Round 1: Vahla Ha'Nesh vs Drogyn

[Flannen]

Dollhouse was too Echo-centric, resulting in its cancellation.

VH: FOR
Drogyn: AGAINST

Can the House arguing FOR please post first? Thanks!

 

[Wesley]

Drogyns opening statement! (it's 12:01 AM on Tuesday Eastern Standard Time so I'm posting even if I am not technically supposed to go first).

Dollhouse was too Echo-centric, resulting in its cancellation. AGAINST.



The Wanton Folly of Fox


When Buffy Boarders, Whedonites, or Sci-Fi geeks look back at Dollhouse and it's terrible fate, they will all try to find "The Reason". The Reason is that one mistake, that one innovation someone missed, or that one episode/character/plot that ultimately doomed yet another Whedon show too an early and inglorious cancellation. With fingers being pointed all around, some might argue that perhaps the show was too focused on the main character 'Echo' and had they broadened the focus to other characters perhaps the show may have avoided cancellation. However if one looks more closely at the facts, they will see that not only was Echo and by extension Eliza Dushku not the reason for the cancellation of Dollhouse, without her it never would have made it as far as it did.

If one looks at the numbers it reveals some interesting information. From the first episode "Ghost" until the 7th episode "Echoes" Dollhouse had a slightly different format. It was much more episodic then the show would become and mostly focused on three characters. Those three characters were Echo the primary 'Active', Boyd her handler, and Ballard the FBI Agent. If one thinks back, later major players such as Adelle, Topher, Sierra, Victor and November were very much background characters and/or seemed very likely at the time to be the primary antagonists on the show. So one can see that this particular episode block was the most Echo-centric of any time in the series as she was one of only three protagonists and the other two were assigned to her protection or obsessed with finding her respectively. So it would follow that if 'Echo-centrism' was the reason for the shows failure, then the ratings would have reflected it. This is not the case. In fact, if one looks at the ratings for the show, the first 7 episodes of the show averaged a not very good but not terrible 4.17. The final 17 episodes averaged a paltry 2.63 and never again topped 3.56. The ratings drop corresponded with the show turning away from its episodic nature and towards an mucher larger arching plot along with deemphasising the roll of Echo, and Boyd while expanding the roles of Adelle, Topher, Ballard and other Actives. Although Echo was still the pimary focus of the show, she was no longer the only focus.

Numbers aside, to blame the cancellation on the emphasis on Echo/Dushku is incorrect on a number of factual levels. If one looks at some other comparable shows such as Alias, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer we see that a SciFi/Fantasy show based on a "˜special' girl can work. Sydney/Jennifer Garner and Buffy/SMG managed to pilot a show as the main character for 5 and 7 seasons respectively and show that the format can and does work. What these two shows had that Dollhouse lacked was a strong supporting cast. Alias had the likes of Victor Garber (Titanic), Bradley Cooper (Hangover), Greg Grunburg (Heroes), and Michael Vartan (Never Been Kissed). BtvS had Anthony Stewart Head (Merlin), Alyson Hannigan (HIMYM), David Boreanez (Bones), and James Marsters (He's just awesome). Dollhouse had Olivia Williams and Harry Lennix, but beyond that they lacked any notable actors in support roles. Although it remains to be seen where the cast of Dollhouse will end up, the two other shows had successfully casted and incorporated future stars who were better able to support the main character.

Another good comparison to Dollhouse is the show Dark Angel. Both shows were SciFi, both started waifish brunettes and both were canceled by Fox after two seasons. They share another commonality also, the Friday Night Death Slot (duh duh duhhhhh). For non-Americans, the network Fox has a serious problems with their Friday night 8-10PM TV shows. Since the cancellation of X-Files in 1992, over 30 shows have aired and subsequently cancelled in that slot including shows previously successful in other slots (Dark Angel, Boston Public) and a whole host of SciFi/Fantasy shows that died on the vine (Sliders, Firefly). This is the true heart of the matter, Fox is the ultimate criminal in these proceedings. Although Fox put the show on for two seasons, to take a struggling show with a niche market and air it at the worst possible time is an excellent recipe for Cancelation Souflet. Not only did Fox stick it in a no win time slot they also meddled with the shows content. They had Joss reshoot the first episode, and demanded he emphasis episodic over arc driven content, robbing the show of his true vision. They didn't even air the last episode of the first season because they "˜didn't have to.' Additionally, the DVR and non-network media were relatively strong for Dollhouse, Fox seemed either unwilling or unable to find a way to connect the show with it's fanbase so they found it in other ways. Had Dollhouse aired on a different network at a different time slot it most certainly would have had higher ratings and perhaps, a third season.

