Category Archives: Jericho

May 26, 2007 · 5:35 pm

‘Save Jericho’: Considering a ‘Jericho’ Miniseries

The ‘Save Jericho’ campaign has been going for a week and a half. The network is promising to consider fans’ cries for closure, which could mean a multitude of things. In my view, the fan response has been good enough that CBS will not suggest a simple interview with producers to let fans know how it would have ended. Instead, I believe that what CBS will suggest is a 2-hour movie which will complete the series quickly but in a more resolute fashion. Fans, clearly, are adamant that a second season is the only option: that there is no other way they will be satisfied. And this has been their focus: the message to fans is that, much like Jake facing the threat from New Bern, surrender isn’t an option.

What I want to consider here is whether or not a 4-hour miniseries would be surrendering. It has benefits for fans over a two-hour movie, and it has benefits for executives in a shorter shooting schedule. It provides CBS with an opportunity to test this fan support in gauging possible further extension of the franchise without risking it on a season order, while also providing producers more room to work with. I think that asking CBS to cough up a second season of the show is a lot, which is why I think that Jericho fans need to be prepared to compromise, not surrender. And I believe that a two-part miniseries is that compromise, and one that could continue the campaign’s momentum into the fall months.

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Tagged as CBS, Save Jericho

May 25, 2007 · 10:47 am

‘Save Jericho’: The Cowardice of Traditional Media

So, I’ve written extensively about the ‘Save Jericho’ Campaign, as have a large number of internet sites and blogs. This thing is only a week old, and already it has escalated into an internet phenomenon on the levels that were unfathomable when the show was canceled last week. And, it’s had an impact: CBS executives are apparently meeting this week, although the chances of a season two still seem fairly remote. However, there’s something that needs to be made note of: there has been little to no coverage of the ‘Save Jericho’ campaign in the “traditional” media.

This would be your newspapers. Your television stations. Your major media outlets for entertainment news. These sites? Aren’t quite as willing to jump on the bandwagon. Now, there have been some stories about it in more major news outlets, but there is a distinction that needs to be made.

Those outlets (New York Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune) are not reporting on the actual content of the Save Jericho campaign, but rather on its status as an internet phenomenon from a group of crazed fans [The New York Times walks a fine line]. They are not covering the ‘Save Jericho’ campaign as something real, something genuine, but rather as some sort of novelty. Now, for the sake of the campaign, this coverage is good. Major papers covering the story is getting press out there, and that’s a great start.

But these major papers are refusing to really pick up this story and run with it: they were unwilling to send media to cover the delivery of peanuts to CBS headquarters, they are tentative to actually talk to the people involved, and on the whole they’re reporting about the story instead of actually reporting the story itself. And when they do it’s brief mentions in their pop culture blogs, not actual articles. And I think there’s a reason for this:

Cowardice. I believe that they are unwilling to engage this campaign as an actual entity because it will be legitimizing the internet as a source of power in media. It will be legitimizing blogs, message boards, and everything else. To cover this campaign in the same way blogs have, these major papers would have to admit that they were scooped, that the same stories bloggers are writing about are worthy of their pages.

And that would change the mass media forever.

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Tagged as CBS, Mass Media, Save Jericho

May 23, 2007 · 8:48 pm

‘Save Jericho’: Much Ado About Peanuts [UPDATED]

UPDATE: Well, according to CBS, it appears that the peanuts are being given in a way quite similar to what was suggested here. Jericho fans = Smart, it seems, and CBS appears to be routing the peanuts for a good cause. This is a positive development, and considering that another 4000 pounds are on their way today [Maybe with media as well]…things aren’t done yet.

WCBSTV.com – ‘Jericho’ Fans to CBS: ‘Nuts!’

“CBS spokesman Chris Ender estimated Wednesday that about 300 boxes of nuts ranging in size from three pounds to 10 pounds had arrived.

