Screen Rant » jericho

Is There Really A Jericho Movie In Development?

Bruce Simmons — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 15:25:32 +0000

Every time someone who starred in Jericho makes a public appearance, it’s inevitable that they get asked if they’re up for more Jericho, and in particular, a Jericho movie.

Sure, we’d love to see an actual project that is given its full due. After canceling the 2006 season show, CBS relented to a second season from fan pressure but barely gave it the attention it was due – It popped out a whole 7 episodes and was canceled again. Sometimes, a show may be a major fan favorite, but the impassioned fans are not as numerous as they need to be.

Some time ago, rumors started floating around that there might be a Jericho movie in the works.

In January of ‘09, executive producer Jon Turteltaub said they were “developing” a Jericho feature and that it would cover a broader scope of events – beyond the town of Jericho itself. He further teased us with the statement that the TV cast would return, but back then I was skeptical about the idea for many reasons.

More recently, a few ex-cast members were asked about their hopes for a Jericho movie.

Some still insist that producers are still developing a two-hour movie. This is now an 8 month old statement as far as I’m concerned. But Lennie James (who played Robert Hawkins), while promoting The Prisoner, pretty much said that producers are trying to come up with a story worth telling and that people are still interested.

Of course Hawkins would be excited to play the role of Hawkins again.

Even at Comic-Con in San Diego, Esai Morales said he’d love to participate in a movie if one is in the works and recapture the essence of Major Beck.

At one point in a Comic-Con panel, producers Jon Steinberg and Karim Zreik said that the ratings on the CW would help garner interest in the idea of a movie. That’s a shame, since the CW barely even acknowledged that they were playing repeats on Sunday nights and the ratings reflected that. At one point, I was wondering if the ratings were going to be negative, with more people airing the show than were watching it!

But if you really need to get your fill of Jericho, there is one avenue of entertainment you can pursue: Comic books.

It’s called “Season 3 of Jericho” and is being published by Devil’s Due Publishing. They’re creating a direct continuation of the show and it’s being written by Jericho writing alumni Jon Steinberg, Karim Zreik, Dan Shotz, and Robert Levine.

As we know, at the end of season 2, society was looking at a civil war and they’ve embraced that premise in the comic book. It was also noted that without budget constraints, they can show more tanks and more action in a single comic panel than they ever could in an action sequence of the television show. Cool! The story will be told in a six issue series, starting in October and it will star all the original characters we know and love from the series.

The original cast all signed off on having the likeness of their images used for the comic so it will be easy to get back into their individual scenarios.

So for now, the idea of a Jericho movie seems to be only a room full of vapors that’s waiting to take some sort of shape. I’d love to see this, but am I just deluding myself? Are you, the Screen Rant readers, being more realistic about the chances of a movie coming together? Would all the cast actually be available if this were to come together? I don’t know. Very fortuitous timing on everything involved could make this possible, but for now, a comic book is all we get.

Screen Rant reader thoughts and opinions are always welcome. Let us know how you all feel.

Sources: Sci Fi Wire, CBR

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Weekly TV Wrap Up – March 12th, 2009

Bruce Simmons — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:39:34 +0000

So what’s happening this week with some of our favorite television shows? I’ll fill you in on the vaporizing ratings for Dollhouse, The Sarah Connor Chronicles and others. I touch on some Supernatural & NCIS casting news and a season ending story development. I then sprinkle some CSI:NY bits and round it out with some Lily cast updates.

Let’s check it out.

Ratings Notes

A sad ratings note: The completely non-advertising supported set of repeats of Jericho on The CW scored a 0 in ratings. A zero. Of course they are Nielsen families, so that means none of them made any sense of it the first time around and they don’t want to deal with it a 2nd time.

Though it hasn’t been officially announced, inside sources are saying Heroes will be renewed for another 18-20 episodes next season.

Knight Rider, on the other hand, has been parked and done. The season finale had a 21% drop off in ratings from its premiere. Sorry to say for the KR fans out there. I guess it’s time to snatch up the DVD when or if that ever comes out.

Dollhouse fell below 4 million viewers last week, snagging only 3.5 million viewers during the airtime. This is Echo, looking for viewers in the audience!

The Sarah Connor Chronicles viewers dwindled to below 3 million viewers. Friday may be bad, but this is really bad. Maybe as they quit focusing on Sarah’s “3 dot pursuit” and more on Cameron, we might wake up on Fridays once again.