With the final episode aired and the final chapters being written on the show, the blame although shared by many must be ultimately laid on one set of shoulders. The numbers show that it's Echo-centric beginning was higher rated. When they switched to a more ensemble approach the show quickly lost steam. We know that shows that are centrally focused on one special woman can and have succeeded in the past. We have seen that shows like these that do succeed are often favored with finding future stars in their support cast. Ultimately, dollhouse was many things. A Whedon show for his hungry audience, a SciFi thriller, a philosophical exercise on what truly makes a person "˜real', and ultimately doomed to cancellation by a network that lacks the ability or desire to properly support this genre of show.

 

[Willow-Tree]

To start off our argument, let’s think about the opening credits; it’s ALL about Eliza. From the very, very beginning it was all about Eliza. I mean, Joss and Eliza were meeting for, at least a year I think it was, about doing a show, so Eliza was obviously going to be heavily involved, and she was. She ended up being the lead character and an executive producer.
From what I've seen, more people seem to dislike Echo than like her. Still, I highly, highly doubt this was a reason to stop watching the show altogether. The only reason this show lasted two seasons is because of the poor ratings. I honestly think FOX was being generous, since the Season 1 ratings were below average for a show.
In season 2, Joss started to focus on Echo less, while still having the overall plot focus solely on her. Like, everyone was working towards the Echo/Caroline storyline, but Echo wasn't necessarily in it as much as she was in Season 1. And I think that gave us a break from her and allowed us to revel in the delights of the other main characters, who were/are truly fantastic.
Season one started with five Echo-centric episodes straight. Then the sixth episode was kind of everyone's episode, in the sense that it didn’t solely focus on Echo. Then the seventh is Echo-centric again, but it's connected to the main story of the season, which involved all the characters. The eighth and ninth is about everyone, thankfully, again. The tenth is Echo's and Adelle's, and the eleventh and twelfth are Echo, Alpha, and Whiskey's. The last episode is about everyone (with only two to three Echo scenes).

Season 2 started with two Echo's episodes. The third episode is Echo's and Victor's. The fourth is Sierra’s (The first episode ever that Echo didn't play a big part). The fifth to eighth are mostly about Echo's, but we got to the main story of the season. The ninth is about Victor's, but Echo still has big part. The tenth is about everyone. The eleventh is so Echo-centric (and Bennett). The twelfth is about everyone, and not just Echo, which is good since it was a season finale.
I think that maybe the fact it's too echo centric prevented the full development of some of the other characters, causing the viewers to be more disconnected from them. It takes a full set of characters to make a successful show!
For a show to be successful there are lots of small components that needs to fit/work. For a show to get the chance to become successful one detail is crucial. The show need to get the viewers attention and make them interested so they’ll continue following the show. Fail this and it doesn’t matter how good the show is. Time and time in the past shows have been cancelled too fast and sadly it’ll happen in the future too. As another Whedon-show, Firefly, Dollhouse never managed to keep the viewers interested enough in the beginning. Why is that? The reasons for the shows cancellation are different and today we’ll concentrate on Dollhouse.

