Dollhouse Premiere Promo - Dollhouse

"Tonight at 9/8 central".

Coming out a little early, it seems...

Um. Let's see. It's not tonight. It isn't called Instinct. And it's on the terminatorfoxwiki YouTube account? All sorts of not correct on this.

@theonetruebix | September 18, 19:05 CET

They also seem to be running banner ads online saying it begins tonight. Sit by your phones, Fox..

gossi | September 18, 19:08 CET

It's a house of underwear... It's a lot of houses. It's actually more like high-rise apartments.

Saje | September 18, 19:09 CET

Is this the one that aired on Fox this week?

Simon | September 18, 19:14 CET

It's not the exact same one, it was only 15 seconds, but it's all in this one... just with more.

[ edited by hitnrun017 on 2009-09-18 19:13 ]

hitnrun017 | September 18, 19:16 CET

Is it possible this particular ad just wasn't meant for release until the 25th? I guess the banner ads saying the same thing kinda ruin that theory...

That said, it was nice to see some new footage.

sumogrip | September 18, 19:22 CET

The banner thing might not be accurate, I've just seen a handful of people saying they're seeing incorrect banners on websites. I haven't seen one myself yet as I think they're targeted at the US. Certainly zeitgeist is saying the ones he's seen have the right date on them.

There's a week to go.

gossi | September 18, 19:28 CET

Wow, that's very odd and very Dollhouse. The date part, I mean. Apart from that, I really love the ad.

Jaymii | September 18, 19:34 CET

i09.com has the banner ad with this promo attached, and the ad, like the promo, says it airs tonight. Oh, Fox.

bonzob | September 18, 19:41 CET

Right. *cranks up email*.

gossi | September 18, 19:42 CET

I see two ads on io9 that give the date as next week. No promo with those, though (just the black and white, Eliza w/big gun pic).

JMaloney | September 18, 19:44 CET

What would happen if it actually does air tonight? Or, they decided to air "Epitaph One"? The latter would be awesome...

Jaymii | September 18, 19:45 CET

Yeah, quickly just went to io9 and BAM: "Tonight".

hitnrun017 | September 18, 19:46 CET

Uf, I don't like it. Don't at all.

And please, before kicking my ass out of here, let me explain:

Hot chick, hot guy, hot Tahmoh, wow_cameo! hot chick, hot chair, punch, ouch, kicks!

I am totally aware that the Season is far more into the Dollhouse misteries and the darkests corners of them, but the ads lack all about it. I don't find useful neither smart offering non-fandom watchers something the show is not to offer actually. There are lots of hundreds of shows cancelled exactly because of fake, confusing promotions.

Can you imagine a BSG promo just with Tricia Helfer in lingerie?

Small Blue Thing | September 18, 19:46 CET

It won't air tonight, there's a two hour premiere of "Brothers", which is the worst comedy pilot I've ever seen. (Edit: I was wrong, see below).

[ edited by gossi on 2009-09-18 19:55 ]

gossi | September 18, 19:46 CET

The ads I see all say 25th.

zeitgeist | September 18, 19:47 CET

Two hours premiere? Oh damn. I saw an actor from that on Conan earlier and my thoughts basically were "Why isn't this Eliza?".

Also, I've been refreshing io9 for ages now and have yet to come across the ad either.

Jaymii | September 18, 19:49 CET

The first 20 seconds are cool. The rest is not very well done.

Doubt it's official.

Ricardo L. | September 18, 19:54 CET

Err, scrap that, sorry - it's 2 episodes of Brothers next week. Tonight is a repeat of Glee.

gossi | September 18, 19:56 CET

"Brothers", which is the worst comedy pilot I've ever seen.

Really? Is it worse than Accidentally On Purpose? Cause that is godawful.

hacksaway | September 18, 20:00 CET

As far as I can see, iO9 has *just* removed the one at the bottom of the Dollhouse article that said tonight. (The ones at top of article & throughout said 25th.)

This is what was there a few minutes ago.

QuoterGal | September 18, 20:00 CET

The "tonight" ad on io9.

Beat. :P

[ edited by hitnrun017 on 2009-09-18 19:59 ]

hitnrun017 | September 18, 20:01 CET

I'm more forgiving then. I watched the first three episodes of that today and it's fan - wait for it - tastic telly.

Cheers for the screenshots, by the way

Jaymii | September 18, 20:06 CET

Can you imagine a BSG promo just with Tricia Helfer in lingerie?

Wasn't that basically the first hour of the miniseries?

ManEnoughToAdmitIt | September 18, 20:23 CET

It's like they give Dollhouse promotion to under-performing interns as punishment. By which I'm not remarking on the promo itself. But on the general lack of promotion, the wrong-headedness of things like iTunes-only DRM'd clips, the constantly wrong dates, et cetera, et cetera.

