Dushku Face-palm - Games - Whedonesque.com

Wow, epic fail. Clearly no-one knew it even existed.

I have to admit, I lol'ed. Poor guy.

I'm hypnotized by the face-quake at 2:21.

I might have been able to guess by the word "Tru", but I have to admit, I only know that because I've heard the phrase "Tru Calling" floating around here. I have no idea what the show was about. Zero. I couldn't tell you if it was a medical drama, a police procedural, a teen show or what.

dispatch | November 17, 09:30 CET

I must be a horrible, horrible person for laughing at this guy's misfortune.
But that was HILARIOUS!

missb | November 17, 09:41 CET

I never watched Tru Calling, but wow that is an epic audience fail.

Arison | November 17, 09:47 CET

Not quite sure how that's an epic audience fail. Tru Calling didn't last long, it wasn't a hit, nobody except us knew about it... it's not like they're guessing Ryan Seacrest hosts a show called American What? A) Dreams B) Anthems C) Idol D) Random funny answer... and getting that wrong. Not that American Idol was better than Tru Calling (I didn't watch Tru Calling, to be fair), but everybody knows that show.

The audience gets questions wrong a lot.

jfhlbuffy | November 17, 10:15 CET

Were they having TV-themed week/night or something ? The first three questions, while usually really easy, aren't usually all about TV in a row.

Yeah, that sucks, but it's not the first time the audience has been wrong on that show (watched it a fair bit when Regis was the host, when it was still new-ish). Also, I know it ain't Jeopardy, but you really shouldn't apply to go on unless you at least know your pop culture shit. And from there, history, geography, sciences, etc.

Kris | November 17, 10:21 CET

Funnily enough 'House' recently did an episode featuring the "wisdom of crowds" called, yep, 'Epic Fail' (it was partly a good-natured dig at the internet fandom of the show). 'House' also concluded that crowds don't know everything (turns out they're pretty good at hunting horses, not so great at catching the elusive Zebra. Who knew 'Tru Calling' was a Zebra in disguise ? ;).

Saje | November 17, 11:09 CET

Tru Colors sounds more like a Lifetime movie than a Fox show :p

But yeah, was it a TV theme episode or is the American version more pop culture-centric than the UK one?

Ashley | November 17, 11:38 CET

I dunno, I wasn't on Whedonesque when Tru Calling premiered, but I was fairly aware of it. Maybe it was because I knew Eliza? But she was pretty famous at that point, no?

sumogrip | November 17, 11:55 CET

I would never have heard about Tru Calling either except for sites such as this, but to dispatch: It's about Tru working in a morgue where the bodies ask for help. She relives one day and tries to change the outcome. It was not great but OK, well worth the cost of the DVD-box I thought. And about the audience: what I don't get is why they answer when they have no clue. Are they free to NOT answer?

OldSwede | November 17, 11:57 CET

Well, if the host can't even pronounce Eliza's surname name right... There's not much hope for the rest of the room. ;)

I didn't know anything about Tru Calling until a few months before it was cancelled in the US. It aired in Australia on Channel Seven to fairly bad ratings at 9.30 Friday night, and then got shifted to 11pm Tuesdays [I think]. I was an avid viewer, despite knowing it had been canned. The only thing I hated about the show was the theme song. ;)

[ edited by Braeden Fireheart on 2009-11-17 12:05 ]

Braeden Fireheart | November 17, 12:02 CET

If they got rid of the flashbacks that showed the viewer what happened five minutes before then it might have gone up in my estimation.

Simon | November 17, 12:09 CET

LOL It's Sad but Tru!!

I guess this says a lot about Fox's advertising campaign.

Ricardo L. | November 17, 12:16 CET

I dunno, I probably would have gotten that right. If he's a self-proclaimed TV geek... then what the frak am I? I would have thought its basic knowledge to check out what's aired on the major and basic cable networks. Plus, Tru Calling aired quite a bit on Sky1 in the UK. Never watched it, just always saw it on.

