I'm sincerely not trying to go all fanboy on everybody, and I know it's definitely about to come across, but I still disagree.
Yeah, Dollhouse was different. Yeah, it was hard to get into, and even harder to actually catch on TV. But at the end of the day, it was a really solid show with phenomenal acting, writing, and an even better premise. To prove my point (which actually isn't really proving anything), every Saturday morning I had to go out to the living room to watch my DVR'ed DH. The problem was that my mom is a complete TV (reality) nerd, and it's hard for me to actually watch any show I DVR. However, my mom finally gave in and just started watching it with me, and by the end of the 1st season my whole family was just as entangled in it as I was.
I don't know about you, but for me (and obviously quite a few other people around the world) it's pretty hard to catch an 8:00 show on Friday. There is always something going on whether it be social or school-related, and it gets extremely tedious and annoying trying to catch an hour of television that should be very easy to watch. I can't believe Joss actually went back to Fox, and now it's apparent that he made a bad choice going back. Sure it got a lot of publicity before the show started, but after that... nothing except hardcore Whedonites trying to spread the word as best as possible.
Also, I'm still backing my argument that Fox didn't even let Season 2 (Yes, just S2, not talking about the series as a whole this time) try to get good. Imo, it was Belle Chose when it started getting great and Belonging when the show really hit its stride, and don't even get me started on the last few episodes. Can anyone say epic?
And lastly, if by slow-pace you mean month long breaks initiated by Fox, then yes, it would have if not canceled, but if they would've left the show just play it's course, one episode per week, on an actual good time slot, I have no doubt that it would've gotten MUCH better ratings than it did.
And now I'm done with my rant. Thank you, and sorry for anyone that actually read through all of this. 🙂