Sources: E Online, TV Guide, TV Guide

V Snags A Firefly Alum

ABC’s reboot of V has landed Morena Baccarin (aka Firefly’s Inara and Stargate SG-1’s Adria) has been cast as Anna, whose referred to as the “frontwoman” for the alien visitors who come to Earth.

Source: TV Guide

Supernatural

Now that Supernatural has found itself renewed for a 5th season, we will be seeing more of Misha Collins, who plays the angel Castiel. Collins will become a series regular next season. Misha says that with his extended stay, he’ll be doing some butt whooping.

Source: SciFi Wire

NCIS

The news on the street is that NCIS is going to focus heavily on Tony (Michael Weatherly) and Ziva (Cote de Pablo) in the last 4 episodes of the season. But with their complicated love triangle involving Michael Rifkin (Merik Tadros), they have planned a pretty explosive ending lined up for the viewers.

Source: Entertainment Weekly

CSI: NY

Winding up to the season finale of CSI: NY, big things are going to happen. The team loses one of their own, Ed Asner will be making an appearance and Craig T. Nelson winds up his story arc. I dare not say anymore!

Source: Entertainment Weekly

Lily

The Gossip Girl spin off tentatively titled Lily is starting to line up some cast.

The CW is in advanced talks with Cynthia Watros (Lost) and Andrew McCarthy (Lipstick Jungle) to come onboard. Watros and McCarthy would play play CeCe and Rick Rhodes, Lily’s parents and Serena’s grandparents. (Caroline Lagerfelt plays CeCe on the current series.)

The “backdoor pilot” episode is slated to air May 11.

Source: E Online

A Quick Rant

As anyone seen the latest COMCAST commercial where they have this sing-song monotone chant / rap throughout the ad while real people exist in some cartoonish world? Is it just me, or do you want to throw your TV out the window when that ad comes on? Ack!

A Question To Our Readers:

Do we have any Gossip Girl fans hanging out around here? Let me know.

Additionally, if there’s anything you have a hankering for, ask away in the comments section and I’ll scour the news for these requests. All you have to do is ask. I’ll be watching for your comments.

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A Jericho Movie? Don’t Hold Your Breath

Bruce Simmons — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:12:40 +0000

With the new year, comes some new hope. A few days ago, IF Magazine broke an interesting story saying that a Jericho movie is in the works for theatrical release. But can we believe that?

In the article they talk about Executive producer/Director Jon Turteltaub being pretty jazzed that repeats of the first season are playing on The CW. He feels that if Jericho can hit it big on The CW, there’s a chance it could come back to broadcast TV with new episodes. He did emphasize the phrase “remarkable success,” which means that despite the loyal core of fans, there need to be a lot more viewers willing to fawn all over themselves about Season 1 repeats.

But at the moment the bigger news is the potential development of a Jericho feature film for the big screen.

If you remember, Jericho debuted in 2006 and followed the events in a small Kansas town after a series of terrorist attacks left the US in disarray. The residents had to come together, fend for themselves and pretty much start all over in their own mini-society that had to deal with the new reality of it all. It starred Skeet Ulrich, Lennie James, Ashley Scott, Kenneth Mitchell, Brad Beyer, Alicia Coppola and Gerald McRaney.

Turtletaub said they are “developing” a Jericho feature. The movie would also not require you to have seen the show. It would cover a broader scope of events – beyond the town of Jericho itself. It would be a “full on American version of what’s going on beyond the town in Jericho.”

He further added that the TV cast would return.

Eh? That’s where I got confused. If the movie takes place outside of Jericho, how can the original cast return?

I don’t mean to be a naysayer but this doesn’t seem to add up.

How can the original cast return to a TV series-based movie that:

Doesn’t take place where the TV show did.
Yet still involves the same actors/characters.

Or is this just Turtletaub hoping to generate buzz? I don’t get it, but what I do get is that when asked if it would be a huge budget movie, instead of saying it had a budget, he indicated any budget would be huge compared to what they had for the weekly series.

Jericho repeats are airing Sunday nights on The CW. I don’t see the show generating phenomenal ratings on that night so I’m betting this is all just smoke and mirrors and we must be content with what we have at the moment, gang.

So what do you think: Could a movie do it for you? How would it work with the same cast in a different setting? Would you even want to get involved in another town or from a different angle (a national scale) of those events?

Let us know what you think.

