Viewers Give Warm Welcome to Whedon's 'Dollhouse'

Weeks of marketing and years of pent-up interest from Joss Whedon fans helped Fox's "Dollhouse" score a solid welcome Friday night. The much-anticipated drama notched a 2.0 rating/6 share among adults 18 to 49 during its 9 p.m. Friday premiere, according to preliminary fast national data from Nielsen. It attracted 4.72 million viewers. While "Dollhouse's" overall ratings were nothing spectacular, the show's 2.0 rating in adults 18 to 49 is a nice improvement over what Fox had been averaging in the fall with gameshow "Don't Forget the Lyrics." Most weeks last fall, "Lyrics" had been scoring between a 1.5 and a 1.7 in the demo. "Dollhouse" also nearly doubled the ratings Fox averaged last spring with the Friday premiere of short-lived scripted drama "Canterbury's Law," which bowed to a 1.1/3. The early numbers seem to indicate that if Fox wants to program scripted series on Friday, genre fare such as "Dollhouse" is a much better option than a standard procedural. Two other positive points: ... (link)