Ugh

"He’s best known for his television shows: the fanatically followed Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel, the equally adored Firefly, and the ambitious failure Dollhouse."

Dollhouse wasn't a failure.

FrellaC | April 18, 06:51 CET

There doesn't seem to be any real spoilers here so I took the tag off. Good interview btw.

Simon | April 18, 06:51 CET

REALLY good interview. Informed questions, and I like the additional effort to get further elaboration by email before publishing.

blanetalk | April 18, 07:28 CET

FrellaC,

I hate when people state that Dollhouse was a failure like this is a universally accepted opinion. There are quite a lot of people that disagree with that statement, myself included.

guidedby | April 18, 07:48 CET

FrellaC,

I think it was more meant in a commercial kind of way, because if you look at the individual episode grades, especially those for season 2, there really aren't that much shows that have consistently gotten that high grades.

LaputanMachine | April 18, 08:39 CET

Lovely interview - though the writer was right; the in-person portion of the interview was much better than the e-mail portion.

(Of course, this is nearly always true, for everyone. When I'm writing magazine articles, I tend to either call interviewees or drop by - e-mail questions are always a last resort).

As for Dollhouse: it certainly wasn't a failure. Though, going by fandom response, I'd say it's certainly one of his least loved properties (even if it gave us a few very good episodes during its run), and also probably his least succesful, commercially.

This slight disapointment with the way Dollhouse performed and turned out is something that, reading between the lines, Joss seems to agree with. I think the Dollhouse we got was perfectly fine - much better than fine with some episodes - but Joss just seems sorry he didn't get to make the show he originally envisioned. And that makes two of us :).

So yeah, definitely not a failure, but not a whopping succes either. In the end it just hasn't got the pop-culture impact, commercial success or (I think, though there's no way to 'prove' that) fan enthusiasm of say, Buffy, Firefly or Dr. Horrible.

GVH | April 18, 09:42 CET

If I was going to take issue with their description of him and his work, I'd be much more inclined to quibble with their calling him a "prolific comics writer". If speaking *only* in terms of the quantity of his work, I'd say that he's done less than many other writers in the field.

(Nothing wrong with that of course, especially as it's not his primary medium).

Risch22 | April 18, 11:48 CET

Emperor of Always...*smiles* Now we know his purpleness's formal title. Someone get that man a a sash and a scribing scepter.

And how weird. I just coincidentally rewatched Blazing Saddles the other night. Yeah, I don't like the backlot part either. I was enjoying the world so much up to that point.

Also, I don't know when the last time is that I enjoyed a site's comments so much! Fun-ny!

BreathesStory | April 18, 12:42 CET

Hey, at least they didn't call Firefly a failure(!) and they knew about Wasteland, which is pretty cool.

embers | April 18, 13:22 CET

I was intrigued by what he said about Ripper. Specifically, the idea that he could still do a show with Tony without having to make it about Giles. I feel like a lot of people would think he was recycling the character and actor and merely renaming it, if this happened. I trust Joss to give us something new, but if a show like that ever came to be, I have a feeling there would be a lot of speculation about this. What do you guys think?

wasabi17 | April 18, 14:31 CET

Wonderful interview! I was especially amused by this:



I wonder what that toy would look like; perhaps a little Tony Stark figure with a smacking face palm arm movement?

floofypooh | April 18, 14:39 CET

They problem with them knowing about Wasteland is that the project is called Wastelanders.

The One True b!X | April 18, 18:46 CET

wasabi17: I suppose you're right, in that people would accuse Joss of taking Giles, filing off the serial numbers & renaming it. I'd also guess his response would be, "yeah, I did, but did you like it?" If it gets us Tony Head doing wicked cool things (or cool stuff to wicked things) Joss can recycle whatever he wants to do it.

Brutus | April 18, 22:48 CET

@The One True b!X:
Now I'm hearing The Who singing, "Whedon Wasteland" (to the tune of "Baba O'Riley").

OneTeV | April 18, 23:32 CET

Ha! That reworded earworm is in my head now too! LOL!

blanetalk | April 19, 00:07 CET

So much to love about that interview, particularly still rooting for ASH to do a show about Giles' later years, even not calling it Ripper.

I’m pretty sure I’m Richard and he’s Bradley. We go back and forth.

Joss is the volatile one, he yells at little Japanese girls? Okay, not so much that latter part.

Tonya J | April 19, 01:47 CET

Is it because getting the rights to spin-off Giles would be impossible for the BBC? Or because it would violate post-S7 comics?

dottikin | April 19, 01:50 CET

I seem to recall it came down to a rights issue, dottikin--I believe the original plan was to focus on Giles during his absence in season 6, and make it sort of a detective/ghost story. This is all gathered from bits and pieces of half-remembered interviews, though, so grain of salt etc.

sumogrip | April 19, 02:07 CET

It never made sense to me that Fox would be unwilling to sell the rights for Ripper to the BBC, if the show was a hit then it would lead to more DVD sales of Buffy for Fox! But then there are a lot of business decisions that Fox has made that make no sense to me.

embers | April 19, 02:21 CET

I wouldn't want Giles to be written away from Ripper. It is necessary that Tony become Giles if Ripper should be a show.

AnonymousAnimus | April 19, 21:35 CET

They tried that, however the rights wouldn't work. Ie it's not possible due to $ blah blah.

gossi | April 19, 22:27 CET