I mentioned this before when I posted the latest trailer for Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse, but it deserves another post of its own: the FOX network has decided to schedule Dollhouse on Friday nights along with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles for their Spring 2009 line-up. Now, at first this may not seem like such a big deal, but it’s a pretty big deal for a new show like Dollhouse. Not only has FOX moved the lowly-rated Terminator (which has been in trouble pretty much throughout its second season, ratings-wise, with impending cancellation somewhere on the horizon) from its original Monday night time slot, all but guaranteeing its death, but it’s giving Whedon a very poor lead-in show to boot.

And when a network gives a brand new, expensive show like Dollhouse such a poor lead-in, it means they’ve decided it’s not worth saving. Compare this with what J.J. Abrams’ Fringe is getting — the juggernaut American Idol as its lead-in. See the difference?

Basically, this is very bad news for Whedon’s Dollhouse. FOX will be doing one of their “Remote Free TV” deals with Dollhouse, similar to what they’ve been doing with Fringe. That is, sell primo ad space to one or two major advertisers for the entire hour block, so that way they can cut down the number of commercials they usually have per episode to almost half. That’ll help Dollhouse, but the Friday night timeslot ain’t gonna be doing it any favors, I’m afraid.

So has FOX pretty much screwed Dollhouse and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles over? Unfortunately, I’m going to have to say Yes to that. The only way I can see Dollhouse surviving to see even a full season is if the fans show up in droves to watch it. If the ratings are spectacular, or at least enough to justify FOX spending the money on it, they’ll wake up and give it a chance. Nothing says “Wake up!” to a network like fans actually watching a show they didn’t think the fans would watch.

Here’s a word of advice for Joss: the next time you have a good idea for a TV show, dude, stay away from the FOX network, okay? Didn’t you learn anything from Firefly?

Below: “Friday nights? Okay, whose ass do we gotta kick?”