Curse Your Sudden But Inevitable Cancellation

This could very well be my last Dollhouse related comic. Revisit the ghost of Dollhouse Comic Past HERE.
hijinks-ensue-godspeed-you-fancy-bastard-book-300x300I think this comic sums up my feeling towards Dollhouse’s cancellation pretty well. There was definitely a spark of Whedon-Genius there, but it wasn’t enough to earn my devotion. I stand by the belief that Dushku was the ruination of the show. All of the supporting cast outclassed her at every turn and showed what a mediocre actress she is (I’m sorry, Eliza… I think you are pretty and probably a nice person).

I’m sure the show will pull another 180 in it’s final six episodes and only then will I realize my error in judgment, but as of now I don’t mourn the show. I only mourn the show that Joss saw in his head, that we will never see. For surely this was not it.

COME SEE ME AT DALLAS WEBCOMICS EXPO!!!
Saturday Nov. 14th, 11am – 6pm
More info HERE

I will be doing 2 panels during the afternoon. One on webcomic economics/marketing and the other on digital drawing with a Wacom tablet. My buddy Will Terrell will be doing a digital painting tutorial as well. If you have seen his art, you know you don’t want to miss this. I hope to see you all there.

If enough FB’s show up we can have a dinner meetup afterward.

[You know it’s sad that they can’t even say “Dollhouse Sent To ‘The Attic'” since not enough people watched the show to get the reference]

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47 Comments

  1. This is by far my favorite comic today!

    You should some day make a poster or something of the Fox Executive. I'd like to go to sleep praying to his divine image that he might save the shows I love and smite mine enemies.

  2. One of your best sir, I actually lol'd, really I'm not just saying that. On another note, can we get an update on the podcast.

  4. Seconded on Ms. Dushku's torpedoing of the show.

    It was obvious about a half-hour into the pilot that we'd be stuck week after week watching "Faith" try her best to act her way out of a damp paper bag and fail miserably.

    Maybe Whedon's next project will be cast by his "big head" this time around…

    • thirded on the Dush's fail. Have you watched that girl on a talk show? On her latest Letterman appearance, she said "um" more times than I can count on my fingers & toes!

  5. Supporting cast for the show was way way better. I knew once they were doing the whole.. AMG. Caroline / Echo / Faith is remembering her engagements it was going to go down the tubes. I wanted more Tudyk , Victor and Topher. At least Tudyk is gonna be in I think I read somewhere 4 episodes so I'm happy about that.

  11. Good comic, even if I don't agree about dollhouse.
    this is probably incredibly nerdy of me, but shouldn't it be "whose names we don't know" instead of "Who's"?
    (and I do know their names of course)

  14. I love the title, but you spelled Tahmoh's name wrong in the comic. I agree that the supporting cast was much stronger than the lead.

  15. With you right up until the last panel when should have read…

    'A thunder of outrage, as news hit the net –
    'Fox bastards!' screamed fans 'We will have revenge yet!'
    So with virals and posters; a grassroots crusade –
    was started – and lo – epic progress was made!
    For when Dollhouse returned on the Forth of December,
    Starring Enver, and Dichen and Fran (you remember!)
    Fan numbers were swelled, and indeed did resemble –
    a great army! And Fox bastards, oh, how they trembled!
    They thought, nay, they knew – they had made a mistake
    Just like 'Family Guy' (which they' have thrice tried to stake.)
    So a white flag was raised, over at FOX HQ
    They surrendered, conceding, they had to renew!
    And the people rejoiced, as their show could now Blossum!
    On a Network that proves just as evil as Rossum.'

    On a side note, there will be NINE new episodes, begining December 4th, which I'm reliably informed will blow you the hell away.

    • HAH! Thanks for taking the time to share this. very creative indeed.

      I just dont feel the rage this time. Dollhouse had some GREAT whedony moments but it was about 50% unnecessary fluff (for me at least). Im a die hard whedon fan, so it pains me to admit this but taken as a whole it probably didnt deserve a 3rd season. The stories just werent gripping me and only the supporting cast were interesting. The star was the least engrossing thing about the show. Drop her, drop fox, get Felicia Day back and then weve got a show I can love.

      Im a bad fanboy.

      • If anything this whole "Dollhouse experiment" gave us Whedonites a good look at what they WOULD have done to Firefly had they not canceled it outright.

        Imagine episodes "massaged" by the fine minds of FOX execs, casting by committee, and even shuffling the show around more often than a faulty ipod left in the glove-box of a Humvee in Basra.

        I think this mercy killing is for the best in the end. It'll show Joss never to trust the evil Alliance ever again.

