"Jericho" cancelled

I was just discussing this with a friend. It seems the show "lost a large portion of its audience when it went on a long mid-season hiatus."

To which I say, "D'UH!" Mr. TV Executive.

(And I'm wondering if the same thing will happen to Lost. We will now go almost a whole year without new Lost episodes. No new ones until next Feb. Will we even care by then?)

The other thing is, they say no one is interested in serialized dramas anymore. Well, if we tune in, and you yank the rug out from under us, like with Jerico (left hanging??? Helloooooo, in the middle of a firefight here!) then we're less likely to tune in to the next one you offer us -- because we can't count on you to give us resolution of the story, (Invasion, anyone? That's another serialized drama where they left hanging. <sigh>)

I'm really annoyed. And yet...not shocked. Unfortunately.

Now we'll be fed more crappy reality shows and game shows. Who cares? I want a STORY!

Susan G.

I wasn't at all surprised. The winter gap, and honestly the writing, both damned that show, and I was even a fan. At least, I wanted to be. But the serialized (read: soap-opera) aspects they were plopping in there annoyed me too much.

And yes, I agree - the serialized dramas are doomed to fail because of the track record they have. Get audience hooked, leave audience hanging, get canned. Frankly, as much as I enjoy Skeet Ulrich and a good old fashioned apocalypitic survivalist story, I didn't expect it to last one full season.

I've come to expect just about any show I find interesting will be axed.

This show had become really, really good -- the quality had taken an immense step upward in the second half of the year. It's a pity more people didn't see it, but that's CBS' scheduling stupidity, not the show's problem.

The serialized dramas are the way of the future; we're in an adjustment phase now, but the episodic shows will eventually be a minority, and if you even tried to display a slate of wholly episodic shows like they had in the 1970s, people would laugh at you. The change began with "Dallas" and "Hill Street Blues" -- there's no going back, and there shouldn't be, because the absolute best writing comes from the serialized stuff. But networks and viewers have to learn some patience and some sophistication, and that's going to take a while. CBS dropped the ball on a good one here.

Jericho. Jericho. Hmm. He's that wrastler, ain't he?

Is that a story line where he get's "canceled?"

Aw, man, I like Jericho! I really thought it showed promise. I especially enjoyed the use of real-world modern-day politics as a theme. Bah! Stupid CBS. This show was good.

Claudia, I wouldn't say that this is a one-way thing. After all, serials had their day in the movies, too. It seems to be more of a cycle that comes and goes every year, just like sitcoms and procedurals. We're just at the tail end of that cycle and beginning the next one.

I think that a lot of modern TV production is to blame. After all, if no one is willing to preorder more than 3 or 4 episodes of a pilot, how on earth can they avoid the absurdly long midseason breaks we've been seeing so much of and which is probably responsible for the death of many good shows.

I almost miss the days of summer reruns. It was always so cool to catch something on rerun that I had missed the first time around.

Humph.

pconsidine said:

Claudia, I wouldn't say that this is a one-way thing. After all, serials had their day in the movies, too. It seems to be more of a cycle that comes and goes every year, just like sitcoms and procedurals. We're just at the tail end of that cycle and beginning the next one.

I think that a lot of modern TV production is to blame. After all, if no one is willing to preorder more than 3 or 4 episodes of a pilot, how on earth can they avoid the absurdly long midseason breaks we've been seeing so much of and which is probably responsible for the death of many good shows.

I almost miss the days of summer reruns. It was always so cool to catch something on rerun that I had missed the first time around.

Humph.

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Then, too, if it's bringing in "only" 3.5 million viewers per week, it's a bomb (so to speak).

ClaudiaGray said:

This show had become really, really good -- the quality had taken an immense step upward in the second half of the year. It's a pity more people didn't see it, but that's CBS' scheduling stupidity, not the show's problem.

The serialized dramas are the way of the future; we're in an adjustment phase now, but the episodic shows will eventually be a minority, and if you even tried to display a slate of wholly episodic shows like they had in the 1970s, people would laugh at you. The change began with "Dallas" and "Hill Street Blues" -- there's no going back, and there shouldn't be, because the absolute best writing comes from the serialized stuff. But networks and viewers have to learn some patience and some sophistication, and that's going to take a while. CBS dropped the ball on a good one here.

Click to expand...

So the future started in the 80s?

It's possible to have episodic television that follows serialized plots. Friends, for instance, did this very well in its last few seasons, as it ran season- and series-long storylines as A or B (or C) storylines in a standard episode.

dclary said:

So the future started in the 80s?

Click to expand...

Yes. And Stephen Bochco is Neo.

pconsidine said:

Yes. And Stephen Bochco is Neo.

Click to expand...

There is no story arc.

Stephen Cannell's gonna be pissed.

Worry not. I refuse to allow this show to die.

It'll be back. Mark my words.

This cancellation sucks. Interesting story and well acted.

XThe NavigatorX said:

Worry not. I refuse to allow this show to die.

It'll be back. Mark my words.

Click to expand...

Hope you're right.

Did you hear about this guy started a campaign to send as many canned nuts to CBS? Pretty funny if you ask me.. .There are other shows with lower ratings than Jericho...oh well.

It was more than just some canned nuts. So far it's been 12 tons of nuts.

CBS has already stated now they will give fans "closure" to the series, but no one knows what that means. Probably either a movie or webisodes. But the campaign will continue until the some comes back.

The website organizing all this is here. Here's the NYTimes article from yesterday.

I don't get it---can't remember which network it is but they're making a sitcom with those cavemen from the Gieco commercial--but yet they'll cancel a perfectly good show... and not to mention there are some that the ratings aren't doing too well (30 Rock)...oh well I wonder how these "executives" come up with ideas they do.

I liked it, but I forgot about it when they cut it off in the winter. Why do they do that? It totally ruined it for me. The show was fine, there was nothing wrong with it. But when they jerk you around like that, it's hard to want to pick up where it left off.

Same thing happened to me with battlestar galactica. I don't care about it anymore, but I was really into it before the break.

It's a wonder if these folks sit around and think of ways to screw up television shows... Do it like the old days when a show started in September, and ended in May...there were some repeats but a show didn't end in the middle of the season and stay off for six weeks..

Way to go CBS...

This is exactly why I don't get too involved with shows like this--give me summer shows and Baseball and i'm good... during the fall its Monday Night Football.

Jericho coming back?

Make of it what you will, but . . .

http://community.tvguide.com/blog/TVGuide-Editors-Blog/Ausiello-Report/700000049

I'm hopeful!

...or not!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070606/ap_en_tv/tv_cbs_jericho

Never underestimate the power of nuts!

Yo', dude, scroll up two posts