The headlines all around the internet are spreading word the word that Fox has canceled Dollhouse. To be more specific, Fox has chosen not to order any more episodes beyond the first 13 episodes of Dollhouse’s second season, sealing the fate of the Joss Whedon-helmed show.

Despite being overwhelmed in fan-voting websites by The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Fox went with renewing Dollhouse for a 2nd season, ignoring the cry for more Sarah Connor.  Of course the popular theory is that Fox feared yet another long-term public lashing from how they handled the much superior Firefly space western of Joss’ years prior.

Fox letting go of Dollhouse isn’t a surprise.  The show confused or creeped out fans in the first season with its core premise.  However, when the show runners had a chance to capitalize on the flow of the story in the latter half of the first season, they kicked in the 2nd season with similar, fragmented episodes.

About a month ago I wrote about how the Terminator franchise rights were up for grabs now that the company who owns the rights, Halcyon Co., has filed for bankruptcy. Well, the rights to the beloved sci-fi franchise are now officially on the auction block and we already have a wild opening bid that’s making news.

The man behind the bid? Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and  Dollhouse.

According to the LA Times, The Halcyon Co. hopes to have the Terminator rights sold off by January, 2o1o, if only to start recouping some of the money they lost on the failed venture that was this summer’s Terminator Salvation (that title suddenly holds a lot of irony, doesn’t it?). There is also the possibility that Halcyon will hop on a “stalking horse,” which is basically a motivated buyer who bids early (and high enough) to have the property put on hold while the buyer then performs full due diligence on said property. To boil it even further down into layman’s terms: If some high-pockets out there thinks there is enough juice left to be squeezed out of the Terminator franchise, they’ll pay to be able to look deeper into just how much money they can make off it.

Sony and Warner Bros. are being floated as the studios circling the property right now, as is independent studio Summit Entertainment (the Twilight guys). But studios are not the only ones interested, apparently; rich guys from the private sector “…have expressed strong interest” said Kevin Shultz, senior managing director of FTI, Halcyon’s hired financial advisors.  Ironically enough, one of those private sector guys making an early bid is none other than Joss Whedon, who in the last 24 hours posted a whopping $10,000 bid for the Terminator rights on fan site whedonesque.com, sparking off rumors galore.

Since that initial “bombshell,” Whedon has explained his out-of-left-field bid to Entertainment Weekly:

“Here’s the thing: It’s not a slam on The Terminator. I love The Terminator. That part’s totally true. I was thinking to myself, ‘Not since they auctioned off frames from The Little Mermaid have I wished I had more money this much. So you know what, never hurts to ask.’ I loved the movies, even the later movies. I loved the mythology. I loved the TV show [The Sarah Connor Chronicles]–like, really loved. Not for pretend. And not just because of [star] Summer [Glau].”

The most surprising thing I read in that quote is that Joss Whedon is actually a fanboy for The Sarah Connor Chronicles – that show certainly didn’t do any favors for the first season of Whedon’s Dollhouse last year!

Needless to say, I’m sure The Halcyon Co. will get a better offer than Whedon’s for the Terminator rights – but wouldn’t be cool if by some chance Joss Whedon became the master of the Terminator universe (or would that be more of a disaster)?  Anyhoo, Halcyon bought the rights for $25 million and now figures their worth – after all the great, great, work they did on Terminator Salvation – to be up around the $60 million range. Whoever nabs said rights gets to call the shots on how any other sequel films or TV spin-offs will go down (hopefully far removed from McG’s terrible plans for T5), and will inherit whatever money can still be squeezed out of Salvation when it hits DVD in December.

Do you have a strategic business plan for who should hold the rights to the Terminator franchise? Should it be a studio or an independent investor who just has that much love for the series?

Sources: LA Times, Entertainment Weekly

Joss Whedon has been making the rounds in various media forms and chatting about the upcoming 2nd season of Dollhouse.  I’ll talk touch on some generic issues then a little bit later. Beware, there’s a section marked spoilers, you can pass over that part and onto more good stuff with the skip/jump link I’ve included.

Joss truly didn’t expect to be working on a 2nd season of Dollhouse, but all the non-traditional ratings numbers such as DVR viewing added up and the idea that fans will gravitate to the show in such a way that the revenue stream from DVD sales and such won’t dry up were all factors that nudged Fox towards renewing the show.