From moment one Dollhouse was promoted as one thing, the Joss and Eliza project. If you heard or read about the show there was always Joss and Eliza, Joss and Eliza. Joss couldn’t praise Eliza enough and told everyone that would listen that this show would make Eliza shine and let her show off all the incredible talent she has. It was a perfect match. So all ads concentrated on Eliza, the homepage was all about Eliza and once the show started to air it was even clearer that this was “The Eliza show”. Not only were the episodes Echo-centered but she was the only one showing in the intro. This was a dangerous gamble. The character Echo had to get the viewers invested enough to keep watching. Whedonites is well aware that Joss writes great shows and in the center of it all is always the characters and the interaction between them so they waited patiently for things to change. For the average viewer though this was just one of all the shows out were. Viewers game the show a chance. They tuned in to see what it was all about. But it soon showed that the show couldn’t keep the interest up and viewers abandoned the show so ratings dropped. The faithful that stayed with the show noticed how it got better and better and began to reach its potential. This happened as the shows other characters got more and more involved and when the first season ended there was a lot of grief from the fans.

FOX giving the show another season was a surprise but a welcomed one. Sadly they just put faith in the Whedonites to get the show a bigger audience. Even if the show started to involve the other characters more and more not much happened “outside” the show. The homepage was Eliza-centered, the ads were mostly with Eliza (you’ve all seen the Echo with a gun pictures right?) and she was still the one showing in the intro. And if the average viewer tuned in to see if the second season was different to the impression they got from the first season what did they get? You guessed it, a brand new Echo-centric episode. So for those giving the show a new chance nothing seemed to have changed and they once again abandoned the show.

The showed made great progress but first impressions are hard to wipe away. With the competition that nowadays exists you need to hit the ground running. This is what Dollhouse failed to do and that’s what resulted in its cancellation.

 

[Willow-Tree]

So it would follow that if 'Echo-centrism' was the reason for the shows failure, then the ratings would have reflected it. This is not the case. In fact, if one looks at the ratings for the show, the first 7 episodes of the show averaged a not very good but not terrible 4.17. The final 17 episodes averaged a paltry 2.63 and never again topped 3.56. The ratings drop corresponded with the show turning away from its episodic nature and towards an mucher larger arching plot along with deemphasising the roll of Echo, and Boyd while expanding the roles of Adelle, Topher, Ballard and other Actives. Although Echo was still the pimary focus of the show, she was no longer the only focus.

The numbers are obviously correct but what’s interesting is why the numbers are what they are. We totally disagree with the statement that it’s because the show changed. The ratings didn’t drop because the show changed. They dropped because the initial episodes didn’t hook the average viewer. Once the show changed direction it was already too late. Viewers had already given up on the show. If the new direction was the reason for making the ratings drop, the ratings would have dropped after people had watched those episodes. As it was the audience who abandoned the show before, and that is what the ratings prove and nothing else.

Numbers aside, to blame the cancellation on the emphasis on Echo/Dushku is incorrect on a number of factual levels. If one looks at some other comparable shows such as Alias, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer we see that a SciFi/Fantasy show based on a ‘special’ girl can work.

That’s very fine but it’s totally missing the point. We’re all for shows with a female lead. But the fact is that Dollhouse didn’t fail because the lead was female. The character took too long to get interesting enough. It had nothing to do with the sex of the character; the character just happened to be female. Echo wouldn’t have been any better or interesting if it had been played by a male actor.

Sydney/Jennifer Garner and Buffy/SMG managed to pilot a show as the main character for 5 and 7 seasons respectively and show that the format can and does work. What these two shows had that Dollhouse lacked was a strong supporting cast. Alias had the likes of Victor Garber (Titanic), Bradley Cooper (Hangover), Greg Grunburg (Heroes), and Michael Vartan (Never Been Kissed). BtvS had Anthony Stewart Head (Merlin), Alyson Hannigan (HIMYM), David Boreanez (Bones), and James Marsters (He’s just awesome). Dollhouse had Olivia Williams and Harry Lennix, but beyond that they lacked any notable actors in support roles. Although it remains to be seen where the cast of Dollhouse will end up, the two other shows had successfully casted and incorporated future stars who were better able to support the main character.