Source: If Magazine, Behind the scenes image: CBS

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Jericho Rescued by Comcast? – But at What Cost…

Bruce Simmons — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 03:40:58 +0000

Not only does Comcast bring you all your favorite television programming over the cable-ways, they also make deals that could possibly save some of your favorite programming for additional life on the airways.

Much like the DirecTV / NBC deal that’s resurrecting Friday Night Lights (FNL) for a third season, Comcast and CBS are in talks to bring Jericho back to viewers. This particular tidbit is provided by anonymous “insiders” and it makes for an interesting tidbit, but I’m not sure we can hold our breath on this one yet. It’s too early to tell if these new business models are really going to pay off.

As an example of “these new business models”, let me touch on the Friday Night Lights scenario. Apparently NBC got enough mini-footballs in the mail from FNL fans to consider a resurrection of sorts, and probably helped illuminate the way for the DirecTV – NBC deal being brokered.

The deal is this: NBC’s deal with DirecTV would keep Friday Night Lights on the air for a third season, first airing on DirecTV, then later on in “repeats” on NBC. In turn, DirecTV helps defray production costs of the show for the right to air FNL first. This keeps the show afloat, and the reruns are then played over on NBC. Everyone wins… if this works out.

The premise that Comcast might rescue Jericho is a double-edged sword.

For Jericho fans like Vic, having it back on the air would be nice… if they bring all the original pieces back together. But Comcast has some detracting issues behind the scenes that worry me.

During a public FCC hearing in Boston regarding internet freedoms, Comcast bused in its own crowd of paid seat warmers, in an effort to keep vocal participants out of the meeting. Comcast for all its cleverness eventually fessed up to the dirty deed, after the fact and after the short term damage was done.

That deed got my collar up a bit, but then in mid 2007 Comcast decided that certain customers who used their high speed internet connection too much would be cut off or limited due to some unwritten bandwidth limit. Comcast claimed users who hoarded bandwidth ruined it for others.

Being caught in THAT cookie jar, Comcast has agreed to stop slowing down or blocking uploads on BitTorrent by the end of this year (why take so long to flip a switch Comcast?).

But wait, I’m not done – previously, HD quality programming was fed to the customer unabated, but earlier this month it’s been reported that Comcast is compressing their HDTV transmission to make room for more channels.

More channels???? Oh goodie, more things to mindlessly flip past to get to Sci-Fi. The deal with compressing channels gets a little technical, but in a nutshell, Comcast allocated two HD channels per 38.8Mbps QAM, (QAM? Eh?) a QAM being a bandwidth type of transmission for one channel I think. To add more channels, Comcast is now squeezing three HD channels into each 38.8Mbps QAM, degrading the bandwidth for the three channels, and this will be applied to not only new channels but to existing channels as well.

Some of the channels that have added compression, grouped by QAM are (Discovery Channel, SciFi, USA), (Cinemax, HBO, TLC) to name a few.

The AV Science reference link has some image comparisons so you can see the differences these folks are reporting and seeing.

So my questions are many. From a company, Comcast, who is in some heated battles with other content providers, still had their profits climb by 54% in the 4th quarter of last year, or $602 million. *crickets* .. wow.

So why do we get zinged with poor quality product, with what I presume will be no discount for the degraded service so they can make a few million more?

Obviously in their fight to ’stay afloat’ with competing business, they’re looking at different avenues like the talks mentioned about Jericho, but at what cost to the viewer or subscriber? They obviously have interesting tactics ready to be deployed as their track record suggests, but when does it stop? When do we get a fair shake at the product we expect for what we pay for?

So at what cost do we get Jericho, if this deal happens? Fuzzier images, higher monthly rates and seat warmers to help you watch the show and boost the ratings for them.

OK, I’m done ranting.

[Homework assignment completed: Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is a method of combining two amplitude-modulated (AM) signals into a single channel. (Like that helped.) ]

Sources: NYTimes, Save The Internet, ALLisp.info, DVice, AV Science, Detroit News

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Jericho Comes To A Close

Bruce Simmons — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:50:11 +0000

“How does it feel to make history?”

That was the final line in the series finale of Jericho last night on CBS – and it got me to wondering; but more on that later.

The last episode came, and went, with ratings that were par for the show over the last few weeks with an approximated 6 million viewers, putting CBS fourth amongst the big networks for the evening. I’m guessing another nut campaign is ‘nut’ going to do the trick again, but nice try.

In this abbreviated run of 22 episodes packed into just 7, information flowed fast and hard – and sometimes that’s the way I like it, cutting to the chase.