This year, Bravo’s Television Without Pity, Access Hollywood, TV Guide and MediaWeek joined forces and had a massive fan vote session called the Tubey Awards and they’ve recently announced their Tubey Award winners! The system works where fans vote on different categories of things that are television related and from what I understand, the votes were in the millions.

It’s rather telling, and yet not very surprising, what people are trying to tell the networks. Below are the top category winners from the 2008-09 season that folks voted on for the annual Tubey Awards.

The nominees have been announced for the fourth annual Scream Awards, held every year by Spike TV. The decisively more “fan-friendly” award ceremony (compared to the Oscars) honors films from the sci-fi, fantasy, horror and comic-book genres of movies, TV shows and comic books. The awards are described as, “the first and only global event of its kind,” to honor those genres.

The Scream 2009 nominees were chosen by the Advisory Board of Hollywood and Genre Leaders, a list which this year includes the likes of Wes Craven, Roland Emmerich, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Eli Roth and Zack Snyder, plus many more. The event will be taped on Saturday, October 17th this year at The Greek Theater in Los Angeles, and will air on Spike TV ten days later on Tuesday, October 27th (check for local times).

Along with the awards, the show will also be airing some exclusive, world premiere of footage of some of the most anticipated movies of 2010! Presenters and musicians for the event are to be announced shortly.

Today in Screen Rant’s weekly TV Wrap Up, we have some great casting news for 24, we’ll be talking about David Carradine’s appearance in Fox’s new show Mental and we also have some Heroes casting news, the possibility that My Name Is Earl may be getting new legs, some news on Ghost Whisperer, The Sarah Connor Chronicles coming to DVD and a bit about Futurama’s, err, future.

We’ll wrap it up with ratings from last week.  This week in the ratings section, I thought I’d try something new and toss in some cable viewer numbers.

Yesterday (Monday, the 19th) Fox announced it’s upcoming Fall lineup today and we will be seeing some of Screen Rant’s favorites like House, Lie To Me, Bones, Fringe & Dollhouse return this fall.  These are the shows we here at Screen Rant are more focused on.

The news in and about the industry this last weekend was swirling in a dance on what was being renewed and canceled.  Specifically, some were focused on the fates of Dollhouse and The Sarah Connor Chronicles and why one show was given the axe, and the other given a reprieve.

Though the networks are making official statements in the coming week, news is coming out slowly but surely on what is going to happen with shows like Dollhouse, Chuck, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Scrubs among others.

Here’s the news that’s come out of this weekend about some of our favorite shows…  after the break.

This is the weekly TV update coming at you yet again.  Today I chat about how Numbers has survived on Friday nights, I share my suspicions on what will happen with Chuck on NBC and I celebrate a bit about Fringe on Fox.

I’ll also touch on how the new Wolverine movie has already had its TV rights secured while I tell you about a couple of upcoming Sci-Fi Channel marathons, and then I’ll close with some depressing inclinations about Dollhouse and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  At the very bottom, past my ratings chart, I actually make a suggestion about an episode of Criminal Minds that I suggest hunting down to watch.  (Yes, I make a recommendation.)

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

After its season (series?) finale, The Sarah Connor Chronicles seems to be in a gray area. The ratings for the April 10th finale brought in only 3.6 million viewers. That’s a far cry from its premiere episode that attracted almost 19 million sets of eyeballs. After a lot of conjecture, mostly from watching the ratings drop over the last two years, most feel that the show is looking at its demise.

For reasons that are beyond our own logic, even though TSCC was bringing in an average of over 11 million viewers on Mondays, Fox pretty much set the fate of the show when they moved it to Friday nights. There, in its 2nd season it received an average of 4.7 million viewers.

The above numbers seem to reference all viewers and are from ABC Medianet.  When I look at specific numbers from overnight reports through last season, I saw the following interesting trend:

AVERAGE VIEWERS – When TSCC was on

• Monday nights: 5.4 million
• Friday nights: 3.5 million

In January, we found out officially that there was going to be a reboot of the classic horror series, A Nightmare on Elm Street. Since then, we’ve heard some updates regarding the plot of the film and in recent weeks, we’ve been seeing steady news about casting decisions.