“We’ve made arrangements for the bulk of the boxes to be picked up by Staten Island Project Home Front, an organization that focuses on fundraising and supporting military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Ender told wcbstv.com. “We’ve also made contact with the Bronx Zoo to see if they’d like some of these, as well as local homeless shelters and food banks.””

Sounds like they’re headed to a good cause. Let’s hope that CBS, in the process of this, understands what is going on here on a larger level.

And now back to regularly scheduled analysis.

Okay, so over the past few days I’ve been delving into this Jericho question, and the more I discuss it the more I sympathize with the show’s fans. Much of this has to do with their level of argument within the two past threads (To be found Here and Here), but I have to admit: a lot of it has to do with the peanuts.

That peanut side of the story is quite simple: Skeet Ulrich’s Jake said “Nuts” in the season finale (As part of some form of surrender: I need to watch this finale at some point, eh?), and fans have used it as their battlecry. “Nuts to CBS” is a common statement amongst the show’s fans, but they didn’t stop there. As opposed to just sending their thoughts, they decided that they should send something more tangible: peanuts. Hundreds, if not thousands, of peanut orders started flying off from various online peanut delivery companies…however, one took notice.

NutsOnline.com – Nuts for Jericho

It was NutsOnline that did so, and they’re now sending mass shipments to CBS, the first of which should have arrived recently (There is to be video confirmation later).

In the meantime however, I figure that there’s a question that should be answered:

What should CBS do with all of these roasted peanuts?

My personal suggestion is to provide them to the writing staffs for their new fall shows, but to then refuse to provide them water, holding them hostage until they put out scripts which are good enough to meet their approval.

So, does anyone else have any suggestions on what they should do with the nuts? Perhaps Ms. Tassler should make a honey-nut glaze humble pie? Got another recipe in mind? Have some fun with it, I’m sure that there’s plenty of imaginative minds out there.

13 Comments

Filed under Jericho, Television

Tagged as CBS, Peanuts, Save Jericho

May 23, 2007 · 1:37 pm

‘Save Jericho’: The ‘CBS’ Viral Conspiracy Theory

This will be a brief update, but it is something to consider. On the Official Jericho Boards, “colsteve” posted with news that someone apparently from CBS (Through StatTracker, this information was discovered) had arrived at their blog after searching for the following phrase:

“SAVE JERICHO CAMPAIGN FAILS”

That’s how it reads. First, let’s make this clear: there has been no official word as to the campaign’s success, and as a statement this is not true: the fight goes on.

Now, the theory is of course that CBS is trying to downplay the movement by spreading doubt as to its success. I think this is a little bit tenuous, however; that IP address could have been a mistake, the person could have been a low-level intern, and I don’t think there is any real justification in claiming that CBS is virally attempting to stop the movement.

That being said, I think it raises the interesting question: how ARE people reacting at CBS? It’s hard for us to imagine as non-executives, but for them this likely presents a huge public relations and media challenge, not to mention actually dealing with their coming development cycle. I almost can see why they would be interested in trying to start things in a viral fashion, because the traditional methods of damage control only work against much smaller “problems”.

Because the ‘Save Jericho’ campaign is a problem for CBS. Are these viral searches part of a vast conspiracy to undermine the NUTS drive? Theoretically. But, without actual proof, all we can do is wonder whether or not CBS is planning something substantial in response to it all. Perhaps we’ll see in the coming days.

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Tagged as CBS, Save Jericho

May 22, 2007 · 7:47 pm

‘Save Jericho’: Addressing the Hiatus Hernia, The Idol Factor and Promoting the Unpromotable

In an ongoing attempt to provide some analysis of the fall of Jericho and the subsequent rise of its fans, I’ve been fielding a wide range of questions, comments, criticisms, and attempting to provide a perspective for them. I’ve dealt with CBS’ logic for the cancellation, along with documenting the rise of the ‘Save Jericho’ campaign; however, as many have rightly pointed out, I have yet to properly address the claim very succinctly stated in a comment on this very blog by James Denison:

“Jericho was an excellent drama that suffered from the 3 month hiatus, going up against [American Idol], and poor promotion by CBS.”

