How ‘Glee’ Works
Earlier on Twitter, I went on a bit of a critical tear about Glee. Not critical in the sense of negative, but in the sense of needing to talk out why and how the show works. What follows is based upon those remarks.
The key to Glee is accepting that almost everyone on the show is a dick. And if they aren’t, they’re stupid. Some of them, in fact, are both. But the trick to Glee is that we nonetheless view these people, the dicks and the stupid, as people who deserve good lives, if they’d just allow them to happen.
When I say the characters on Glee all are dicks and/or stupid, it’s not meant as a slam. The point is that we all are, and more so than we think, but can choose to be less so. We just, more than we’d care to admit, don’t make that choice.
A lot of television comedy seemingly tries emulate the way people think they are, but in actuality aren’t (e.g. Friends). Glee doesn’t allow us the courtesy of that lie. The entire reason Glee works is because it admits we’re dicks, admits we’re stupid, but doesn’t dismiss or abandon us for it.
Glee, at one and the same time, is both a more nuanced and a more blunt variant of Aristotle, choosing not to represent us as worse than we are in actual life but instead only as worse than we think we are. We are all as the characters of Glee are, and some innate understanding of this is what lends the show its bizarre power.
To wit: Glee’s admission that we frequently are worse people than we want to admit — an admission it not only makes but embraces — is the reason why its transcendent moments, and its earnest feeling, fly.
On Mutant Enemy And Social Media
The original incarnation of this commentary, not previously published, was written prior to the sequence of events which started with Dollhouse being taken off the air for November sweeps month and ended with today’s news that the show has been canceled.
I’ve not made any particular effort to rewrite what follows to place Dollhouse into the past tense, and so some instances of urging action might no longer be directly or immediately relevant at present. I simply trust the reader will take into account when this was written, since the case study provided by Dollhouse in a social media context remains valid as an example, as does (I believe) the overall argument presented here.
This is not meant to be a comprehensive examination of Dollhouse-related social media activity. Examples and comparisons provided along the way represent my own contributions in that regard primarily because they were the examples with which I am most familiar.
It is entirely possible, of course, that there are convincing reasons why the below is not already happening. It also is entirely possible that in fact there are plans and intentions about which none of us have heard. Whatever the case, I thought I’d offer for perusal my take on Mutant Enemy and social media.
An Intro
In the age of social media, traditional “marketing” must adapt not only to providing information, but to engaging in discussion and problem solving as well. In a very concrete sense, marketing must become customer service, which increases both presence and reputation — core goals of marketing.
In most, if not all, of these newly-necessary activities, FOX Broadcasting has fallen down on the job when it comes to Dollhouse.
It is my assertion not only that Mutant Enemy can step in to fill that gap, but that it should, in part because Dollhouse needs some sort of official social media presence, but also because it will establish a presence for Mutant Enemy itself, benefitting it in the future for other projects.
What follows describes what I believe should be possible, not necessarily what is possible within the contractual rules and obligations of Hollywood (an issue mainly raised by the YouTube section). For me, it’s always been best to start with “in an ideal world…” and work my way back to the real, rather than artificially restrict ideas from the start.
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On Being Wright And Wrong
One of the two best things I read all weekend was the dead-on defense of criticism offered by Maureen Ryan of The Chicago Tribune after Brad Wright, executive producer of Stargate Universe, publicly took her to task for her comments about the show.
It’s interesting to me that Wright appears to chide Ryan for reviewing unfinished versions of at least two episodes of the series, considering that what Ryan reviewed were screener copies provided to her by Syfy. It’s likely safe to say that Wright would withhold such chiding where it concerns any critic who gave his show good reviews based upon screener copies. It is equally safe, then, to dismiss this particular portion of Wright’s response.
Also interesting is that while Wright tries to paint Ryan as having an “axe to grind” against the franchise and therefore in essence engaging in nothing more than cheap shots against his show, Wright himself ends his missive by taking an entirely unnecessary shot against ABC’s remake of V.
… fortunately there are enough viewers and reviewers who think ‘SGU’ is neither boring, poorly plotted, or sexist to keep us on the air long after ‘V’ is just a letter in the alphabet again.”