There are a few spoilers ahead, so if you’re one of many millions who the networks aren’t counting for viewer ratings, but who are going to download from iTunes or watch the On-Demand version instead, then avert thy eyes.

Hawkins (Lennie James) and Jake (Skeet Ulrich) snagged the nuke from Cheyenne and having possession of the bomb is the proof needed to show that Jennings & Rall were involved in the travesty… if they successfully get the thing to Texas.

The Rangers finally bury Stanley’s sister while the military has started to turn Jericho into a police state. Ah, but all is not lost as Major Beck (Esai Morales) gets a whiff of real evidence of the atrocities committed after looking over Hawkins computer. With this information, he tells his superiors he can no longer take orders from an illegal government, shares the evidence with his troops, and they look to dig in for the fight ahead.

In the process of getting the nuke to Texas, we get to see the mysterious Mr. Smith, but he eludes capture. In a tense and exciting scene, the Texas Air National Guard ends up shooting down two aircraft from Cheyenne to protect Hawkins and Jake from getting shot down themselves. This should pretty much set the scene of the 2nd American Civil War.

Closure? Sure. Room for follow up movies or some other media release? Sure. Viewers left wanting more? You bet.

What do I mean by more?

Over on Sci-Fi Wire, executive producer Carol Barbee says that there are ongoing talks to find the show another home, perhaps on a cable network.

If Jericho is not picked up by another network, Barbee can envision it living on as an internet series or graphic novel, or even a movie.

I don’t mean to burst everyone’s bubble, but since the cast and crew have been freed to pursue other projects, and the show’s sets and back lot have been dismantled and either destroyed or put into storage, I’ve gotta wonder if this is just media spin or blowing hot air (take your pick).

So I go back to my first line: “How does it feel to make history?” Were the creators asking the viewers, the core fans who orchestrated the return of the show that question or was it just a teaser closing sentence that lets us know that if the show continues, we’re in for an interesting evolution of the story?

Interesting note at the bottom of the Sci-Fi Wire post that said:
(Fans wishing to write SCI FI Channel about picking Jericho up should NOT use the scifiwire e-mail address, but should send snail mail to: SCI FI Channel, 21st Floor, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112.)

Sources: Hollywood Reporter, SciFi.com

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Jericho Is Done

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 03:39:23 +0000

All us fans of Jericho had better savor the upcoming episode on Tuesday night because it’ll be the last. Jericho has been canceled – again.

Despite the media coverage and thousands of fans who threw their support behind the show, ratings for the series in it’s abbreviated second season just weren’t enough to keep the show afloat. Although if you look at the show’s viewership across a variety of channels is doing pretty well, the advertising money is all about how many people tune in to watch on television only.

Sure, there’s always the threadbare possibility that Jericho could be picked up by a cable network, but it’s anyone’s guess and up to the good graces of some forward-looking network exec whether it will happen.

Although not visual effects heavy in a sci-fi sort of way, I imagine the series is not the cheapest to produce with it’s use of military vehicles, battles and other scenarios. If some cable network didn’t pick up Journeyman, which no doubt could be produced much more cheaply, I don’t see them picking this up.

I don’t know how the heck they’re going to wrap this up in a one hour episode, BTW – it’s going to take some fancy writing to do that.

The series finale of Jericho will air on Tuesday, March 25th.

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Jericho Is Losing The Nielsen Fight

Bruce Simmons — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:42:32 +0000

Jericho ended it’s first season on a very frustrating note:

The ultimate cliffhanger.

It was “ultimate” because CBS decided to drop the series and had no intention of airing a resolution to the finale. It would be an understatement to say that this annoyed fans of the show, who were inspired and organized enough to orchestrate the comeback for the series.

Though the cliffhanger has been resolved, the 2nd season Nielsen numbers for Jericho aren’t looking so rosy; this season’s episodes are averaging just under 7 million viewers, which is too low a number for any studio to be happy about.

This second season was dedicated to the fans and the sad part is that even though fans were urged to get as many folks as possible watching the show, CBS forgot to mention that they should get as many Nielsen family friends to watch the show.

By online standards, the show is doing really well: Over 700,000 downloads of the first episode of season two make it one of the most downloaded shows on iTunes. Nuts, huh (uh oh.. I didn’t mean that).

Yet the ratings are still not impressive enough to pay the bills and keep the studio happy. That’s something I touched on in my Nielsen report a few weeks ago: That despite online generated interest, it’s the TV viewing families that have the last word in the success of a series.