In doing so, I might have to defend certain decisions CBS made, and I think that this is just: the network is not entirely at fault here. But, by investigating these issues further, I believe that was can increase CBS’s accountability for their own role in this problem. What I want to investigate are the following series of questions:

– Why do shows go on hiatus, and what other options are available?

– If CBS had shifted the show’s timeslot to avoid Idol, what would the effect have been?

– Is Jericho an easily promotable show?

In answering these questions, I believe that we can further understand the series of events that took place, and delve yet further into the questions of New Media, New Advertising, and just about everything in between.

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Filed under American Idol, Jericho, Ratings, Television

Tagged as CBS, Save Jericho

May 20, 2007 · 7:05 pm

A Word of Warning to the ‘Save Jericho’ Campaign

I have written in the past about how I believe CBS had justification to cancel Jericho. However, I must admit that I am incredibly impressed by the outpouring of support found on the internet for the series. The ‘Save Jericho’ campaign has swept the internet to a level that I honestly didn’t expect. I myself felt some of this, but it is clear that these fans aren’t letting up, and that the momentum is only building.

‘Save Jericho’ Links

Online Petition to Save the Series

YourEntertainmentNow Post Featuring Series Supporters

Save Jericho @ BlogSpot

JerichoLives.com

‘Save Jericho’ @ Cultural Learnings

Much Ado About Peanuts (What Should CBS Do With Them?)

From the campaign to send nuts (A line from the finale) to CBS to the outpouring of anger and frustration, it is clear that the show has a rabid fanbase. And, to be honest, I would be sweating right now if I was CBS. However, I’d also be sweating if I was a fan of Jericho as we know it. Because, if CBS gives in to the fans and orders a 2^nd season of the drama (As unlikely as it is), we have no idea what might emerge from that engagement.

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Filed under Jericho, Television, Veronica Mars

Tagged as CBS, Save Jericho

May 18, 2007 · 11:11 am

The Five Biggest Mistakes of the 2007 Network Upfronts

There is no question that the Upfronts bring on a lot of good things, which I will get to in time. However, it’s tough directly after the release of all of the fall schedules to not dwell on the negatives. The show which we canceled, the shows that were mistreated, and the show that you cringe just thinking about. As a result, we start our weekend coverage of the Upfronts with a piece which covers the mistakes made, and which ones will have the most negative effect on the state of television.

The Five Biggest Mistakes of the 2007 Network Upfronts

5. CBS cancels ‘Jericho’

I’ve talked about why canceling Jericho was the right move in the end, but I think it still needs to be recognized that CBS might need to reconsider such moves in the future. Wonky scheduling killed the show’s audience, not necessarily its quality, and I think this is where CBS might have hit their final straw. I think that CBS is worried about the bottom line, and the ratings performance, and I kind of wonder whether they really watched the show to see. Jericho’s fanbase was rabid and of a different sort than most of their shows. The network was able to cancel shows in the past without fanfare (Where’s the outrage for Close to Home?) because they are casual viewers: Jericho didn’t have any of those, and canceling it is likely to end up being more than they bargained for.

It had to be done, but it’s certainly put them in a lesser eye with some of the people that they hope might turn up this season for Moonlight and Viva Laughlin, two shows which might need a touch of their fandom. If they ever want to branch into serial television for real, they will need to realize that quality does matter. We’ll see if their tone changes as time moves forward.

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Filed under 'Til Death, ABC, Cavemen, FOX, Friday Night Lights, House, Jericho, NBC, New Amsterdam, Ratings, Television, The CW, Upfronts, Veronica Mars

Tagged as CBS

May 16, 2007 · 10:51 pm

Network Upfronts Extravaganza – Why CBS Canceled ‘Jericho’

[Edit: Written in the depths of the upfronts, this article serves as an attempt to specify CBS’s reasoning for canceling Jericho. In the end, their logic has some sound bases, and that’s really the purpose of this article. For more on the Save Jericho campaign that developed after this article was written, head here. – Myles]

So, out of all of the upfront decisions made over the past few days, the one which has brought forth the most anger has certainly been CBS’ long-rumoured decision to cancel apocalyptic drama Jericho. And, I feel the pain fans are feeling at this moment, considering the show ended of a cliffhanger. However, while I hate to rain on the parade of anger [Currently ongoing over at Your Entertainment Now], I feel the need to point out that Jericho’s failure is not just CBS’ fault, and chances are they won’t be reconsidering anytime soon.