Sucks for that guy, though. He probably went straight home and got the box set.

Jaymii | November 17, 12:34 CET

Tru Calling was a solid show. Started out average, but with the arrival of Jason Priestley in the 14th episode of Season 1, from which they began to focus more on the mythology, turned really good.

It had a likable main cast (besides Eliza also Zach Galifianakis, who became more famous this year thanks to the success of "The Hangover" and Shawn Reaves, who I would love to see reunite again with Eliza as a guest star in the remaining episodes of Dollhouse), in guest roles featured various known faces from other shows (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Cobie Smulders, the actor who played Forrest on Buffy, that Bellick guy from Prison Break), Doug Petrie and Jane Espenson were co-executive producers, David Solomon directed 2 episodes and Robert Duncan (from Buffy Season 7) did the score.

All in all, as I said, it was a solid show that was prematurely canceled just when it was really starting to hit it's stride, which is a shame, because the planned plot arc for Season 2, which was later revealed by one of the show's staff writers and consulting producer Doris Egan, looked very interesting.

The only bad thing associated with Tru Calling is, that Eliza gave it priority over the suggested Faith spin-off helmed by Tim Minear.

Anuris | November 17, 13:09 CET

The thing that turned me off about "Tru Calling" was that it was so single descriptive of its characters, I was bored to tears before the first act break. I must admit that the storyline that Jane was building during the second season looked promising, but...

As for "Dollhouse", my bat fingers are posed on the remote for the finishing deluge this December. Double episode shots, who could want more?

Madhatter | November 17, 13:44 CET

I watched every ep of Tru Calling. Eliza D was great, per usual. Jane Espenson wrote an episode.

Pointy | November 17, 14:06 CET

I rented the first disk of Tru Calling and liked it enough to buy the set. I was not a Faith fan but after watching TC I thought Eliza might be OK in Dollhouse. Again I was wrong, she just could not pull off a new character each week and I enjoyed the rest of the cast. Amy Acker would have been better as the star and yes I know the show was made for Eliza because she was under contract. I just could never learn to love any of the characters in the show.

rehabber | November 17, 14:22 CET

Is there something new on the 'About' page that says that literally every single thread mentioning Eliza Dushku must have at least one derogatory comment about the standard of her acting ? Not telling anyone what to say or do, just saying that for me it's getting pretty old.

As to 'Tru Calling' itself, it got much better when the evil leaper arrived but by that point it had already burned off a lot of its credit with me. When I heard it had a season 2 I figured i'd tune back in, when I heard it'd been cancelled after 6 episodes I figured I wouldn't bother.

(and the insulting end of act "flashbacks" aside, it says something about a show when even i'm getting sick of watching Eliza Dushku run around. OK, Tru was a track-star, we frikkin' get it)

Saje | November 17, 14:36 CET

Fair play to you rehabber, but it baffles me how some viewers can't get attached to anyone in the show, when Topher, Victor/Sierra, and hell, everyone in their own way, all tug on the heart-strings (for me at least).
Is the point of Echo really that she is a different character this week? I've always seen it as yes, she's imprinted with different personalities, but throughout the series she retains more and more of HERSELF (in this case, that being the developing 'Echo' personality, not Caroline).
So to me, the similarity between her roles is representative of that.

manreaction | November 17, 14:52 CET

Word, manreaction. There was supposed to be a sense of no matter what they imprinted Echo as, they couldn't erase her completely and her true self would show through. Unfortunately for Eliza who's already been type cast as the tough girl, the true self seemed to be that at one point near the end of the episode (at least in the first five), it'd be written that she turns on the tough girl and starts throwing punches in order to survive the mission. That was in the writing, so how else could Eliza have acted it? I'll never get the Eliza hate, especially as someone who's studied acting and has a BA in theatre herself.