Another good comparison to Dollhouse is the show Dark Angel. Both shows were SciFi, both started waifish brunettes and both were canceled by Fox after two seasons. They share another commonality also, the Friday Night Death Slot (duh duh duhhhhh). For non-Americans, the network Fox has a serious problems with their Friday night 8-10PM TV shows. Since the cancellation of X-Files in 1992, over 30 shows have aired and subsequently cancelled in that slot including shows previously successful in other slots (Dark Angel, Boston Public) and a whole host of SciFi/Fantasy shows that died on the vine (Sliders, Firefly). This is the true heart of the matter, Fox is the ultimate criminal in these proceedings. Although Fox put the show on for two seasons, to take a struggling show with a niche market and air it at the worst possible time is an excellent recipe for Cancelation Souflet. Not only did Fox stick it in a no win time slot they also meddled with the shows content. They had Joss reshoot the first episode, and demanded he emphasis episodic over arc driven content, robbing the show of his true vision. They didn’t even air the last episode of the first season because they ‘didn’t have to.’ Additionally, the DVR and non-network media were relatively strong for Dollhouse, Fox seemed either unwilling or unable to find a way to connect the show with it’s fanbase so they found it in other ways. Had Dollhouse aired on a different network at a different time slot it most certainly would have had higher ratings and perhaps, a third season.

We’re sorry but your point that Alias and Buffy the Vampire Slayer managed to cast future stars but Dollhouse didn’t is nothing but laughable. The last Dollhouse episode was aired less than a month ago. What are the actors and actresses supposed to have done since the show ended? It’s like blaming a baby for not having achieved anything in their life; totally unfair. Let’s at least give them a chance before judging them as failures. Enver Gjokaj became a big fan favourite for a reason. Sadly he didn’t get the chance to show how brilliant he is until most viewers had left the show. But those who stayed can’t have missed his awesome performances. Fran Kranz is another actor that got from “Who?” to a big favourite and someone we’ll hopefully see more of in the future. And there’ll be a lot of sad faces if we never see Dichen Lachman again. In the show we’ve seen Reed Diamond, Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Alan Tudyk, Mark Sheppard, Summer Glau, Felicia Day, Keith Carradine, Adair Tisher and Ray Wise. In our eyes this poor supporting cast looks pretty good. Some with good résumés, including shows like Alias, HIMYM and Heroes (Did we hear someone else mention these shows to prove their point?) as well as Twin Peaks, Dexter, Firefly, Angel, Homicide: Life on the Street, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The 4400, Leverage, 24 and more guest appearances on hit shows than we can list (But feel free to look up for many more) and some with possible great futures. Also, basing acting skill off of number of appearances on popular shows is putrid. Adam Sandler has been in a dozen popular film, but I can think of over one hundred actors that can act way better than him.

We can’t know what the future holds but we’re not agreeing that the supporting cast on Dollhouse was any less than the ones on Alias or Buffy.

And finally to exclude Tahmoh Penikett, one of the stars of Battlestar Galactica, when you mention notable actors in support roles is just the icing on the cake to our point.

Not only did Fox stick it in a no win time slot they also meddled with the shows content. They had Joss reshoot the first episode, and demanded he emphasis episodic over arc driven content, robbing the show of his true vision.

True. But once again let us check on what this really means. What did the changes Fox wanted result in? A lot of Echo-centric episodes. If you don’t trust us why don’t you watch the episodes again? Fox shot themselves in the foot but it still comes down to the impression the first crucial episodes gave. And sadly we all know the result of that. An audience that abandoned the show and ultimately getting it cancelled.

***

Major props to The Kinslayer for this post! =D

 

[Wesley]

To start off our argument, let's think about the opening credits; it's ALL about Eliza. From the very, very beginning it was all about Eliza. I mean, Joss and Eliza were meeting for, at least a year I think it was, about doing a show, so Eliza was obviously going to be heavily involved, and she was. She ended up being the lead character and an executive producer.
From what I've seen, more people seem to dislike Echo than like her. Still, I highly, highly doubt this was a reason to stop watching the show altogether. The only reason this show lasted two seasons is because of the poor ratings. I honestly think FOX was being generous, since the Season 1 ratings were below average for a show.