Despite the amount of interest demonstrated by the core fans, the numbers from this second season are pretty much telling CBS executives that the numbers from the first season might not have been wrong. There were concerns (excuses?) that it was hurt by being pitted against more popular shows. As we noted in (our take on the show’s cancellation): “TV viewers are to blame for not tuning in”.

One CBS source says there are no regrets, but fans are blaming the current state of affairs on CBS’ lack of support. Among the reasons listed are missing characters, less action and many two person scenes due to budget limitations. They also complained about a terrible time slot, a lower budget and stuffing an entire season’s storyline into seven episodes.

To which I say: Where’s the gratitude people? If there were enough fans willing and ready, would the time slot even matter?

Despite claims by production staff that two people in a room is an improvement in storyline quality, the show is hurting in the ratings. This is reemphasizing the notion that programming decisions should be based solely on the antiquated Nielsen ratings system. At least until they can manage to generate income off of online content.

With the internet being the choice of more and more of the younger generation to view their entertainment, studios and advertisers need to get off their collective asses and figure something out so that the shows that viewers truly love can continue on.

Until then, the television audience will be continue to be penalized for using newer, more modern methods of enjoying their favorite shows.

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Do Networks Ignore Sci Fi Fans?

Bruce Simmons — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:04:56 +0000

Have you ever wondered why some TV shows are canceled due to supposedly low ratings when it seems like they have a strong following? Sometimes there are obvious reasons – like when CBS scheduled Jericho up against Fox’s American Idol, or Journeyman possibly being a victim of bad timing with the writers’ strike and too many reality show hitting the networks.

One of the systems that has the biggest impact on what we get to watch on television is called the Nielsen Ratings. It was founded by Arthur Nielsen in 1923 and through statistical sampling measurements, extrapolates what audiences are watching across the country. This information is important to advertisers who pay dearly for much coveted time slots in which they know the audience is watching.

Neilsen Ratings measure what programs selected “families” actually sit down to watch. This tells me that networks tend to rely on the black and white data, and do not consider what the “unnoticed” audience watches. Neilsen families are the ones who made shows like 60 Minutes, Seinfeld, ER, Survivor, CSI & American Idol the top rated shows in their respective time slots. I’m no expert, but this sounds like the folks that enjoy these shows may not be sci fi fans. Sci fi is a smaller niche, but fans of sci fi shows tend to be extremely loyal and dedicated to a series.

A case in point is an impromptu survey I came across on TVGuide.com. They had a list of shows that have been canceled recently and asked readers for their thoughts.

Of eight canceled shows, the readership wanted 4 of them back.

The survey said they should leave Bionic Woman dead. (Imagine that… ask Vic, he’ll tell ya about that wonderful, plotless show.) They also thought that Cavemen should remain dead. Oh Lordy, not just leave it – bury it and delete all the media it’s recorded on. Leave the cavemen to the Geico commercials, which really are very funny and have even themselves taken a pot shot at the now canceled series.

Among the shows they wanted brought back was one of my newest addictions: Friday Night Lights. A gritty series focusing on a rural town’s high school football team and the challenges that teams teens face.. One of the other shows they wanted to see return is Journeyman. (Ah, there is some sanity out there and Vic is not alone.)

Knowing a TV series’ demographics has it’s merit, but Nielsen’s “sampling methods” have been (rightly) criticized since the selected families know who they are, defeating the premise of double blind testing. Neilsen ratings also refuse to count recorded programming for later viewing as part of its sampling methods. This used to apply to VCRs (remember those?) but now includes Digital Recording Devices like Tivo. This does make some sense, since we skip commercials watching recorded shows, but it could spur advertisers to think of more creative ways to put ads in front of viewers while the show is on.

I’m optimistically pessimistic that someday statistics from a more thorough random sampling of the viewership will happen and network execs might just use their gut feelings about shows.

Until then, it may be some time before the studios recognize that they are missing an important segment of the population: the sci fi appreciating fan.

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Jericho Season 2 Premiere Discussion

Vic Holtreman — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:35:43 +0000

Unfortunately I can’t do a proper review of the Season 2 premiere of Jericho because my DirecTV box picked that hour to reboot itself. I missed about 15 minutes of the episode.

My general reaction is that I’m glad it’s back, and it dove right into the story, almost too quickly. Overall you can tell that they’re trying to pack 22 episodes of content into just seven. It’s almost like the anti-Lost: like they’re trying to pack too much story into each episode.