[ edited by The One True b!X on 2009-09-18 20:28 ]

@theonetruebix | September 18, 20:27 CET

Earlier I saw 3 Dollhouse ads on io9 (top right banner, middlish banner, and a skinny on on the left). I'm pretty sure all had the correct date. After reading this I wandered over there again, and now I see 2. The top right one's still correct but the middle looks just like hitnrun017's screenshot.

It's possible they mismatched earlier and I didn't notice the one oddity in the bunch. But I don't think so.

Sunfire | September 18, 20:30 CET

Oh, for Criminy's sake. Actually, I thought I'd checked the home page & seen *no* Dollhouse ads.

But here's a wrong TONIGHT one from a minute ago - on the home page.

Oy.

QuoterGal | September 18, 20:41 CET

I was sure I saw a Fox ad this week that said Dollhouse premiere tonight?

WhoIsOmega? | September 18, 20:43 CET

Whether or not you did, it doesn't.

@theonetruebix | September 18, 20:45 CET

I've seen no ads, 3 ads, 2 ads. Seems to be one of those campaigns that rotates when the same visitor reloads a page.

Sunfire | September 18, 20:51 CET

It's worth hanging around Fox On Demand tomorrow just to see if 'Vows' pops up. I seem to remember last season that an episode went online at the Fox site before it aired on the telly.

Simon | September 18, 20:53 CET

LOL. Forgot about that.

@theonetruebix | September 18, 20:54 CET

Oh, Fox, you silly, silly network.

I have a theory though, Fox is screwing up the promotion on purpose because they figure if people talk about the bad promotion for Dollhouse, they will turn into Dollhouse to see what the weird fuss is about. Yeah, that's it.

gets weird looks from other members

That's my theory, I'm sticking to it.

crazygolfa | September 18, 21:00 CET

crazygolfa is aptly named. ;)

Sunfire | September 18, 21:11 CET

That didn't work last year.

hacksaway | September 18, 21:16 CET

To be fair, we don't know in this case how much is Fox and how much is IO9 - could well be that the "TONIGHT" banner being up there was all down to IO9's own f.u.

In-house communication screws up all the time at workplaces w/ more than, say, one employee, and Fox may have exactly zilch to do with it.

QuoterGal | September 18, 21:18 CET

Good point QuoterGal. Has anyone seen this banner somewhere other than i09?

bonzob | September 18, 21:21 CET

That would only make sense if io9 (or whatever runs their ads) was given this week's and next week's assets and used the wrong ones.

@theonetruebix | September 18, 21:31 CET

That's one scenario I'm picturing, b!X - banners packed together & "delivered" together - w/ some embargoed, rather than disseminated one week at a time. It make more sense logistically.

Do we know/assume that all Dollhouse ad assets come ready-made in final form? We generally have to make our own to fit different site specs. I'm asking - I don't know how this is done, nor how much design control Fox would maintain on banners & such.

Probably a lot - but it seems to me unlikely that they provide assets in all shapes & sizes. If some at IO9 put any of 'em together, that's another opportunity for mistakes/miscommunications.

I'm just saying.

QuoterGal | September 18, 21:39 CET

Which brings up the broader question: has it been see anywhere else? That's extremely niche marketing if it's only on io9. But maybe it'll appear on other sites over the next few days.

Sunfire | September 18, 21:46 CET

I rely on others to tell me, since I have ad blockers running.

@theonetruebix | September 18, 21:52 CET

Mostly Off-topic, but I enjoyed reading IO9's meta tags:

We come from the future., science fiction, scifi, science, design, art, futurism, future, space, rockets, mutants, aliens, superheroes, comic books, books, movies, television, architecture, biotech, nanotech, cybersex, robots, retro future, B movies, cult movies, horror, time travel, comics, space travel, astronauts, cosmonauts, neuroscience, climate change, environment, green, ecology, hacking, innovation, invention, mad science, entertainment, astronomy, video games, space opera, space station, starship, biology, xenobiology, exobiology, future sex, genomics, genetics, genetic engineering, social engineering, dystopia, utopia, post-apocalypse, apocalypse, MMO, MMORG, neural implant, Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, cyberpunk, faster than light, bots, nanobots, computers, technology, futuristic, multiverse, interdimensional, tissue engineering, artificial organs, cyborg, android, transhuman, singularity, posthuman

I often check a site's meta tags - it can tell a lot about them - how they're positioning themselves, their targeted demo, their cheese factor, etc., etc.

