Fox Benches Dollhouse During Sweeps

According to EW's Michael Ausiello, FOX has changed its sweeps schedule and decided to air repeats of mega-hits House and Bones on Fridays from 8-10 during November. Last week FOX released their sweeps schedule and everyone was shocked to see that FOX decided to keep Dollhouse on during sweeps despite its less than stellar performance. On it's last new episode Dollhouse had 2.25 million viewers and a 1.0 rating in 18-49 yr. olds. While these numbers aren't great they are more of a reflection of poor marketing and poor lead-ins that have inhibited the show's ability to gain new followers.

Unfortunately this news most likely means that Dollhouse will not get a back-nine order and will finish its run at the end of its current 13-episode order. This is such a shame because if FOX put a bit more effort into accurately marketing the show and gave it a better time slot the show has the potential to build a slightly bigger, extremely loyal fan base. While I'm sure the network doesn't agree, I think it would be a smarter financial move to end season two in December and give the show a third season because of the potential DVD sales than to cancel it in December. Joss Whedon has a massive cult following that continues to grow and Dollhouse stands to make a lot of money on DVDs in the next few years. FOX should try making Dollhouse their guinea pig show to see if the cable programming model can be successful on a broadcast network.