10 TV Shows That Were Doomed From The Start
8. Dollhouse
A potentially perfectly serviceable contemporary sci-fi show screwed from inception, Dollhouse had the high concept that people could have their memories and personalities artificially wiped, existing as blank slates (called actives, and nicknamed dolls) which could then be programmed with any persona and skillset you could imagine, to perform any duty a rich client could ask for. Dollhouse would revolve around the active codenamed Echo, as she struggled toward a kind of self-actualisation again.
You can imagine that, in the hands of a skilled and engaged actor, the role would be a godsend: getting to play a single protagonist with that narrative arc and subsets of different characters and people with different affects and personalities, often within the same episode. Sadly, they didn't cast a skilled and engaged actor, they cast Eliza Dushku; a woman previous known for her charismatic, fiery performance as Faith Lehane, the spirited, disturbed Slayer on Buffy The Vampire Slayer and its spin-off, Angel.
It should have been fairly obvious anyway from the lacklustre characterisation on her cancelled vehicle Tru Calling a few years earlier, but Faith was the only character that Dushku seemed capable of playing. Asking her to step into such a challenging role was like expecting a corner shop to sell high end groceries: you can search the shelves as often as you like, but you'll only ever find milk, out of date pasta and Happy Shopper soup.
The show was punching above its weight ethically, too: since there were clear issues of sexual violence involved, the question of the actives being hired for sexual purposes would need to be raised. The problem was that a lightweight contemporary sci-fi show on the Fox network wasnt equipped to handle those concerns, and so fell victim to trivialising them, making the entire show incredibly uncomfortable to watch. One female active would be raped by two separate characters during the shows short run, and was shown to be significantly traumatised, despite her supposedly artificially compliant state. The whole thing left a bad taste in the mouth.
Dollhouse was cancelled at the end of season two amid low ratings and a history of editorial intervention from Fox: and for a change there weren't that many naysayers to that decision.