So, while Ryan goes on in detail to demonstrate not having an “axe to grind”, Wright himself merely demonstrates either that he’s a hypocrite or is suffering a bout of psychological projection. Ryan, at least, is offering pure opinion. Wright’s out of place attempt at slighting V is just the petulance of his commercial self-interest lashing out.
What’s more, if Wright truly believes what he says there, in the final sentence of his missive, one is left to wonder why he bothered to post it in the first place. His argument appears to be that negative criticism of his series is irrelevant, since he and the network are satisfied with the public’s response to the show. But if that’s the case, why respond to Ryan at all?
“If you think the fact that the show has gotten decent ratings makes my opinion and the opinions of other disappointed viewers invalid,” responds Ryan, “well, you’re welcome to that belief.” That this is true precisely is what outs Wright’s response to criticism of his show as little more than an attempt to discredit any negative opinion about it as someone who must have an “axe to grind”.
In the end, Wright’s subtle tantrum is nothing more than a gambit to delegitimize criticism, and a hypocritical and poorly thought out one at that.
Stargate Universe has been a disappointment, and that’s coming from someone who only ever viewed the first two series as a kind of scifi candy. They at least had the virtue of not really pretending to be otherwise. Universe, however, was sold for months as a more complex and character driven drama, and at that it’s fallen almost completely flat.
I read Ryan’s methodical response to Wright, as it turned out, while catching up on the two most recent episodes of the series. On their own merits (or, rather, lack thereof), I’d already decided to remove the show from my Hulu queue when I was finished.
Thanks to Wright’s misplaced attack upon criticism, I found the motivation to not wait even that long.
The Known Dollhouse Schedule
Note: As of Wednesday, October 21, the below no longer is accurate, as per the announcement of Dollhouse going on hiatus for the November sweeps period.
It’s time once again for people to become confused about the future of Dollhouse and it’s airing schedule, due to there being no episode this Friday. So here’s what we know right now regarding the coming months.
- This week, and this one week only, Dollhouse is preempted by a postseason Major League Baseball game. This has been known for months and is entirely expected.
- Dollhouse returns next Friday, October 23, with “Belonging”, a Sierra-centric episode written by Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon, and directed by Jonathan Frakes.
- The following Friday, October 30, is “The Public Eye” the first of a two parter and the first episode featuring guest star Summer Glau.
- As far as we know, the second part of that story, “The Left Hand” airs the following Friday, November 6. I don’t recall offhand if this is specifically listed somewhere, but I haven’t heard otherwise either.
- November is sweeps, and FOX’s scheduler recently told The Hollywood Reporter that there might need to be some preemption in favor of more popular programs in order to boost ratings for the month. Of course, if Dollhouse’s own ratings improve enough, all bets are off on that count. (This is the same article in which it was said that FOX intends to air all 13 episodes of its current order for Dollhouse.)
- In FOX’s just-announced holiday schedule, there is a new Dollhouse episode listed for December 18, and back-to-back encore presentations (read: reruns) on Christmas Day, December 25. I’ll link this once I actually see it posted somewhere.
That we have a sense of December and not a sense of November doesn’t mean anything at this point, because it’s simply that FOX just announced their holiday schedule.
Also, the fact that said schedule announcement didn’t mention episodes on other Fridays in December doesn’t mean anything either. Since the holiday schedule announcement only discusses nights where there are holiday-themed programs airing, or other special events such as Fall finale episodes, it only needed to mention December 18 (when Dollhouse’s lead-ins have holiday episodes) and December 25 (which is Christmas itself).
As far as I know, that’s where the known Dollhouse schedule currently stands. As of this particular moment, it’s apparently relatively stable. Mainly, the wait is for the network’s decision on November (the month, not the Active).
None of this, of course, means to be complacent about continuing to avail yourselves of sites such as Activate Dollhouse, Why I Watch, Is DOLLHOUSE Back Yet? (disclosure: that one’s mine) and others, or about generally continuing to support and promote the show.
If you’re a Nielsen family, live is best, DVR second best. And all viewers should be buying episodes on iTunes or Amazon and re-watching via Hulu or FOX.com itself.
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