Jericho

[nacho]

IAt least the hot deaf girl is getting more screen time.

Just watched episode four.  Now I'm depressed.

[nacho]

So the production staff and everyone have been reassigned to a new pilot.  Jericho is pretty much a lost cause.

Except...the fans have, once again, taken up the flag.  They won a second season... Will a similar write-in campaign make any difference?

[nacho]

So, with Jericho getting canned (today's news), let's discuss what went wrong with the comeback season.

In a way, Sirharles is correct in his criticism of the season.  While I support having the show's world move into a rebuilding phase, you can't completely reboot it with that and introduce a flood of little subplots and new characters if you just have a seven episode run.  They're writing the show as if there are 20 episodes this season... Episode five continues to meander around the suddenly not-so-bad post-nuclear world catching up with poor little Jericho. 

The seven episode run was no surprise.  Why not pack it full of more insanity?  Where are the road gangs?  The rogue towns?  The insane hill people?  We barely have a strong enough presence to police New Orleans after a flood, are they telling me that there are enough organized troops left to completely pacify the country?

Part of the reasoning behind having wholly functional governments so quickly is that the bombs only killed a relatively small number of people.  Which is a cop out. 

23 cities are destroyed. EMP blasts blow out the rest of the country.  We manage to launch a massive nuclear strike on Iran and Korea. 

But, no problem.  In comes the army, and the private contractors, and all taxes are forgiven, and life starts up again.  We're to believe that the entire country wouldn't go insane?  And, during half a year or more of no government and no aid, civilization doesn't end?  Jericho was sitting on a wealth of resources and avoided the fallout and they still struggled to survive through the first season.

Season two pulled every punch in season one and made a grab for a weird sort of political soap opera.  And all the post-apocalypse stuff is gone.  No more bandits, no more abandoned towns, even Jericho has power and water and new streets.

[RottingCorpse]

"Jericho." CBS must make this decision quickly since only two episodes remain in Season 2 and the network has to choose Ending A or Ending B. Two conclusions to the season have been shot. One puts a narrative lid on the series (lest protesting fans pelt CBS executives with thousands of pounds of nuts again), the other more of a cliffhanger. CBS notes that the show gains from DVR viewership and online viewing, but after its performance the past two weeks, most doubt the citizens of "Jericho" will live to fight another season.

 

[nacho]

I've heard it's been canceled...

[RottingCorpse]

Scuttlebutt is that cancellation is indeed where the series is headed.

[nacho]

And there we go, last words from the producer.  (Lots of talk elsewhere that Sci-Fi is going to pick up a third season.)

Carol Barbee, executive producer of CBS' canceled post-apocalyptic series Jericho, told SCI FI Wire that talks are ongoing to find the show another home, perhaps on a cable network.

"I can't really say [much] about specifics, and, ... partially, it's because I'm not the one having those conversations," Barbee said in an interview on March 24, the eve of the show's final episode. "[CBS] Paramount [Television, which produces the show,] has been pursing it, and our agents have been into that, so, you know, I am pushing those people and coming up with ideas to have those people pursue."

Barbee wouldn't offer details about any talks. "There were several ideas that have been floated, and there was some interest, but we'll have to see," she said. "It wasn't something that could be sewn up before we were going to air the finale. ... It would have been better had we been able to announce one with the other, but it just didn't happen that fast."

Barbee said that she and the show's cast and crew got official word of the show's cancellation at the end of last week, in time to choose one of two endings for the season finale: A cliffhanger or a series ender. "We were told that they were having a meeting on Thursday, ... internally at CBS, to decide which of the endings to show for this Tuesday night's finale, and then we were given the heads up after that meeting that they were going to show the alternate [ending, with the series finale], which obviously to us meant that we were going to finish our run on CBS," Barbee said. Barbee asked CBS to delay its formal announcement for 24 hours so she could inform the cast and crew; the news broke on Friday.

If Jericho is not picked up for another season by a TV network, Barbee said that she could envision it living on in some other form. "There's definitely an Internet series to be had, and we always talked about a graphic novel, and ... a movie," Barbee said. "I mean, there are lots of things that I could easily see as a way to continue the story."

But time may be running out. Jericho wrapped its second season of episodes back in November, just as the writers' strike was beginning. Since then, the cast and crew have been freed to pursue other projects, and the show's sets and backlot have been dismantled and either destroyed or put into storage. Barbee herself has moved on to another series, Swingtown, created by Jericho alumnus Mike Kelley, about the lives of couples experimenting with sexual and social mores in a 1970s Chicago suburb, which will air on CBS this summer and is shooting on the same stages once occupied by Jericho.

Looking back on Jericho, Barbee was pleased that it attracted a core of diehard fans who were responsible for getting CBS to resurrect the show for a second season. "We appreciated the second life that we had, and we feel like we've made the most of it, and we will just be forever indebted to the fans for taking us on this amazing ride," she said. "I think it will always be a highlight in our careers, that we got to be a part of that." Jericho's finale, "Patriots and Tyrants," airs March 25 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

[Sirharles]

First season....great!  Second season....I've seen porn with better story lines.  It needs to just go away.

[nacho]

So, anyway, I finished this show last week.  Fucking weak ending.

[nacho]

In the kicking a dead horse department...

It worked for DirecTV and NBC when it came to "Friday Night Lights," why not between CBS and Comcast for "Jericho"?

Although nothing is set in stone, it appears that Comcast is interested in putting together a production deal that could keep the fan-favorite "Jericho" on for a third season by footing some of the bill, at least that's what The New York Times is reporting.

Such a deal, if it were to happen (and that's a big "if"), likely would focus on Comcast paying part of the show's production cost in return for its right to air the show to its subscribers first. After that, it would air on the network. That is, if they follow a similar model to how DirecTV and NBC are producing 13 episodes of "Friday Night Lights."

Don't get too excited yet. Such discussions are still in very early stages, and it's unclear whether they will be finalized. But if it does, it will mean some of "Jericho's" most dedicated fans won't have to worry about collecting tons of nuts again.

CBS cancelled "Jericho" last month after a seven-episode resurrection on the network that lost 3 million viewers. Many analysts and fans have blamed the scheduling as one of the main contributing factors to the audience loss, as the Tuesday 10 p.m. schedule eliminated some potential viewers, and a poor lead-in from reality show "Big Brother" didn't help matters very much.

[Sirharles]

Yeah I saw this.....and Firefly can't get picked up.  I mean what the hell!

[Matt]

In all fairness, FOX executed Firefly.

[nacho]

I don't get it, either.  Why pick up the show that has failed in ratings TWICE?  That's like backing a German war machine today.  Nothing can possibly go wrong!

[Matt]

In all fairness, FOX executed Firefly.

And then, when the first bullet to the head didn't kill it, FOX emptied all its chambers.

[nacho]

Or what about Farscape?  Or Dead Like Me?  Or Stargate?  Shows that were not executed, and did well (or are expected to do well) in post-cancellation movies?