      • So far as the first Season goes, you're absolutely right.
        Episodes 1 though 5, were brutally molested by Fox who only managed to turn them into unadulterated drivel. (And by then, the damage to audience numbers had been done.)
        It was only once they washed their hands of the project, leaving Whedon & his writers to their own devices, that the shows set it's course, and the full awe-inspiring scale of it's mythology revealed itself.
        But by then, only a handful of fans were left to see how awsome the show had become. And that is a tragedy. An inexcusable travesty which leaves blood on Fox's hands / paws.
        Dollhouse deserves to be picked up by a rival network, get advertised, stuck in a decent slot, and nurtured.
        You may not feel the rage – but around 2.3 million stalwarts definitely do.

  17. Abso-frikkin-lutely Brilliant, Joel! Love the Grinch-style in today's comic! Truth be told, it took me a while to get the rhythm after that 1st verse in panel 1, but otherwise great.
    I honestly tried to like Dollhouse as pennance for not watching enough of the Whedon's earlier work, but like the aforementioned earlier work, it just didn't draw me in. My geek friends and I watched a few episodes in one of their DVR's and gave it a huge, resounding "meh." I'm not gonna lose sleep over it (there's enough making me do that already).
    btw, Joel, did you read Thursday's PvP?
    http://www.pvponline.com/2009/11/12/dullhouse/

  18. I’m thinking at the rate they seemed to be moving the story along that Joss should be able to wrap things up nicely by the end of this season. Usually what bothers me most about shows getting canceled is they don’t get a chance to wrap up the lose ends.

  19. Ah, a shame. I was just getting into the first season. Well, I still have Stargate.

    P.S. Thanks for the swift shipment of your book.

  21. Love the Grinch references in the comic, and the Wash reference in the title. I kinda agree with you on the last panel, I'm not saying Dollhouse is a horrible show or anything, it's just bad by Whedon standards, and it's only that way because of "Faith's" bad acting, and what the Fox execs have done to it. When they didn't air the Felicia Day episode, I seriously threw a fit up until the point when they released the DVD. So yeah, 26 episodes is enough. Hopefully, Our Lord Whedon does something else on the web, Dr Horrible is fricking awesome.

  22. Agreed on Dushku, though honestly I thought she got better over the course of the series. I found her surprisingly believable in "Instinct", and she was gettin' there way back in "True Believer". Maybe she will be better on her next show, but anyway we always knew she wasn't up to scratch compared to other actors in the Whedonverse, at least since Season 4 of Buffy when Ms. Gellar's Faith was brilliant to the "t" and Ms. Dushku's Buffy was still kinda Faithy.

  23. I have to agree. I'm gutted to not have any new Whedon to revel in, and was enjoying the show despite poor Eliza. I wanted to like her, and there were times when I really did (mostly during her 'wife' performance in Man On The Street and when she was playing Faith) but she just isn't that engaging. I have liked to think of Echo as a sort of point around which things happen. She is a catalyst and creates situations for others to react to. If almost any of the other characters had been the lead, it probably would have been a better show. Also if it had been on cable rather than network. Sigh.

  24. 1) Awesome comic
    2) Still need a Tshirt that has Firefly/Dollhouse on front, crossed out and then a fox symbol on the back with the caption 'Curse Your Sudden But Inevitable Betrayel' on it
    3) I applaud the LA-Dollhouse.org folks persistence – I wouldn't bet my house on it, but I love the enthusiasm and optimism
    4) At this point, you may ask, why go back to FOX, Joss? I wonder if anyone else is willing to greenlight his nutty ideas. I mean sure, FOX creates babies to feast on them for evil supernatural power, but you'd think somone – Showtime, HBO, USA SOMEBODY other than FOX would pay for one of the Whedon shows. But it doesn't seem to happen.

    Here's a thought for Joss though – head to the interweb. Do your own thing on the internet for a year or two – take directing gigs on the side to keep you floating – and give an internet only show a start.

    If anyone can make it work, it would be he…him…. that Joss Guy. Whatever you get me.

    I mean at this point – why not?

    Of course, I may just be certifiable.

  26. A show built around a vacant, unlikeable main character, that requires a very limited actress to pretend to be a different person each week, with a creepy undercurrent of sexual abuse against women: glamourising their availabity as male sexual fantasy, thereby sending out the complete opposite message to the girl power theme of 'Buffy'? What's not to loathe?

    Rot in hell, Dollhouse. Dammit. Where was all the nerd outrage when 'the Middleman' was cancelled?

  27. "I stand by the belief that Dushku was the ruination of the show. All of the supporting cast outclassed her at every turn and showed what a mediocre actress she is (I’m sorry, Eliza… I think you are pretty and probably a nice person)."

    i COMPLETELY agree with this. dushku is a TERRIBLE actress. she places the same freakingly annoying character in every single show she's in. she's definitely the main reason why i never fully commited myself to dollhouse.

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