Link: “Save Jericho Petition”

I stopped watching Jericho early in the season when it was mind-numbingly boring, long before New Bern (Is that right? I’ve just been reading about it) and all of the drama that followed, and Hawkins finally kicking some ass. I stopped watching because the show wasn’t holding my interest. If the show had ended its first half in a decent state, I think the show had a chance…but it didn’t. It was back-loaded. The same thing happened to Lost, but it had two seasons of goodwill keeping people around…Jericho had none of that.

I talked at length earlier this year about Sci-Futility, a principle that science fiction and other “niche” genres have a potential audience smaller than your normal show. When shows like Heroes or Jericho premiere, they gain some casual attention, but other time these casuals will get distracted by the latest new reality show or crime procedural once the storyline slows down a little. It happened to Lost, and this spring it happened to Heroes…but it affected Jericho the most. The show saw a drop from a strong performance to a middling return barely worthy of mention amongst CBS’ other hits.

What happened to Jericho was that those people who were iffy on its quality in the first half of the year suddenly had a new option at 8pm: American Idol aired weeks of its Boys/Girls performances in the hour, and the result was Jericho getting its ass handed to it. CBS knew this, sure, but from a business perspective a good show should have been able to hold its audience. This might not be the case at other networks, like NBC, which held onto low-performing Friday Night Lights in the same time period. They’re in need of a hit, critical or otherwise, to keep up their prestige. CBS, meanwhile, it not lacking in hits.

When you have the ability to repeat an episode of CSI and get better ratings than an expensive new episode of Jericho, which would you choose from a business perspective. I honestly believe that the network would do just that, not even bother ordering pilots, if they weren’t also trying to change their image…or appear to wish to. In reality, I think CBS is content with raking in piles of dough with their crime procedurals and just experimenting for fun with dramas like Jericho.

It’s not a question of quality: I’m sure that CBS were impressed with the strong upward movement in the show’s storylines as they reached the end of the season. However, those Nielsen ratings are more important than that quality for a network that has so many high-performing shows. CBS could never justify to advertisers, or their shareholders, why they would keep around a low-performing drama when they had so many other, better, more buzz-worthy options.

For those fans of Jericho who are upset about this, I really think that you need to think about this situation carefully. Jericho was never a good fit for CBS: look how many of you are quickly swearing off the network in the wake of this announcement. It’s a network of aging crime shows, one after the other, and the occasional spark of youth crowded out by the dead bodies puling up around it (The Ghost Whisperer, perhaps the closest the network has, has boobs, so that gives it appeal). The network was an odd place to find a post-apocalyptic drama, and as a result this was almost inevitable.

In the world of TV dramas in the 2006/2007 season, Jericho had everything working against it. It was a serial drama, so successful last year with Prison Break but shunned widely this year. It was on CBS, a network with incredibly high ratings standards, and where it didn’t really fit in. It was in a timeslot which would, at a point, conflict with American Idol. It had a three month hiatus in which Idol arrived and Jericho re-emerged into a hellish atmosphere. And, in the end, the casual fans who watched in the beginning didn’t stick around until the end. I don’t think we can blame just CBS for all of this, its scheduling. Other shows weathered the storm, and it didn’t.

So, saying goodbye to Jericho must be tough, but in the end CBS didn’t have a choice. Fan outrage or no fan outrage, Jericho failed to win itself a spot on the 2007/2007 schedule…fair and square.