Still I’m looking forward to seeing where they take the show and hope that the ratings are better than they were last season.

If you watched the show for the first time or are a fan from Season One, go ahead and leave your thoughts below!

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Jericho Season 2: 100 Percent Dedicated To The Fans

Bruce Simmons — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:15:36 +0000

Jon Turtletaub.

If you are trying to figure out where you’ve heard that name before, possibly it’s because you remember him as being the director of the 1996 hit Phenomenon. No? Maybe you know him from having produced and directed both National Treasure movies with Nicolas Cage? Oh, wait… maybe you know him from being the executive producer of the surprise fan favorite CBS TV series: Jericho.

Recently Jon Turtletaub had a few words to say about the return of Jericho to CBS for its second season following the fan-driven onslaught of nuts to the studio via the U.S. Postal system (I knew that system would finally come in handy one day).

He posted to the Jericho production blog about being impressed with the fan campaign, and taking his cue when CBS called asking for his help in stopping the wave of fan support… he pretended his phone was dying. Eventually, he just echoed what everyone else was saying:

“…put the show back on!”

With the change of heart by CBS and the decision to order more episodes, the people behind the show wanted to say “thanks” to the viewers.

Turtletaub says this season of Jericho is 100 percent dedicated to the fans and hopes his efforts are worthy of their support.

With the Feb. 12 (at 10pm ET on CBS) second season premiere quickly approaching, Turtletaub did make one more request of the fans:

“Now if each of you can find two or three million friends to watch it, we’ll be around for a long time.”

If you want to know more about Jericho, you can visit one of the many websites about it.

There’s CBS’ Jericho site or visit the CBS Jericho community website where you can find forums and fan sites based on the show.

Source: SyFy Portal

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Jericho Season 2 News And Premiere Date

Bruce Simmons — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:43:18 +0000

As everyone may well know, CBS’ post-apocalyptic drama Jericho is coming back for a 2nd season after viewers launched a spirited campaign to save the show, which included sending thousands of pounds of nuts to CBS executives. The passion of the effort seemed to work (or the executives ran out of room to store the nuts) because they decided to bring the show back for an abbreviated 2nd season in a 7 episode run.

Jericho stars Skeet Ulrich and revolves around the survivors of a nationwide nuclear attack, focusing on the residents of a Kansas town named Jericho. The show debuted in September 2006 and did ok, but not great ratings-wise – but when it was pitted against American Idol the numbers killed it for the exec’s.

The fortunate part of the upcoming second season is that Jericho is one of the few original scripted programs that will be on the air because the seven episodes were written before the writers strike. Plus, in order to avoid another similar fan outcry the seven episode story arc will have a beginning, middle and end. The 7th episode, while providing closure does leave the door open for continuing episodes, however.

If the show gets good ratings (people, RECORD American Idol and watch Jericho!) season three just might be coming our way. The catch is that the numbers need to be good by the third or fourth episode of a season for a series to be considered for renewal says Carol Barbee, executive producer of Jericho. In case it does work out, CBS already has a third season story line arc planned out.

Even if something goes awry with the ratings, fans of the series will still get to re-watch their favorite show on TV as the Sci Fi Channel has snapped up cable rerun rights to Jericho from CBS Television Distribution. They have a three year agreement that gives Sci Fi rights to the first and second seasons.

Sci Fi will debut a four-episode marathon February 11th, a day before the second-season premiere on CBS.

Sci Fi and CBS declined to comment on the financial terms of the deal.

Jericho returns for season two on February 12th at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

Official Site: Jericho on CBS

Sources: Reuters, SciFiWire

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Jericho Returns February 12th

Vic Holtreman — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 22:25:21 +0000

It’s finally been announced: The abbreviated second season of Jericho will return on Tuesday, February 12th at 10PM. Not the greatest timeslot in the world, but as things currently stand it will be up against The Bachelor, Cane and Law & Order: SVU. It could be worse… it could have been up against American Idol like it was last season. If that wasn’t the dumbest programming decision ever, then I don’t know.

There are a scant seven episodes that will make up season two, and I understand that the arc has been written in such a way as to give a satisfying conclusion to the fans if it isn’t renewed.

Source: SciFiWire

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Jericho 7 Episode Ping Pong Continues

Vic Holtreman — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 19:38:30 +0000

The “will they wrap the story at seven episodes or not” debate regarding Jericho’s return is starting to give me a headache.

