Jericho, the Nielsen dinosaur and Gen Y campaigns

Posted by fanshawe

March 20, 2008

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Television networks. Love them or hate them, the fate of your favourite show depends on them. And if you don’t tune in - using your TV sets, not your computers - it’s your fault if your show gets cancelled.

This was the stance delivered in a recent Hollywood Reporter article, defending CBS, the evil network du jour, in their decision to once again cancel Jericho, a series about a small community dealing with post-nuclear fallout, a corrupt government, survival-driven neighbours and, most importantly, each other.

The twist? As the same article states, Jericho is currently one of the most popular shows on iTunes. Season two premiere alone was streamed on the CBS site more than 700,000 times. The first five episodes of the second season are the most compelling television the show has delivered so far, story and character-wise, and yet the series, filmed on a significantly tighter budget in season two, is now being rushed to a premature ending.

What’s even more interesting, the season two finale (Patriots and Tyrants, to be aired on March 25) has two possible endings in store for Tuesday - one a cliffhanger leading to what seems to be an unlikely third season and the other a story wrap-up for the series. Which one of them ends up being broadcast is anyone’s guess.

Two other major factors to consider here: since it came back, Jericho has been fighting for the audiences against the nauseatingly popular American Idol. The show had been on a break since May 2007, after having been cancelled and then renewed thanks to the relentless efforts of a very dedicated fandom. When they heard that their show was about to be cancelled last spring, Jericho fans promptly swamped the execs with ridiculous amounts of nuts, echoing a line spoken by the show’s main character, Jake Green (Skeet Ulrich) in the season one finale, Why We Fight.

Now, the series is facing cancellation for the second time in spite of its popularity in the new media. Voices of protest are getting louder again. The petition to save the show currently has 124,518 signatures. Just for comparison, here are the petitions for two other quality shows that will probably not return for another season and also have many dedicated fans trying to talk the networks into changing their minds:

SAVE THE 4400 PETITION (21,183 signatures and counting)

SAVE JOURNEYMAN PETITION (14,343 signatures and counting)

SAVE JERICHO PETITION (124,518 signatures and counting)

The relatively underhyped The 4400 had an excellent four-season run with a great ensemble cast and ended with a rushed conclusion that left the possibilities open for another season. The existentialist, timeline shifting romance Journeyman starring Rome’s Kevin McKidd, Gretchen Egolf and Reed Diamond (best known from Homicide: Life on the Street) only has 13 episodes to date in spite of being incredibly well written, intelligent and quite engaging on the whole. Both are excellent shows, both have 20 times less people signing petitions to save them.

It is hard to follow the events surrounding Jericho and not wonder what its fate would have been if it had been made five years from now, when even more viewers embrace online streaming as way more convenient than TV scheduling.

It’s also hard not to look back and wonder if Firefly, Joss Whedon’s SF/western tale dealing with a colourful bunch of outlaws cursing in Chinese and trying to survive in a very dangerous space from one week to the next, would have made it past the 14 episodes mark if it had been filmed only a few years later. It was the first show to pull off the unlikely wonder of being aired out of sequence, cancelled in mid-season and then brought back to life on the big screen after fans and word of mouth had generated enough DVD sales to convince the studio to greenlight the film, Serenity.

Of course, if the Nielsen ratings had final say in the matter, we would have never had Serenity and Jericho would have ended last year. Neither of the two would have qualified even for a dignified conclusion, let alone much else.

If you have seen the show and enjoyed it, this would be a very good time to get proactive about it and show your support by signing the petition, spreading the word and tuning in for the season finale on Tuesday, March 25 on CBS.

You can catch up with the previous episodes on the CBS’ Jericho site.