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Filed under Jericho, Television, Upfronts

Tagged as CBS, Save Jericho

May 16, 2007 · 9:53 am

Network Upfronts Extravaganza – ‘CBS’ 2007/2008 Fall Schedule

CBS has gone with what, for them, likely seems to be a rather risky lineup (Variety). However, the thing for CBS is that their idea of taking a risk is taking two Tylenol instead of one: it’s just a little dangerous, but there’s still no chance of anything negative happening.

CBS launches with a lineup which, despite new entries, seems awfully familiar. It is still anchored by three CSIs, it’s still got a large assortment of procedural crime dramas, and it still has a dose of reality where it counts. It is for this reason that any risk they take is really not risky at all: as soon as one of their new shows fails, they’ll just plop in a CSI rerun and wait until the next series is ready to go. This is the way CBS operates.

The New Fall Shows

Cane – A Latin-American family, led by Jimmy Smits, enters into the alcohol business. It still sounds a lot like ABC’s Brothers & Sisters in Latino form, but with Smits at the helm the show carries gravitas. It’s not a huge risk for CBS at all, except that they’ve had trouble with such shows in the past. It’s a serial drama, and the network has nothing but procedurals at the moment (No, seriously, look at the lineup if you think I’m lying. Every single returning drama is a procedural drama.) Still, they’ve got to start being successful with serials at some point, and Cane has a shot.

Timeslot: 10pm on Tuesdays

Competition: Tough, with Boston Legal and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit to contend with.

Swingtown – A drama about the swinging lives of various romantic couplings, it’s both raunchier and less procedural than anything else in CBS’ lineup. This is an attempt to get a Desperate Housewives-style hit for the network, and I don’t think it will prove successful. The show has potential, but it just seems to be trying too hard to be THAT show. You know, the one the Parents’ groups get all uppity about. As a result, I worry about it becoming self-conscious, and losing any creative edge it perhaps had.

Timeslot: Held Until Midseason

Competition: We don’t know yet, but I don’t think it bodes well for the drama. It could be asked to slot in early should Cane falter in its tough slot, and that’s asking the drama to rush itself…and that would be disastrous for this particular show.

Viva Laughlin – A musical-comedy-crime drama surroundinga man who wants to open a casino in Laughlin, Nevada. I don’t really know what to think about this one: it’s a bizarre coupling, and with Hugh Jackman as producer it is certainly a unique experience. I would have more faith in the series if likely jobless Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas was coming on as showrunner as rumoured, but that appears to be off the table. For me, the show needs to prove that its construct is a good one, and can’t just rely on being quirky to succeed. I think that’s a tough job for a show on a network where simple = successful.

Timeslot: 8pm on Sundays

Competition: Tough. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is never an easy show to beat, and it has to hope to compete with Sunday Night Football for its audience.

Moonlight – A vampire private investigator who, well, investigates supernatural happenings in a procedural fashion. The show is a likely companion for Ghost Whisperer on Fridays, and perhaps has the best chance of succeeding since it’s basically “Generic CBS Procedural + Vampires”. I think it will be a far cry from shows like Buffy or Angel which actually dealt with the true supernatural elements of their stories and created mythologies…Moonlight just wants to masquerade as such a drama to make it stand out within a crowd, which does little to interest me.

Timeslot: 9pm on Fridays

Competition: Weak. Moonlight has a good shot at continuing CBS’ dominance of the night with only ABC’s weak Girls Murder Club and NBC’s Las Vegas to worry about.

Big Bang Theory – A comedy from Two and a Half Men producer Chuck Lorre, this sitcom is…well, your tradition multi-camera sitcom about geeks and hot girls and blah. It’s depressing to see it getting the nod over more interesting single-camera fare, but the reality is that CBS is looking for its next King of Queens or Everybody Loves Raymond (Ratings wise), and they expect to find it here. However, this is a comedy about young people (Kaley Cuoco, 8 Simple Rules, stars), not about old people. This is a young person’s sitcom being expected to play the role of a middle aged one, and the result is likely to be another The Class: high expectations and decent results behind How I Met Your Mother

Timeslot: 8:30 on Mondays

Competition: Average. CBS’s comedies are successful counterprogramming, they’ll pull through just fine.