Considering the outcry from fans over ending the first season with a cliffhanger and then having the show cancelled, when the show was given a seven episode reprieve the word was that the writers would script the story as an arc that would conclude at the end of the seventh episode. The idea was that the ratings might not be strong enough to sustain the show beyond this, and it would be pretty stupid to aggravate the fans with yet another unresolved cliffhanger.

Now the latest word from from actor Lennie James (who plays the mysterious Robert Hawkins on the show) is that:

“Right now, we do not have a plan to wrap it up at the end of episode seven.”

No disrespect to the man, but he is after all, just an actor on the show and not a producer or writer. Personally I really hope that they write the show to have some sort of closure by episode seven while still leaving the door open for the series to continue on if the ratings are there to justify that.

Source: BuddyTV

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Next Season Pace Of Jericho = Opposite Of Lost

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 18:42:24 +0000

According to CBS, the shortened second season of Jericho will compress an entire 22 season storyline into just seven episodes.

This latest news indicates that they’re still assuming the worst, and that the show will not go beyond seven episodes when it returns to the air. I’m happy to hear this because it would be the greatest of ironies if they were to get cocky and build another cliffhanger into the seventh episode only to have things end the same way again.

Another reason I think this is very cool is that we’ll get plot development at a lightning pace – everything that happens should contribute to the forward motion of the story. This is a HUGE contrast to ABC’s Lost, where it seems that each plot point takes three times as long as necessary to unfold. I still think it’s a horrifically bad idea for Lost to drag on for another 3 years, but hey, it’s not my network.

Will the faster pacing of Jericho next season help attract new viewers? It’s hard to say. It may actually have the opposite effect as it will be more difficult for someone coming in a bit later to catch up with everything that’s happened up to that point. That may be moot since there is a lock on seven episodes being produced regardless of viewership. Any additional viewers will just be gravy and could possibly lead to an extension of the series, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Source: Sci Fi Wire

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Jericho’s Second Chance

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:47:23 +0000

Jericho’s pilot episode was re-broadcast last Friday night and had the best prime time ratings of the evening. If you haven’t heard, Jericho is a TV series set in a post-nuclear-attack-ridden U.S.A. Last season it followed the lives of citizens in a small Kansas town named… Jericho.

Although the show was slow to start, it ended up being a very good series (at least I thought so) but due to an overly long hiatus between the Fall and Spring season plus the fact that when it returned it was scheduled against American Idol, the ratings were sluggish and the show was canceled.

What’s the big deal, you may ask?

The big deal is that CBS ended the season with a monster cliffhanger, and that was going to that. No resolution, no further episodes, no nothing at all.

Well there was an uproar, and a number of fan-driven campaigns were started to “Save Jericho”… the likes of which proabably hadn’t been seen since the original Star Trek series went off the air after season two and was brought back due to a deluge of fan mail for a third season back in the 60’s.

The suprising result was that CBS actually decided to bring Jericho back as a mid-season show, however only committing to 7 episodes and a lower per-episode budget.

In order to gauge early on whether that 7 episode order should be extended, CBS decided to re-broadcast the first season on Friday nights starting last Friday. As stated above, the ratings were relatively good, but there are a couple of factors to consider:

1. Many folks took a holiday weekend, so viewership in general could have been low.

2. It is unknown what percentage of viewers were new, watching for the first time and what percentage was made up of those very same die-hard fans that brought the show back.

I think tonight’s episode and ratings will be a bit more telling.

Personally I really enjoyed the show and would like to see it do well and be extended beyond just 7 more episodes – although I also think that the show could be wrapped up quite nicely in those episodes if they are written as a limited story arc. I hate seeing shows overstay their welcome (can you say Lost?).

So if you haven’t seen Jericho, here’s a reminder to tune in tonight. Even if you missed last week, the recap should bring you up to speed. It’s a good show and I recommend you give it a try!

Source: BuddyTV

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Screen Rant Weekly Podcast – June 14, 2007

Vic Holtreman — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 19:32:00 +0000

Just a grab bag of stuff from the last week and half including my server crash, thoughts on Fantastic Four 2 being rated PG, Jericho’s return, Lost’s ending, why I’m worried about the recently announced Captain America movie, and more!

BTW, maybe I could ask for suggestions from those of you who are regular readers/listeners for a new name for my podcast? “Screen Rant Weekly Podcast” just seems a little… boring, ya know?

P.S. I apologize for the poor quality of the audio today… I think I need to invest in a new microphone. :-\

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Jericho To Return Sooner, But…. Another Cliffhanger?