- I agree that yes, the show was all about Eliza. She was 'the name' that the show was being marketed under and it's not surprising considering she was the only thing close to household they had. I'm not sure that people seemed to dislike Echo more then like her. Certainly some people did not, while other did like her. I agree FOX was being generous, perhaps hoping to bottle the 'Firefly' backlash and turn it into higher ratings. I dont necessarily disagree with most of your statements but I don't think they either prove or disprove the argument.

In season 2, Joss started to focus on Echo less, while still having the overall plot focus solely on her. Like, everyone was working towards the Echo/Caroline storyline, but Echo wasn't necessarily in it as much as she was in Season 1. And I think that gave us a break from her and allowed us to revel in the delights of the other main characters, who were/are truly fantastic.
Season one started with five Echo-centric episodes straight. Then the sixth episode was kind of everyone's episode, in the sense that it didn't solely focus on Echo. Then the seventh is Echo-centric again, but it's connected to the main story of the season, which involved all the characters. The eighth and ninth is about everyone, thankfully, again. The tenth is Echo's and Adelle's, and the eleventh and twelfth are Echo, Alpha, and Whiskey's. The last episode is about everyone (with only two to three Echo scenes).

- That is the general outline of the second season yes. Also, the second season had lower ratings then the first season. So perhaps the reason for the ratings drop was that they stopped focusing on Echo so much and started focusing on the other character. Which ultimately led to it's cancelation.

Season 2 started with two Echo's episodes. The third episode is Echo's and Victor's. The fourth is Sierra's (The first episode ever that Echo didn't play a big part). The fifth to eighth are mostly about Echo's, but we got to the main story of the season. The ninth is about Victor's, but Echo still has big part. The tenth is about everyone. The eleventh is so Echo-centric (and Bennett). The twelfth is about everyone, and not just Echo, which is good since it was a season finale.
I think that maybe the fact it's too echo centric prevented the full development of some of the other characters, causing the viewers to be more disconnected from them. It takes a full set of characters to make a successful show!

- I agree with your premise in that a show must have good secondary characters. However, as you point out they had several episodes that featured all or a large portion of the other actives and it did nothing to save the show. It's hard to give any character a full personality in only 27 episodes, but other actives and other characters, especially Paul, were focused on for many many episodes and those episodes did not tick up in ratings or change the fate of the show.

For a show to be successful there are lots of small components that needs to fit/work. For a show to get the chance to become successful one detail is crucial. The show need to get the viewers attention and make them interested so they'll continue following the show. Fail this and it doesn't matter how good the show is. Time and time in the past shows have been cancelled too fast and sadly it'll happen in the future too. As another Whedon-show, Firefly, Dollhouse never managed to keep the viewers interested enough in the beginning. Why is that? The reasons for the shows cancellation are different and today we'll concentrate on Dollhouse.

From moment one Dollhouse was promoted as one thing, the Joss and Eliza project. If you heard or read about the show there was always Joss and Eliza, Joss and Eliza. Joss couldn't praise Eliza enough and told everyone that would listen that this show would make Eliza shine and let her show off all the incredible talent she has. It was a perfect match. So all ads concentrated on Eliza, the homepage was all about Eliza and once the show started to air it was even clearer that this was "The Eliza show". Not only were the episodes Echo-centered but she was the only one showing in the intro. This was a dangerous gamble. The character Echo had to get the viewers invested enough to keep watching. Whedonites is well aware that Joss writes great shows and in the center of it all is always the characters and the interaction between them so they waited patiently for things to change. For the average viewer though this was just one of all the shows out were. Viewers game the show a chance. They tuned in to see what it was all about. But it soon showed that the show couldn't keep the interest up and viewers abandoned the show so ratings dropped. The faithful that stayed with the show noticed how it got better and better and began to reach its potential. This happened as the shows other characters got more and more involved and when the first season ended there was a lot of grief from the fans.