The Returning Show Details

– The Amazing Race is officially off the fall schedule, as it will be held over until the new year and only air a single season this year. This is unsurprising, but troubling; I worry that if ratings are low for this one season they’ll pull the plug. I think that the show has plenty of gas left, but a lot of miles on the car. They can keep driving, they just need to slow down a little and everything will be okay. It’s like Speed. (Note: Everything can be like Speed. True Story). It will be indirectly replaced by a new reality show, Kid Nation, a new Lord of the Flies-esque story of kids taking over a ghost town revealed today (Variety). It will be airing on Wednesdays at 8pm

– The New Adventures of Old Christine, the 5th Wheel on the Monday comedy block, will be returning midseason.

– Shark and Without a Trace have switched spots, with the latter moving back to its old post-CSI slot and Shark spending some time on Sunday Nights against Brothers & Sisters.

The Departed

It’s official: Jericho and Close to Home are no longer on the air. This was pretty well confirmed on Tuesday, but they’re definitely gone. Also gone is “The Class”…but no one notices.

For the full Fall Schedule, continue on.

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Filed under How I Met Your Mother, Jericho, Reality TV, Shark, Survivor, Television, The Amazing Race, Upfronts

Tagged as CBS

May 15, 2007 · 2:32 pm

Network Upfronts Extravaganza: Tuesday ‘Bubble Shows’ Update

Well, it looks like there’s some new word from The Hollywood Reporter about some bubble shows.

– Confirming earlier reports, The CW is renewing Smallville, Supernatural and One Tree Hill for next year to go along with their pilot pickups (Gossip Girl, Reaper, and Wild at Heart are now joined by comedy Aliens in America).

However, most interesting is that this basically fills the CW schedule…and yet there is still the fate of Veronica Mars to be decided. At this point, I don’t think the show has a chance. Chances are that the network will fill its programming gaps with reality television as opposed to ordering up Veronica’s FBI spinoff. The fate of the show looks bleaker than ever, although there’s always still a chance it could make it by the skin of its teeth.

– On the CBS side of things, the network has its pilots in place [See: Monday Night Update]. However, the big question now is the fate of its bubble shows and there’s been some movement.

A renewal looks good for Rules of Engagement, the David Spade-led sitcom which performed well after Two & a Half Men earlier this year. Things look somewhat worse for The New Adventures of Old Christine, but it’s expected to get at least a shortened midseason order. Nowhere to be found in Variety’s article, however, is How I Met Your Mother. HR goes all out to list the network’s returning dramas (The Unit, Shark, Ghost Whisperer, Criminal Minds), and the above comedies, but says nothing about the bubble comedy…or the beloved Jericho. This is not a good sign for either show, and they remain the big question marks heading into tomorrow.

EDIT: Well, there’s some final word from Variety…and it’s good news for How I Met Your Mother, and bad news for Jericho fans.

CBS has apparently nuked “Jericho,” dismissed “Class” and closed the book on “Close to Home.”

Net wasn’t commenting Tuesday, but several people familiar with the situation said none of the skeins has been given a series order for next season. “Close to Home” had been considered near dead for several months now, with “Class” on the longshot list, but there had been speculation that CBS would exercise some patience with “Jericho.”

Eye skeins getting better news this week include “How I Met Your Mother,” which has been picked up for a third season. Eye’s most buzzworthy laffer might seem to be a no-brainer for renewal, but CBS execs make producers sweat it out until the last minute.

So Jericho is canceled, while How I Met Your Mother lives to see another day.

– For those looking to see how each night of their broadcast is shaping up, Cornballer over at NeoGAF has been kind enough to point us in the direction of Metacritic.com (An Awesome Site for Reviews) and their extensive schedule which very plainly lays out what each night of primetime is going to look like. Head over there to take a look, and keep an eye on it as CBS, FOX and The CW get filled in over the next few days.

The Fall 2007 Schedule – Metacritic.com