I actually thought Eliza seemed miserable and bored while doing Tru Calling and wasn't too disappointed when that show was canceled since she clearly wasn't satisfied with the results (something her mom confirmed at a conference), but I thought she really shined in Dollhouse and Echo's journey of self discovery was interesting to me. I know I'm in the minority, but hey. Someone's gotta be! I've always been able to catch the subtle and not-so-subtle differences Eliza brought to each character on Dollhouse. I often saw a completely different Eliza than the one that I was used to when I watched Dollhouse, and she definitely impressed me with her range and ability to transform. Could someone else have done better? Who knows. For as much as other people might wish another actress was Echo, we haven't seen anyone else perform the same exact roles with the same amount of frequency and under the same conditions as Eliza has, so nobody can really know that another actress could have done better unless we're talking Meryl Streep here. Maybe the role of Echo and the actress playing her would have been criticized and found unlikable by the majority no matter who played her because of the way Echo is written and because everyone has their favorite actress that they would have rather seen in the role than the person playing it.

Aphrodite | November 17, 17:02 CET

I'm guessing half of the studio audience must have been thinking of Cyndi Lauper's song "True Colors" (which is similar to choice A). The only other big vote getter was the correct answer (choice C).

OneTeV | November 17, 18:08 CET

I work at a library with a pretty expansive TV series collection on DVD. We're asked pretty regularly if we have Tru Calling (which we do) and it's not uncommon for the first and/or second season to have a holds list because it's checked out so often. Maybe the show's just more popular in my area.

CrazyKidBen | November 17, 19:09 CET

Do you live in Albania ?

Saje | November 17, 19:19 CET

Saje - I love that you referred to Priestly as the "evil leaper." That's exactly how I used to refer to him back when "Tru Calling" was on. Awesome.

XanMan | November 17, 21:21 CET

Heh, I kinda laughed and shouted "He's the evil leaper !" at the TV when I realised what Jack was doing, it's a natural fit right ? ;)

Saje | November 17, 21:34 CET

If no one knew it existed it wouldn't have gotten a second (abbreviated) season. Or, that's why it got one, because Fox didn't realize it was still on and when they did they canceled it.

It was a quirky show that definitely had a run of a few eps that weren't very good that also was not helped by the fact that it was on Thursday nights, which is when most networks but their big guns. But it really got going when Priestly showed up.

E-Rawk | November 17, 23:12 CET

Saje - There was also a short-lived show called "Journeyman" where an actress whose name was, I wanna say, Moon Bloodgood, basically also played the evil leaper. Though she wasn't actually evil, but she did this show's version of leaping, and she clearly had some unknown agenda goin' on. I sorta miss that show.

XanMan | November 18, 02:08 CET

I never really cared for Tru Calling, even through I watched all of it. I'm not sure why that is, I may have been a bit biased over Faith not getting a spin-off but it never clicked for me and became a shore to watch. It almost seemed like it had "Lost" syndrome where nobody knew where they were going with the storyline and were doing their best to fake it, or it went at such a glacier pace no pay off would ultimately be worth it. I think Eliza was fine in it but funnily enough what Saje referenced was the first thing I think of when I think of the show, Eliza running her heart out down a street.

Side note: I may be the minority here but I loathe pun names and "Tru Calling" makes me cringe, not surprised the audience went with "Tru Colors".

[ edited by silent knight on 2009-11-18 02:21 ]

silent knight | November 18, 02:23 CET

Punny titles can certainly be an early warning sign. Depends how knowing they are really.

Saje - There was also a short-lived show called "Journeyman" where an actress whose name was, I wanna say, Moon Bloodgood, basically also played the evil leaper.

I was just talking about 'Journeyman' in another thread XanMan. And yep, it was indeed the very lovely Moon Bloodgood (who was also in "Terminator: Salvation" BTW) that could have been that show's evil leaper but by the end, really, really wasn't (in some ways she was more like that show's Al in fact ;).

Saje | November 18, 08:06 CET

Maybe ELiza's next project should be called Werewolf of Boston......Dichen could play Yogami.

DaddyCatALSO | November 19, 02:25 CET

November 17 2009