The major casting news came just over a week ago when it was confirmed that Watchmen star Jackie Earle Haley will be playing the infamous Freddy Krueger in the remake. Adding to the cast, Thomas Dekker who plays John Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, is reportedly in final negotiations to play the role of Jesse in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Brian Austin Green, who plays Derek Reese in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, wants to play Hal Jordan in the upcoming DC superhero movie and he wants you thoughts on the matter.

Green is most famous for his role on Beverly Hills 90210 but more recently made a splash with his kick-ass role in the Terminator television series. With the second season of the show finishing up this week and no third season announced, the actor is trying to push his way into the movie business with a major role in the next potential DC franchise, The Green Lantern.

So… what, exactly, is the deal with Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse?

Thursday and Friday, the Internet went nuts with worry that the number of episodes the Fox Television Network is said to be airing for Dollhouse was being short changed. The info distilled into a hyperbole of rumors saying Dollhouse was canceled because the season was being cut short. The truth of the matter is that Fox paid for 13 episodes, but only planned on airing 12.

Which makes us wonder: What’s up with that?

Due to technical difficulties beyond my control, the digital dog ate my homework. Or, I had to write this article twice! The digital dog just sounds more light-hearted than what the second line implies. Enough about my woes with technological gremlins.

There wasn’t a ton of news to report or snark on this week, so I had to dig up enough to make this yet another interesting read. Well, at least I think it is! I do have a few snippets that might be spoilers for The Office (Guest appearance) and Lost (Possible finale shoot notes).

Shall we get on with it?

So what’s happening this week with some of our favorite television shows? I’ll fill you in on the vaporizing ratings for Dollhouse, The Sarah Connor Chronicles and others. I touch on some Supernatural & NCIS casting news and a season ending story development. I then sprinkle some CSI:NY bits and round it out with some Lily cast updates.

Let’s check it out.

When we all heard that FOX was going to put The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dollhouse on Friday nights, we all went ballistic. We know that Friday nights are a death knoll for a show. It’s hard to ignore the fact that when your favorite gets to replace reality skeins Cops, or My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad, it just ain’t good news. Just start saving up for that single season DVD pack. Right?

Well hold your horses on this one folks. There may be a glint of light at the end of the usually very short Friday night tunnel, or is there?

The Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles panel had Josh Friedman, Summer Glau and Shirley Manson in attendance.

The panel started with a preview of upcoming scenes from the rest of the season.  First, we watched Catherine Weavers daughter skipping down a typical hall in her mom’s big company.  She accidentally finds John Henry.  John Henry asks her if she wants to play hide and seek.  The door shuts behind the little girl, but John Henry is across the room and it seemed obvious the little girl didn’t shut it.  Creepy imagery.

Early Ratings For Dollhouse On Fox:
So as Vic said in his review of the premiere, the premise of Dollhouse is a bit creepy, but I thought the story line involving the clients wasn’t too bad.  Oh great, a he said – he said article!

At first glance, the ratings for the show are just not that impressive and if the networks are consistent in their responses to the antiquated ratings system, both Dollhouse and The Sarah Connor Chronicles seem lacking, though some call Dollhouse’s ratings a success.

This week, we chat about Caprica, Supernatural, the NCIS spin-off, a new vampire pilot from The CW, Criminal Minds, Ghost Whisperer, Bones, Grey’s Anatomy and some bits about ABC renewing some shows. Also, since we reported that Dave Letterman was announcing the 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model last week, it’s only right that we finish what we started with a little something at the bottom of this post. Shall we get on with it? I knew you’d say that.

But before I say anything else, I would be remiss to not remind you that Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles are coming to your TV this Friday night!

How do you spell butt-kicking, bombshell babes?  D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E.  I’ve been excited by this show for a while.  I’ve always found Eliza Dushku to be endlessly attractive and am a big fan of Joss Whedon, but until now, I wasn’t sure if the general pace and personality of the show would be directed towards me.

Especially considering the fact that Dollhouse is set to air Friday nights after Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronocles…  A time slot that is usually the slow death of a show.  This, combined with Dollhouse’s general lack of solid television promos, had me fearing the worst: A swift death at the hand of lofty viewers.

