Fox isn't fucking him over, though.

In the sense that he made a deal and they have the power and they can make him reshoot the pilot and they can schedule it on a crap night where it has no chance of finding an audience - that's true.

So I don't think it's a special case of fucking over so much as Fox's fucked up fuckery at work.

Some of FOX's antics have been hilarious from my point of view. When I put the upfronts trailer online for them, they didn't get music clearance, so I got stuck in the middle of a copyright war. They have spelt Joss's name wrong on official publicity material, they had to pull the music video they released for Dollhouse as they spelt the artists name wrong, they [20th] screened the wrong episode of Dollhouse accidentally to the international network buyers (Gray Hour, which nobody likes - none of the international networks picked up the show), they accidentally sent out the wrong episode (Gray Hour...) to some of the critics yadadadada.

Here's a scan of the Rolling Stone interview: [link]

Do we need super seekrit clearance.

I mentioned this article in Natter last week. It made me feel the foreboding even before I watched the show.

Well, how on tone the article is, questionable. It's certainly got a spin to it. And they say fan protests led to Fox greenlighting Serenity, so, ya know. But, yeah, it's not like Joss hasn't said anything negative about the experience pre-air.

There's another bit of publicity which slipped under the radar which is well worth reading - Joss answering Whedonesque's QuoterGal about the nature of both the Dollhouse publicity and the porn tone of the show: [link]

Okay, I think my firewall must be disappearing links on me again, because I'm seeing nothing from Kevin's post at 1800 and Cashmere's at 1802 (that's why I made the "super seekrit" comment).

So I don't think it's a special case of fucking over so much as Fox's fucked up fuckery at work.

Or it could be the case that Joss screwed the pooch, the series kind of blows, and it ended up on Friday because it might possibly do better in the ratings than a House repeat, but maybe not.

Network isn't always wrong. It doesn't mean that Joss is hack, I mean, Buffy and Angel were wonderful, a lot of people feel that way about Firefly, Dr. Horrible was great, but the man isn't infallible.

He had an idea in front of a urinal. Maybe if he had to poop, he'd have had a few minutes to realize this concept isn't really a series, it's an episode of something.

The thing is swiss cheese. You can't develop your main character because she isn't the same person from week to week, and can only develop incrementally over a whole season.

The only reason to root for her is she used to play Faith.

The reasons she's hired to do things are paper thin, since you can actually hire an actual expert to do the thing.

He's lucky that it's airing. He's lucky that they let him shut down production to try and make it work.

It would be foolish of him to bitchslap the hand that fed him. They took a chance based on his past reputation, but how he reacts to this will likely bite him in the ass in the end, because seriously, after you've denigrated your boss in the press, where can you go?

It would be horribly frustrating if he had a phenomenal idea a year from now, but made himself anathema to anyone with the power to grant him a budget.

Or it could be the case that Joss screwed the pooch, the series kind of blows

I really don't know how much it blows because as far as I can tell that first episode had somebody else's fingerprints all over it. I don't know what show he wanted to put on the air, but I do feel confident that wasn't it.

It would be foolish of him to bitchslap the hand that fed him.

I'm seriously boggled that you want to go to bat for Fox. Joss is not the only creator they've fucked with and this is not the only show they've fucked up. They've had a lot of talent and quality and when it succeeds it happens pretty much by accident. They make billions off The Simpsons but didn't have the sense to support Futurama when it was clearly a show with comparable worth. See also: god, way too many shows to list.

They took a chance based on his past reputation, but how he reacts to this will likely bite him in the ass in the end, because seriously, after you've denigrated your boss in the press, where can you go?

He can keep going back to Fox because they turn over their executives every two years. Also, guess what? He just scored the first iTunes tv show hit. So he's working a different angle.

And frankly, nobody in Hollywood cares about handbiting. They care about money. If he can make them money he'll get work. They don't give a shit about making nice.

That's usually your cynical insider line, so I really don't get why you think Fox is doing favors for Joss or anybody else. They're not. They're the same dickweeds they've always been.

Maybe Joss was using the Rolling Stone article as an opportunity to kiss off the studios? He certinaly makes it sound like he's going to look to web based entertainment and wants to paint it as the next frontier for creativity, free from the constraints of studio executives.

He sounds defensive. But that's just my opinion.