread. This means that Flashpoint will probably have a better chance of winning it's timeslot and perhaps even achieving that magical 2.0 rating more often. I will do a full fledged ratings post for the last two weeks, but for now I'd like to send out a huge congrats to the show for recovering from it's April 24th dip to 1.6/5 to hitting a 2.1/6 last week! I enjoyed today's episode and I look forward to resuming my summaries next week! And this time, I promise there will be one up at least by the end of the week!

However, something needs to be said about tonight's finale of Dollhouse. I think the only reason a good portion of its viewers ever cared to watch the show to begin with was because it was a Joss Whedon creation and many of us fans of his earlier work flocked to this one. Before we move on, I should mention that tonight's episode was written by Tim Minear, who wrote two episodes on another doomed series on Fox that The Me and I quite enjoy, Wonderfalls. I was rocked, shocked, and left on the edge of my seat. Watching today's episode was like being stuck in a terrible nightmare or being scared in a horror movie. Easily the best episode of the season, and many sci-fi bloggers who got to watch advanced screeners of the episode agree. Prior to tonight's episode, there were maybe 2 or 3 episodes that were almost worth watching, while the rest were too painful to watch. I'd almost say that it was as powerful as the end of Buffy. However, it's too little, too late. The show should have only stuck with a small pool of writers, cut back on a lot of the jittery banter that every character seemed to have in every scene, and really worked hard to make each character more serious. I also think a couple of the actors just weren't strong enough choices for their character - the biggest standouts for me are Miracle Laurie (November) and Enver Gjokaj (Victor). Amy Acker (Dr. Saunders/Whisky), Tahmoh Penikett (Ballard) and Dichen Lachman (Sierra) at times appeared to really be straining to portray their characters. Maybe it's a matter of their voices being too soft for such strong characters? Back to the pool of writers - roughly, by the numbers, there were 12 episodes of Dollhouse that made it to television, and there were roughly 8 writing "teams". In Flashpoint's first season when counting the first 13 episodes, there were 6 writing teams. More than that, the first three episodes were written by the same team (Mark Ellis and our trooper, Stephanie Morgenstern). It's my opinion at least that this helped to establish a base for the characters to work off of so that when other writers wrote they had a lot more to work with. The director through those first three episodes also remained the same. Dollhouse's first three episodes in comparison, had different teams, and different directors. It was almost as if this show was doomed from the start because of this inconsistency!

On the plus side, I do think that the idea of Dollhouse was a great one. I really think that if the show had a lot more organization behind the scenes and in production, it could have been a hit and may have a better shot at renewal. We think it's kind of funny that some sci-fi blogs (who will be unnamed) who agreed with most critics that the show didn't have a shot at being renewed early on, are now doing a complete 360, writing puff pieces and other positively-toned posts in an effort to make their voices heard to the powers that be to renew the show. Yes, tonight's episode was great, but looking at the big picture? The show did not consistently do well. In fact, the only thing it did consistently was lose viewership.

If the show is renewed (and there is a very slim chance in our opinion and most critics) it may be moved to a different night. Many blogs have expressed their opinion that Friday was always the wrong night for the show to begin with, despite the fact that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was the lead-in. On a much happier note, it's good to only have one thing to watch on Friday Night again!