Friday Night on Fox TV!

I was much amused at Fox TV's recent ads for their Friday night lineup of Terminator, the Sarah Connor Chronicles (SCC) and Joss Whedon's Dollhouse. They presented this as a grindhouse like ad with Summer Glau and Eliza Dushku spotlighted. If it works, I would be surprised as Friday night has become a dead zone on TV, where shows go to die.

First up, SCC. This show has taken the continuity of the Terminator movies and totally destroyed any sense of what it going on. Both terminators and resistant fighters keep going back in time to either help or stop SkyNet. Not really sure what the intent is here. In the first film, time travel was this last ditch effort for the machines to win and was limited. Now everyone can travel in time, so why the last humans not just leave and hide in the past and leave the barren world to the machines is not really clear. Summer Glau does a nice job in her role as the terminator who protects John Connor, but I just wonder if this is just a waste of her talents and she needs to get a new agent.

Ratings for SCC has been in steady decline since the first episode, so why Fox thinks that this would be a good lead in for Dollhouse is beyond me. One would think that Fox would have learned after they screwed up Firefly, but I guess not.

Joss Whedon trusts Fox once more with one of his shows, Dollhouse. Interesting premise and could be a decent series. Eliza Dushku who was very good as Faith the Slayer (a show that we really would rather have than Dollhouse) and was good in Tru Calling (another show Fox killed without giving it a real chance, see a pattern here?) plays Echo. Echo is an operative who had her memories wiped and gets a personality downloaded for missions that the Dollhouse undertakes. She gets to be a billionaire's plaything in the beginning of the first show, a kidnap negotiator for the rest of the show. This gives Dushku a chance to flex her acting chops and play a whole bunch of different characters. Too bad Summer Glau is committed to SCC, this would have been a good show for her. Her characters from Firefly and SCC are too similar, would be nice to see her flex her acting skills.

Not a bad show, but I don't have much faith that Fox is going to show much support unless the ratings are very good. Well, maybe we will get Faith the Slayer, hopefully on some other network. Whedon does not have a lot of luck with Fox.