- Yes, there is no doubt that FOX took two people Joss (the man every nerd boy wants to be) and Eliza (the woman every nerd boy wants to be with) and pushed them to the front. As I pointed out before the ratings really started to drop as the shows format was changed from the Paul, Echo, Boyd show to the 'ensemble meta-arc' that it became towards the latter half of S1. I think it showed that a straight forward story about Echo and her handler on missions while Paul tries to track her down CAN work. On the other hand, a layered collection of morally grey operators who are never who they seem to be and the 'real bad guy' seems to change every week, first its Adelle and Topher, then it's Dominic, then its Alpha, then its Rossum, then it's Boyd. A plot that was busy trying to make everything and everyone as hard to understand and convoluted as possible was a much bigger problem then Echo-centric plot lines.

FOX giving the show another season was a surprise but a welcomed one. Sadly they just put faith in the Whedonites to get the show a bigger audience. Even if the show started to involve the other characters more and more not much happened "outside" the show. The homepage was Eliza-centered, the ads were mostly with Eliza (you've all seen the Echo with a gun pictures right?) and she was still the one showing in the intro. And if the average viewer tuned in to see if the second season was different to the impression they got from the first season what did they get? You guessed it, a brand new Echo-centric episode. So for those giving the show a new chance nothing seemed to have changed and they once again abandoned the show.

The showed made great progress but first impressions are hard to wipe away. With the competition that nowadays exists you need to hit the ground running. This is what Dollhouse failed to do and that's what resulted in its cancellation.

- I agree that FOX was basically being generous in giving the show a second season. I personally think they were hoping that the 'Firefly backlash' would happen quicker and save the show without having to wait 3 years for a movie and DVD explosion.

The first episode of S2 had a huge secondary plot with Topher/Saunders, a nice moment with Sierra/Victor, a lot of Paul development and more. Certainly Echo was the main character, but she IS the main character so no one would be surprised about that. Again I think it goes to show that people were willing to accept a show based on Echo, not a show based on 8 different characters who may/may not be who they appear to be who they are.

My personal argument is that the show started to really go off its axis when they started making 'normal' characters actives. It was cute when we find out Victor is an active, that's nice. Then they make Mellie an active, then Dr. Saunders then Sen. Perrin. It started to get rediculous. If you say to the average viewer that 'This is Echo, she is a blank slate and can have a personality uploaded into her every episode to become something different.' The average viewer gets that says hey nice little sci-fi thing and jumps right in. Then as they're watching more and more people are 'fake' people. Not only that but the 'bad guy' keeps changing. So they don't know who to root for because they don't know who's even real, and they don't know who to root against because the target keeps changing every other week.

Echo was the one given in the entire tornado of characters and personalities and plot zigzags. As I've pointed out before and will continue to point out, blame FOX, and blame the plot, but not Echo.

 

[Willow-Tree]

Our closing statement:

People are looking for all kinds of reasons to put the blame on why Dollhouse got cancelled, and speculations fly everywhere; but it’s nothing more than just that: speculations. It’s very hard to miss the obvious reason it got cancelled: that the audience gave the show a chance in the beginning but a lot of them soon abandoned it. Why? Because the show didn’t manage to lure them back to watch more episodes. And what’s significant for those episodes is that they, along with all promo work, were heavily Echo/Eliza-centered. There was nothing to suggest to the average viewer that things were going to change, so a lot of the audience gave up, which in the end, of course, resulted in the show’s cancellation.

A lot of people, me included, enjoy Echo. But there comes a time where the spotlight needs to shift over to another character, or characters. And, thankfully, it did; but it did it too late in the game. The entire first season was focused solely on Echo. Sure, if Joss had more than twelve episodes to work with, maybe he would have offed Echo a bit, but he didn’t. And he knew that. So he had no excuse for only highlighting Echo and just Echo. The end result was, of course, less viewership and the axe off the FOX schedule.
Simply put, if Joss had focused more on the other characters and other subplots, the incentive to keep coming back would have been upped, and we would have had more of this fabulous, but short-lived, show.

***

Thanks again, TK and VH! And this was a great argument; nice competition, Drogyn!