Vic Holtreman — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:52:17 +0000

According to Jericho executive producer Stephen Chbosky, the show may be returning sooner than 2008. It’s not written in stone, but Jericho could be returning as soon as October.

According to Chbosky (don’t ask me how to pronounce that) there is a much smaller budget for the remaining seven episodes, which will impact both casting and location shooting. It will take some creativity to work within the confines of the smaller budget. They do however have a number of main characters signed up to return: Skeet Ulrich (Jake Green), Lennie James (Robert Hawkins), Brad Beyer (Stanley) and Alicia Coppola (Mimi) are coming back and there’s a good chance that Pamela Reed (Gail Green) will be returning as well.

So knowing that they have a definite seven episodes to work with, and the fact that one of the main reasons the show was resurrected was the huge outcry over ending the series with a monster cliffhanger, they’re going to give us a nice, clean ending… right?

“It’ll be seven episodes with a great cliffhanger at the end.”

Um, WHAT?!

I really hope these guys know what they’re doing with their one in a million second chance. It sounds like they’re planning on the word getting out and much improved ratings, giving the possibility of the show going on longer than the seven episode order. What needs to happen is that people who aren’t familiar with the show need to tune in during the season re-broadcast this summer, and then they’ll need to keep a very close eye on the ratings once the new episodes start airing.

Chbosky did add:

“We know how to wrap up the show if we have to. Ultimately it will depend when they put us on the schedule, but it could be as early as October and in that case we will have time to wrap it up if necessary.”

Hopefully they won’t squander this opportunity to bring back the show. It would be a monstrous misstep to bring back the show, end it with another cliffhanger and then put the fans right back where they began.

Here’s hoping they don’t screw this up.

The first season of Jericho returns in reruns on July 6th on CBS.

Source: Post-Gazette.com

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Will CBS Give Jericho Fans Closure?

Vic Holtreman — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 21:03:29 +0000

It looks like the huge groundswell of support from fans of CBS’ Jericho may have actually done something.

[Update: Yes, it IS official. 7 new episodes (7? wierd number...) coming next mid-season.]

Before you fans of the show get all crazy-happy, please remember that this is NOT official NOR confirmed… Over at TVGuide.com one of their columnists is saying that a limited, 8 episode run of Jericho may very well happen next season.

Following a deluge of emails, letters, phone calls and last but not least: almost 20 tons of nuts (it’s an inside joke related to the final episode) being sent to CBS corporate, it seems that fans may get at the very least closure for the story. There have been reports of interest from other networks on picking up the series (which I think may have more to do with the possible resurrection of the show than anything else) and now the rumour from various sources is that CBS may crank out a limited number of episodes to close the show.

I don’t know if it would have been better if another network picked up the series and ran with it, but if true, this is certainly better than a 2 hour made-for-TV movie to end the story.

If this comes to fruition, score one for the fans. Too bad it didn’t work for Star Trek: Enterprise.

Source: Sci Fi Wire

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Screen Rant Weekly Podcast – May 26, 2007

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 26 May 2007 19:22:53 +0000

Hey folks! Another weekly summary for you including news on the “Save Jericho” campaign, the reveal of Heath Ledger as The Joker from The Dark Knight, Iron Man news and the season finales of Lost and Heroes.

I hope you enjoy the smooth listening sounds of the audio version of Screen Rant.

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Save Jericho Update

Vic Holtreman — Thu, 24 May 2007 23:39:49 +0000

Over at Ain’t It Cool News, Merrick is keeping the folks up to date with what’s going on in the “Save Jericho” movement. Not that it’s the best place to do it, considering how the site is filled with visitors who hate pretty much everything, including Jericho.

There’s a huge campaign afoot to send a gigantic amount of nuts to CBS, in honor of the “Nuts” story told in the series finale. As of this writing there are almost 17 THOUSAND pounds of nuts being sent to CBS!

There’s also a fundraiser underway to place a full page ad in Variety.

There’s a “Save Jericho” section over at the official site, where many things are being discussed, including boycotting CBS. I’m already doing that as Jericho was the only show I watched on the network.

And then there’s lots of news coverage on the cancellation and attempted revival of the show at the following sites: The New York Times, Defamer, CNN Money, Entertainment Weekly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and The Los Angeles Times.

I don’t know if this will all do any good… there was a hell of a movement to save Star Trek: Enterprise, and unfortunately that went nowhere. Does my heart good to see this, though!

Source: AICN

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