Not to be a huge pain in the butt, but WHEDONesque's meta tags/names could use a little bit of a buff-and-wax:

Joss Whedon, Serenity, Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series, Ripper, Fray, weblog, blog

I am, however, very fond of this lil' bit of code.

[ edited by QuoterGal on 2009-09-18 22:39 ]

QuoterGal | September 18, 22:37 CET

FWIW, the guy who does the promos is on Twitter. He says there might be something at the end of Family Guy this Sunday.

@theonetruebix | September 18, 23:58 CET

The io9 ads are, I think, google ads based.

gossi | September 19, 00:39 CET

No matter what the explanation is for why they said "Vows" is airing tonight, one thing's certain: I will check for it on iTunes tomorrow.

[ edited by Pointy on 2009-09-19 00:38 ]

Pointy | September 19, 00:40 CET

Yeah, the Dollhouse TONIGHT ad was just there again on IO9 homepage & the code has a Double-clicky kindof link in that space.

Needs. To. Come. Down.

QuoterGal | September 19, 00:53 CET

Well, the banner on io9 now says the premiere is Friday September 25th, but the promo embedded within that banner still says "Tonight On Fox." Halfway there, guys.

bonzob | September 19, 01:24 CET

For a while at least, somewhere, it was being reported that Dollhouse premiered tonight, th 18th, rather than next week on the 25th. I think it was either in a Fox press release about their season premieres or on another reputable site listing season premieres (or maybe it was just Television Without Pity, who have been known to make date mistakes here and there). Back at the end of July or some time in August maybe. I know because I've had various premiere dates written down for September for at least part of the summer (I need to, 'cause I don't watch commercials on TV and don't go near my TV usually unless I know I need to watch something/set something to record).

Was a little disappointed when it got pushed forward. Aside from The Office, was nothing new for me this week (oh and the third episode of Glee, haven't watched that yet), plus all the summer shows are done now (True Blood and Hung concluded on Sunday...Entourage is still going, but this season is mostly meh).

Kris | September 19, 02:03 CET

Yes, it originally was the 18th. There are still people on Twitter right now thinking it's on tonight.

@theonetruebix | September 19, 02:15 CET

So out of curiosity, how unique to Dollhouse are the marketing problems of the last year? Are there people on House boards right now complaining that FOX accidentally listed the wrong premiere time? Or a show on some other channel? Before Dollhouse, I'd never really heard of this many PR mix-ups, but I also wasn't paying attention.

sumogrip | September 19, 03:04 CET

Yep, it's only the Whedon shows that draw my attention. Everything else starts when it starts. I'm happy when it does and oblivious when it hasn't yet.

There are still people on Twitter right now thinking it's on tonight.

I also choose to believe it starts tonight. And that it was brilliant (except there weren't as many guns as the marketing lead me to believe. Also, who were all those other people in the dollhouse ? Relatively few of them appeared on the desktop wallpapers and consequently I found their presence disconcerting).

Saje | September 19, 03:16 CET

The ad during Glee was spotted again tonight during the rerun. If it hasn't aired yet where you are, see if it shows up this time.

@theonetruebix | September 19, 03:39 CET

The ads are correct on i09 now. At least for me.

ShanshuBugaboo | September 19, 05:12 CET

And here is the 15-second spot airing on television. As mentioned, similar to the above, but shorter. And, of course, since it's coming from me it's a crappy "I filmed my television with my iPhone" copy.

@theonetruebix | September 19, 05:30 CET

So even though the words on screen say September 25th, the voice-over still says "Tonight on Fox"! Let's just hope all those people who thought it was tonight will see the correct date. I can't wait. :)

samatwitch | September 19, 05:54 CET

Hah. Shouldn't he have said "On right now! No, really!"? Hilarious...ly sad.

hacksaway | September 19, 06:37 CET

No the voice-over on the ad b!x linked actually says 'one week from tonight on FOX.'

vampmogs | September 19, 06:38 CET

Ah, you're right. Ok, so Fox isn't that much of a screw up.

hacksaway | September 19, 06:47 CET

Yay!

ShanshuBugaboo | September 19, 07:39 CET

The first ad (the Paul-centric one that aired during Spider-Man 2) can now be found in good-quality.

wiesengrund | September 19, 10:01 CET

Calm down everyone, it's just Mercury retrograde. ;)

Re. wisengrund's link - it's going to be surreal and poignant and very cool to see Tahmoh and Jamie Bamber together, on a Joss show.
It may trigger some sort of mystical convergence or tear in the time/space continuum. Maybe we'll find out that a third of humanity are actives and another third are Cylon.

Shey | September 19, 11:16 CET

Wasn't that basically the first hour of the miniseries?

No, it wasn't.

Small Blue Thing | September 19, 12:23 CET

September 18 2009