 

[Wesley]

With the final episode aired and the final chapters being written on the show, the blame although shared by many must be ultimately laid on one set of shoulders. The numbers show that it's Echo-centric beginning was higher rated. When they switched to a more ensemble approach the show quickly lost steam. We know that shows that are centrally focused on one special woman can and have succeeded in the past. We have seen that shows like these that do succeed are often favored with finding future stars in their support cast. Ultimately, dollhouse was many things. A Whedon show for his hungry audience, a SciFi thriller, a philosophical exercise on what truly makes a person "˜real', and ultimately doomed to cancellation by a network that lacks the ability or desire to properly support this genre of show.

This was the closing statement for my first essay and I believe all points that it ventures still stand. If one looks back at the show it had many problems, let's look at them again.

- First, the terrible Friday night time slot that doomed it before it began. I liked the stat I quoted in my first statement that since 1992, over 30 different shows have died in this bloc on FOX. That's no accident, that's a fact. The general consensus must be that nerds like us have nothing to do on Friday so we can stay home and watch TV like we all stayed home and watched X-Files. This is a terrible assumption of course, but it was made none the less. FOX has shown over the years to have no idea how to properly market or support a sci-fi type of show. There is a graveyard of shows before Dollhouse and no doubt there will be more to come after. This is a reason.

- Second, the non-Echo related plot was a convoluted and difficult to follow. The 'bad guy' changed every week, more and more 'normals' were revealed as 'actives' and eventually the show became such a grab bag of characters going every which way but normal that it became very difficult to follow. If you really step back and look at the show, one gets the feeling that it was a little ahead of it's time. It had extremely high brow philosophical roots about the what it truly means to be 'human'. The level of nuance and intricacy involved was to much for the general public to get behind. This is another reason.

Joss Whedon as much as we like to pretend is not truly a household name. Without Eliza Dushku, this show would never have gotten off the ground. She was the one draw, that's why she was put forward as the face of the franchise. To blame her or her character for the ultimate failure of the show is folly. The ultimate failure can be traced back to FOX and secondarily to a high brow show marketed with low brow sensibilities.


-------------------------
Special thanks to ILLYRIAN for moral support, and Nerd4Hire and Black Eye Guy for help with ideas. A tip of the cap to you as well Willow-Tree. A good experience all around.

 

[Flannen]

Fantastic job, you guys!! Thanks so much for your awesome posts and for taking part!

We'll be back with the results soon...watch this space! 😉

 

[Flannen]

So, the moment you've all been waiting for...*drum roll*

After a painstaking judging session the result of this round is:

Vahla Ha'Nesh: 37
Drogyn 38

Meaning that the first house going through to the final is Drogyn!

Congratulations you guys!

I would just like to say that this was such a tough call, both houses were fantastic so kudos to VH too! 🙂

 

[Washburne]

Congrats to Drogyn. Lets see who you'll meet in the final.

Is there any chance of seeing of seeing how the points were given out? You know I'm always curious.

edit: I was late. Seems to be Raiden. Will be interesting to see how it goes.

 

[Tasha]

Well done Drogyn. Good job 😉

 

[Wesley]

Woah! 1 point! Great Googidy Moogidy.

 

[Flannen]

Sure TK, I judged this round so I can show you what I gave for each marking caterory:

Ability to maintain argument and not concede to the opposing side

Drogyn: 10 VH: 10

Quality of evidence given to support argument

Drogyn: 9 VH: 9

Ability to be impartial and unbiased despite whether or not you agree with the side you are arguing

Drogyn: 9 VH: 9

House Particpation

Drogyn: 10 VH: 9

Like I said, it was such a hard thing to judge as both houses performed so well!

 

[MinwaraYana]

Congratulations, Wesley and Drogyn. Good luck in final round. 🙂

 

[BuffyElevated]

Great job, everyone, and CONGRATS to Drogyn!! Well played! 😀

 

[Willow-Tree]

Aw, but our house hadn't watched Dollhouse! =P

But it was a great round and congrats, Drogyn!

 

[Wesley]

Well in my defense I stopped watching around the 4th episode of S2 because I couldn't stand Echo anymore....


Yeah that's right.


Thanks for the good times WT.