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Jericho needs an exit interview

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Posted in | Posted on 05-16-2007 | 3,999 views

Ugh. Once again a cool SciFi show is being canceled - Jericho. Jericho was just getting really good and now it is simply going to end. I've had enough of this. I can understand the show being canceled if it didn't get the viewership, but the Geek in me demands answers. So what we need is an "Exit Interview" for the show creators. What were the planning on doing next season? Was there any secrets they never got around to revealing? Was China going to make any moves on the US? Etc.

We can make this happen. I mean, hard how can it be? We just need to:

Find out who the writers/producers are.
Call their agents and just ask!

I'm sure they wouldn't mind answering those questions, right? It's entirely possible that they had not mapped out season 2, but they can tell us something about the show that had not been revealed yet.

So I'm a big fat nobody - but my readership as a whole is pretty big. Lets make this happen. We (and by we I mean the blog and my readers) may not be Ain't It Cool News but I still bet we can do this.


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As a side note - SOMEONE here should know someone else who works in Hollywood. Right?
Damn it! Skeet can't get break. (Remember Miracles?) Great show, I think it was planned. They killed off too many main characters. God forbid they touch my Heroes and Lost. That show was the only reason I cared about CBS. Oh well. CFUnited here I come.
ABC has a great reputation for killing off shows. Usually it is because they move them around so darn much you never know when they are on... I actually have not started watching any new shows that they air because they may be here 1 week and gone the next.... Very Frustrating!!!

-Randy
Arghhhh. I really was loving this show lately. Found myself rooting for the town of Jericho. Ray, you wrote about this scenario months ago and now here it is. The networks suck you in and then cancel the series. We need closure. My favorite character was Hawkins. We need to know what happens next. Put it in a book. I will buy it.
saw this coming but it sucks. I'm getting tired of investing time into a series, may have to just start watching sitcoms or american idol 24x7.

depressing news this is
It definitely sucks that it was canceled. They had it up against American Idol but it still pulled decent numbers. It would be nice if another network such as Sci Fi would pick it up and run with it. It's certainly better than the show Eureka (which I like) and it is getting another season on Sci Fi.

The Exec Producer is Carol Barbee and the creator is Jon Steinberg.
We've got some names now. So anyone know a way we can find Jon Steinberg's agent? Or shoot, even his own contact info.
Tv is really getting depressing. FX(nip/tuck, the shield, rescue me) and HBO(too many to list too bad most are over now) and Showtime(Dexter) got it right and the big networks aren't worth investing your energies into half the time when it comes to picking regular shows to watch. You get attached then find out the magic number of 7 million viewers extrapolated from an antiquated measuring system isn't enough for it to air any longer.

I think nbc cancelled the black donnellys, studio 60, crossing jordan and a few others and put this in their places:

singing bee - people get up and sing backed by a band and have to keep going once the band stops (all they need is some chairs for the people to fight over .....)

baby borrowers - people loan their baby (as young as 6months old wtf???????) to teen couples to teach them how to be a responsible adult parent. I guess the idea is hilarilty must ensue?

world moves - mix dancing with stars minus the stars with american idol.


man.... its painful to see it in print again.
Man, I just bought the whole season on Live Marketplace to watch again during the off season.

It would be interesting to see a show that was cancelled on a network go to a Live (or iTunes) only type show, hell, I haven't seen a commercial in years and am willing to pay to watch...

Thanks, for the bad news Ray, see if I read your blog again.
Now Studio 60 is canned - it is official. We just need simple shows that you don't need to pay attention to. Even gameshows are dumbed down to the point that you just have to pick a number between 1 and 26 (although I do watch it).

@dk - I was really hoping that you were kidding about singing bee.

"And if even I wanted to do another TV series, I wouldn't even know how to do the kind of TV they do today with the worms and the one-legged dancing," Seinfeld said. "Sometimes it feels like the whole industry just packed up and joined the circus."
Right, let's cancel Jericho and add more Dancing with the stars/hasbeens/wannabees, wife swap and other BS shows

Then they wonder when the viewerships go down and people refuse to watch tv
This was the only show I watched besides Sopranos and Entourage (right now)
Family Guy was great when it came back on the air. Peter listed off all the crap shows that came and went since Family Guy was cancelled.
I remember that.

So seriously - someone has to know someone who works in Hollywood or the TV world. This is a huge community we got here! (Ok, not huge...)

I mean crap, I'm not even trying to SAVE the show. Just get some details. :)
There is a petition (these things hardly pan out but I signed just in case). http://www.petitionspot.com/signature/savejericho
Jonathan E. Steinberg & Josh Schaer were hired on and wrote after the original concept.

