Joss Whedon and Fox might like to have their memories erased after seeing Friday's ratings for "Dollhouse"

When Fox announced it had signed a deal with Joss Whedon to do a show called "Dollhouse" with Eliza Dushku, everyone was very excited. When Fox announced it was going to air the show on Fridays, everyone quickly became a whole lot less excited and we wondered if this was just going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy for failure.

("I'm sure there's a viewer around here somewhere...")

Turns out, yep: "Dollhouse" was seen by a mere 4.7 million viewers, though it did squeak past its competition in the Viewers Aged 18-49 Demographic. This being a Friday, most of the show's target audience was out, probably seeing the "Friday the 13th" movie. This is a show that'll probably get TiVo'd and watched online a lot, so its overall viewership won't seem that awful, but geez - it was the second-lowest premiere for a scripted show this season, behind "Crusoe," another show that foundered on Friday nights before washing ashore dead on Saturdays. ("Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," which premiered about a year ago to nearly 13 million fans, debuted in its Friday timeslot preceding "Dollhouse" to a woeful 3.7 million viewers. Both of these shows are far too pricey to produce to draw these piddling numbers.)

Only CBS is having any success on Fridays, with shows aimed at older viewers who have lost the will to socialize. It'll be interesting to see if the other networks even bother to schedule original scripted shows on Friday next season, because if it wasn't obvious before that Friday is the new Saturday as far as the broadcast networks are concerned, "Dollhouse's" weak bow makes it gospel forevermore.

And Joss might want to rethink the whole working-with-Fox thing in the future.