Jericho | Cultural Learnings

So, Day One of the Upfronts is coming to an end, and NBC’s time in the spotlight is over. I’ll likely discuss Heroes: Origins some more tonight as I discuss ‘Landslide’ tonight, but the turnaround time is short: tomorrow at 4pm ABC presents their fall schedule [See: Cultural Learnings’ ABC Preview]. You might be wondering, then, why CBS’ eye is in the image above [ CBS Preview]. Well, there’s a reason for this. First, it’s clear that people are most interested in hearing what CBS has to say on Wednesday. Second, ABC’s pickups are fairly set in stone so CBS is where the breaking news lies. Thus, here’s an update on what’s going on with The Eye.

CBS has been active today (Hollywood Reporter), officially ordering four dramas and a comedy (Along with a reality show, which I’m ignoring). Those dramas are similar to what I had predicted, although there is one key difference that bugs me. And yet, I’ll get to the news you likely want most first.

There is still no word as to the fate of Jericho. The drama sits decidedly on the bubble, and as of early Monday evening there is no word as to its fate. Chances are we will hear final word tomorrow ahead of Wednesday’s upfront, but things aren’t looking good with four dramas picked up (And one of them fitting in Jericho’s alternative-drama slot). So, it’s another night of waiting for fans of the drama. Plus, it’s not just Jericho: How I Met Your Mother remains in limbo, and Cold Case and Close to Home wait to hear whether they’ll be around next year.

The network has picked up Cane, the drama starring Jimmy Smits, as well as Viva Laughlin, the musical drama produced by Hugh Jackman. Also, against all odds, Swingtown has been picked up by the network, which should be an interesting fit for their demographics.

However, most interesting is the pickup of Moonlight, which is the vampire drama the network had send to pilot. This means that Babylon Fields (The Amber Tamblyn Zombie vehicle) is unlikely to be picked up. I personally think that zombies are much more hip right now, compared to Vampires (Didn’t Buffy deal with that enough? Or Angel?), but CBS appears to think otherwise.

The comedy pickup is more interesting: Big Bang Theory wasn’t on my radar, and the drama about two science geeks who befriend a party girl sounds too similar to both NBC’s The IT Crowd and even other shows starring geeks like NBC’s Chuck. It just doesn’t seem very interesting, and I think that CBS had better options. Still, it sounds like a decent companion for How I Met Your Mother in terms of youth-skewed comedies.

ABC presents at 4pm EST tomorrow. CBS presents at 2pm on Wednesday.

EDIT: CBS has officially revealed its upfront schedule. For all the details, head to:

Cultural Learnings’ Analysis of CBS’ 2007/2008 Fall Schedule.

So, you’re CBS. You’re the #1 network for the first half of the year until FOX rolls out American Idol, right? You have multiple high-performing hours of drama each and every week, and seem to have little problem launching new comedies on Monday nights. So, when it comes to the upfronts, what exactly are you looking for? CBS faces this problem every year, and the result is usually an attempt to engage younger viewers while in reality continuing their streak of repetitive programming. However, as their pilot season last year demonstrates, this is not always an easy task, and despite their ratings success CBS has a lot of catching up to do.