I doubt the effectiveness of a fan campaign. Ssorry, Kevin. I know how much it hurts when a show you love gets cancelled but I think I'd be happy if Dollhouse went off the air because I'd like to see Joss do something else now.

Right? Because where's the emotional resonance?

I guess I'd rather see Joss do what makes him happy than what makes me happy, so if this is where he finds his resonance, so be it. I don't feel any urge to help him. I don't know what it would take to get me to raise another finger--just too disillusioned with the whole deal.

I think, if one is contemplating a campaign, the first question should be, "Does anyone working on this show want it to continue?"

If the answer is yes, I would ask myself, "Are they bullshitting me?"

At which point I'd find a new hobby.

I got myself good and burnt out on save-our-show efforts early, back in '94 with My So-Called Life (ah, those weird days of practically no internet, when you had to try to save a show by surreptitiously xeroxing flyers at work [with the actual phone numbers and physical addresses of all the people to contact] and then spend a whole weekend running around posting them on every coffee house bulletin board in the city. Good times, good times!).

I'm just weirdly sad at how not-surprised I am. Unlike a lot of Buffistas, I really found last Friday's episode emotionally engaging and dark and messy and I loved Echo's affirmation at the end that she wants to hold onto the pain all her other selves are made to feel, doesn't want their experiences erased even if it's a sorrowful burden, that even a sorrowful burden is infinitely preferable to perfect blankness. Loved it, and have been wanting to rewatch that last scene, and I swear that the instant the credits rolled my very first thought was, Well, that was really thoughtful and interesting and the whole show is now headed someplace complex and rich. I bet it gets canceled in two weeks.

I don't think a show can succeed without advertising and I haven't seen any for Dollhouse this fall.

I have been part of a successful show campaign, but I'm not sure if it counts as it was to HBO. But I got to call NY and use my Educated White Girl Voice...good times. Alas, I can't recommend my letter as a template, either, because I think I just wrote "My dog died and we lost the election and may I please, please, have my show back?" Begging-ass Bitch might work better for premium subscribers. I think I made up some bullshit Netflix rental statistics too, about how I had to wait weeks and weeks for The Wire season 2(who says you can't learn from TV? I learned to juke the stats. And to put bullet points in my letter...network executives, like commanders, like dots.)

I don't think a show can succeed without advertising and I haven't seen any for Dollhouse this fall.

See, I don't think that's entirely fair.

You can blame lack of advertising for people not showing up Week 1 because they didn't know it was there/back. But you can't blame lack of advertising for people watching one week and then not coming back the next. And, personally, I think it's that fact (that, every week, the show loses some of its audience) more than just overall numbers that hurts the show's chances of survival.

Sady from Tiger Beatdown in Dollhouse: "Dear Joss Whedon, thank you for your interest in Feminism, but we cannot make any hiring decisions at this time."

On AD:

Alexis Denisof is on the show now. Hi, Alexis Denisof! Missed you! Here is a fun fact about Alexis Denisof: although he is from the States – I know this! I have Googled! – he has, for some reason, the most unconvincing American accent I have ever heard. Brit it up, Wesley! You know you want to!

One bit from that article:

But! Even after her mind is erased! She still wants her son baaaaaack! Because the Maternal Instinct has magical science-defying powers of undying devotion which are purely biological and not at all circumstantial or different from woman to woman, which is why all moms love their children in precisely the same way and there have never been any abusive, neglectful or indifferent mothers anywhere ever.

We've actually seen before that some emotions and experiences can bleed through to the actives even after they've been memory-wiped. And while yes, all people are individuals and bond to children or not in their own way, yadda yadda, in general maternal protective instinct has a pretty solid claim on being the strongest and most primal emotion/experience people go through. It routinely takes the self preservation instinct into an alley, beats it up, and takes its lunch money when the two come into conflict. This is why you hear about abused women who won't lift a finger to protect themselves sending husbands or boyfriends to the ICU with frying pan-shaped dents in their skulls or lit gasoline exfoliation once their kids are endangered. So it doesn't seem that much of a stretch that that would be the element of an imprint to successfully resist erasure.