Well, we survived the Super Bowl and the travesty of a 3D commercial and now we, what?  Wait for the 2009 football season to start back up?  Well, so be it.  In the mean time, let’s check out what happened during the last week.

This week, we chat a little about the latest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, NBC’s Chuck, some wedding news about Fringe, upcoming episodes of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Prison Break’s final episodes, Nip/Tuck going away, Supernatural feuds, and some sad or stupid news about Kyle XY, Reaper and the Digital TV transition delay.

Let’s get to it gang!

Kevin Reilly, the president of Fox Entertainment, was having a group chit chat with reporters about a few things that are on all our sci-fi-loving minds.

Even though we as a collective tentatively look at Fox with apprehension, they do have the largest collection of sci-fi genre shows out there (barring the Sci-Fi Channel, of course). They’ve got The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Fringe on the air; they’ve got Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse around the corner and they’re developing Ronald D. Moore’s Virtuality (I’m going to use the word “develop” lightly here).

The mid season finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (TSCC) threw me something to chew on Monday night that I was surprised to see. Was TSCC yet one more project that was bitten by the writers strike? When the heck are we gonna stop seeing ramifications from that event? Cripes!

Confused? Good… Keep reading my Tarantino-ish outline of this event.

In Monday night’s episode, Sarah is chasing her “three dots” clue and ends up going to a UFO convention. There, she meets a “woman” who has pictures plastered all over “her” home’s walls. The interesting thing about that is that I recognized those pictures and said, “Hey! I know those pictures! Those are the California Drones that Raji posted in 2007!” Yes, I’m a bit of a UFO non-disbeliever with a freaky memory!

We’re at the mid-season point for most TV shows and we have a long wait for the next half of the season to start again… Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles won’t return until mid-February.

A lot of folks have been of the opinion that SCC has lost its direction this season and has suffered from “Heroes Syndrome,” jumping around story-wise with odd non-sequiter episodes instead of continuing to move the story forward in a coherent manner.

Is Fox “Foxing Up” again?

The Joss Whedon fans who were thinking of starting a “Save Dollhouse” website/campaign might have been on to something long before the rest of us.

Despite the previous report that Dollhouse will be airing on Mondays in 2009, Fox has distributed a press release last week announcing that the series will now premiere in February, on Friday the 13th.

WHAT are they thinking? Is this a demonstration of some massive amount of faith in the realm of Whedon fans to overcome the statistical fact that Friday nights are the worst time ever to air a show?

I swear that one day I’ll get this out on a Wednesday.

This week:

Dick Donner talks The Goonies 2; the film version of The Road may be delayed until 2009; Ron Shelton and Tim Robbins talk Bull Durham 2; Sam Raimi’s Sleeper gets a writer and Kight Rider and The Sarah Connor Chronicles get more scripts.

My quick take on the second season premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is that it looks like it hasn’t missed a beat from season one’s storyline. It also adds some interesting new facets to the story that should give our pursued protagonists quite the challenge and new goals to keep them busy.

It is probably going to be on par, and if done right, better than season one, now that the show has it’s feet under it.

The new 2008 Fall TV season is almost upon us, with the first new show of the season premiering on September 1st. Screen Rant has put together an extensive list of new and returning programs along with their premiere dates, along with descriptions and recommendations.

So what’s up this fall? What are we anticipating, what are we, well… not anticipating?

Over the the last twenty-five years The Terminator franchise has set the standard for science fiction films – smart, action packed and filled with ground breaking special effects. The (first two) films are iconic and idolized by millions around the world. So when it was announced that the franchise would have a television spin-off many fans were unhappy, (myself included,) as it would not star Arnold Schwarzenegger (for obvious political reasons.) We feared that a TV series, sans Schwarzenegger, would cheapen the previous entries that had gone before it.

However, there is no need to fear Ye Terminator faithful: although the series does not equal the greatness of T1 and T2, it does expand on the characters, adding new twists, as well as some key references to the films.

Today I’m chatting about Supernatural, Virtuality, Heroes, Knight Rider, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Kind of like a grab bag!

The creator and executive producer of The CW’s show Supernatural, Eric Kripke, just signed an exclusive two year deal with Warner Brothers Television. In that deal, he will continue to run Supernatural and will be developing other projects under the contract for them.