Why Joss Whedon's Dollhouse Survived

This is old news by now, but despite the many predictions that the show was doomed, Joss Whedon's newest tv show, Dollhouse has been renewed for a second season. Initially it was believed that the show had no chance at revival, due to lower ratings, but in the end was renewed for two reasons, first because science fiction shows have additional ways of bringing in revenue, and secondly because Dollhouse is one of the cheaper shows to produce in the genre.

Typically television shows are expected to make the majority of their money from their initial television run. This is still true with science fiction shows, but not to the same extent. Shows in the genre have shown to do much better in secondary sales, such as season dvds than other shows do. As a result the network has more incentive to expect additional profit down the line when sticking with a science fiction show than otherwise. The most extreme example of this is Whedon's own Firefly for which the dvd and blu-ray sales have far outpaced the number of viewer that the show had during it's initial run.

Furthermore serial shows like Dollhouse require every episode to be seen in order for the larger story line to make sense. As such if someone misses the show during it's original air time they are more likely to watch it on a service like hulu bringing in viewers the show wouldn't otherwise have.

Also the show has the certainty of the dedication of the many Joss Whedon fans who can be counted on to watch and enjoy anything that he in involved with.

The second reason that Dollhouse will be able to come back for another season is that as far as sci-fi television shows go it is relatively cheap. The show has no need for computer graphics and only minimal post production effects. One of the things that make science fiction so expensive to produce is the special effects, but this is something that Dollhouse is immune from.

There are no space ships, or aliens, or characters with super powers that need to be taken into account. Instead the show is based upon characters taking on new personalities which require nothing more than a change of clothes and actors. The settings are also relatively simple, based on real world places like houses, farms and office buildings, not requiring expensive unique sets like alien planets or spaceships. Instead real world locations can be used for everything.

In the end Dollhouse was a gamble that the executives at FOX were willing to make, because the potential upside of being able to continue a loved Whedon backed science fiction series outweighed the minimized cost of producing such a show.