A lot can happen in seven days, so let This Week This Happened point you to the best and most exciting news. This week, the organizing theme is good ol' faith: who got it, who lost it, and who's in desperate need of a little.
Kicking off is my man Joss Whedon. Creator of cult favorites "Buffy" and "Angel", Whedon is set to return to television after a nearly three-year absence. It turns out that all he needed was a dose of Faith - and he got it in the lovely form of one Eliza Dushku.
Most famous for playing Faith the rogue Slayer in "Buffy" and "Angel", Dushku will team up with Whedon to present the new series "Dollhouse". Advertised as a cross between "Quantum Leap" and "Alias", Dushku will star as Echo, member of a cadre of 'human chalkboards'. Upon receiving their assignments, these blank agents are imprinted with special skills and memories, then wiped clean afterwards and returned to the 'dollhouse'. Through the course of the first season, Echo will gradually gain self-awareness, and struggle to discover her pre-dollhouse past.
Sounds like an excellent premise to me, and I'm already looking forward to its fall '08 premiere. Anything with Whedon or Dushku will already get my vote, so one with Whedon and Dushku? Consider me sold and sold again. (And I'm certainly not the only one, if this website is any indication.)
The only fly in the ointment might be the network involved. And that's - cue ominous music - the dreaded network Fox. Any Whedonites worth their salt will remember the great "Firefly" fiasco, wherein Fox destroyed the series with its inept scheduling. While Whedon has obviously forgiven if not forgotten, I'm taking with a grain of salt the PR reacharounds. Much is riding on this new series, and if it fails because of Fox, you can be sure I'll be one of those picketing the network.
Moving on from my personal god, if Joss Whedon finally got some good ol' Faith, network NBC lost theirs in a big way this week. Their faith in "Heroes", that is. The show that enjoyed super ratings last season has taken a mighty tumble, with numbers freefalling through the weeks since its sophomore premiere. And instead of publicly displaying a show of support, NBC has chosen instead to spread a message of doom.
Yes, that's right - "Heroes: Origins" has been unofficially canceled.
Envisioned as a way to stem viewership falloff in the hiatus, "Heroes: Origins" was supposed to introduce a new character each week, with viewers able to vote for their favorite at the end of the six-week run. The winning character would then be integrated into the flagship show. With big names like Kevin Smith and Eli Roth already on board, the spinoff was supposed to be NBC's big midseason splash.
Was supposed to, was supposed to. With the current (bad) situation with "Heroes", and with the looming writers strike, NBC bigwigs decided to pull the plug - for now, they say. Officially, "Heroes: Origins" is not actually canceled, only "indefinitely postponed".
I believe in networkese that means 'we'll have to see how the original show does first'. Which is a fair position for a business to take; I only wonder why this was not publicly said: with "Heroes" rapidly losing fans, this might have been enough to persuade those on the fence to give the struggling series more time. Done like this, the announcement only makes NBC seem like a heartless boss. And not only that, but a heartless boss with egg all over its face.
Having said that, let's move on to the final item for today: if NBC has lost some faith, it's definitely not the only one to do so. The Writers Guild of America has officially called for a strike to begin. Details of the strike are not yet forthcoming, and rumors put its actual start-date between this coming Monday and next January. But regardless of the strike details, it's clear that there is much bad blood between the writers and the entertainment industry at large.
Most of it stems from the previous contract, which gave writers a disproportionately small percentage of the spoils. That contract ended this past week, and so the WGA is angling for a new and more equitable replacement. Whether it will materialize, and how long the process might take, is beyond anybody's guess at the moment.
What is certain, however, is that when this strike occurs, it will cause much disruption to television. With the quick turnaround time on television programs, much of this season's scripted shows have not yet been fully written - and they are the lucky ones. With at least six to eight episodes already likely written, they will have enough material to last until January. Late-night talkies and similar programs, like "The Colbert Report" and "The David Letterman Show", however, will face difficulties immediately, since their content is generated on a daily basis.
What does this mean for TV watchers like you and me? It means one very horrifying thing: more reality television.
It's almost enough to make anyone lose their faith in any god. Networks big and small are already priming their reality and game shows, and in case you are expecting those to be of the caliber of "The Amazing Race", or even of the wickedly entertaining "America's Most Smartest Model" - I'm afraid I have bad news for you.
Upcoming titles include: "My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad", "Farmer Wants A Wife" (I am not kidding with this one), and "Jingles". While some of them will probably be somewhat watchable, hands up if you're with me in wanting our lovely writers to return.
I realize that there's probably little that prayer can do at this point to stop the strike, but if prayer can magically force those suits to come to a meeting point, then by golly I am going on my knees.
And on that note, with your hands up and my knees bent, this brings us to the end of the first installment of this roundup. And if you haven't already guessed who's the one in desperate need of a little faith - it's me.
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