Steve Chbosky created the characters and alongside Jon Turteltaub came up with the original concept

Steve Chbosky is rep'd by the William Morris Agency.

William Morris Agency
=====================
http://www.wma.com/

1325 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10019
Phone: (212) 586-5100
Fax: (212) 246-3583

One William Morris Place
Beverly Hills, California 90212
Phone: (310) 859-4000
Fax: (310) 859-4462

1600 Division Street, Suite 300
Nashville, Tennessee 37203
Phone: (615) 963-3000
Fax: (615) 963-3090

Centre Point
103 New Oxford Street
London WC1A 1DD
Phone: 011 44 207 534 6800
Fax: 011 44 207 534 6900

119 Washington Avenue, Suite 400
Miami Beach, Florida 33139
Phone: (305) 938-2000
Fax: (305) 938-2002
Wow - good job DK. Ok, so I now I need to get the guts up to actually call them. ;) In theory it can't hurt to call and leave a message. I'm a member of the press... kinda. ;)
Well you could call, given the network press release, and simply ask if the client/agency has a prepared statement they are circulating about the show and the characters and if there are any plans for any further disclosure. If so could you get a copy. Its a mini excercise in social engineering :)

I have some great ones with cell phone companies and some serious disclosure flaws lol, I'll tell on irc sometime if I remember :P
This Royally bites, this was my favorite show on TV and I never missed an episode ( Thank you media center :) ).

I knew it was getting to good to get a second season, as soon as a show starts getting really really good some idiot thinks that canceling it would be a great idea.
There is a petition online to make CBS change its mind, in few hours this has been public there are already 13509 signatures.

http://www.petitiononline.com/09272006/petition.ht...
What I love is comments like the one from the ABC guy who said that serialized shows just don't work with audiences. Do you know why, you moronic SOB? Because your damned networks keep pulling the shows after a few airings (Vanished, Reunion, Daybreak, The Nine, etc, etc), leaving audiences stranded, or doing what ABC did to Lost this year and what CBS did to Jericho - put it on for a few months, then yank it from mid-October until mid-February, by which point no one cares anymore! I really like the whole concept of a serialized show, but I'm not going to pick up another one. If one comes on that looks interesting and succeeds, I'll get it on DVD, but I'm not going to make the commitment again.
I something in TVGuide awhile back that was predicting that Jericho would get canceled because it wasn't drawing the numbers in the second half of the season that it did in the first half, but of course didn't mention that those numbers probably dropped because everyone forgot what was happening. I'm really glad that ABC is going to hold off Lost until February so that they can show it back-to-back. The networks all need to get a damned clue, dump the 1950's Sept - May schedule, and instead have three "seasons" of shows - one in the fall/winter, one in the winter/spring, and one in the spring/summer, and then run shows continuously through the season instead of losing viewers on quality shows like this.
Since Galactica is on hiatus until next Feb as well, Jericho really was the best show on TV.
I miss the old days where a show had plenty of time to get it's legs.

Dancing with the stars? Idol? Such lame programming. We really are on our way to idiocracy... :(
@john - I completely agree. If things were done back then like they are now we never would have had Seinfeld or Cheers. Both tanked at first, as did many of the other shows you see as staples overnight on nick at nite and tvland.
fwiw, cbs wants you to know that cancelling jericho was a "tough decision" :)

http://www.zap2it.com/tv/news/zap-jerichocancellat...
Dear Jericho Fans

We here at CBS have listened to your complaints in relation to the cancelation of the television Show Jericho.

At CBS we never cancel a show without a great deal of communication between our public groups and you the fans.

It was believed that Jericho had lost a significant amount of fans since the original pilot of the show.

We always feel that a show must carry its audience regardless of breaks or temporary periods within the transmission season.

With this in mind it was decided to cancel the show JERICHO.

We understand that many of you are upset with our decision to cancel the Show JERICHO.

CBS retain the full viewing rights to Jericho, and it is possible that a a finale episode could be put into planning for the 2009/2010 season.

A future decision will be made on this in the fall of 2008.

Despite this cancelation we would like to advise you the viewer that CBS offers many great Shows such as CSI-Miami as well as others.

If you have any further enquiries please do not hesitate to contact my office where we can provide you with more details.

A future press release in relation to this decision will be announced tomorrow to All press outlets.

It is still possible to view all episodes of Jericho on the the innertube

http://www.cbs.com/innertube/player.php?cat=138673...



Kelly Kahl

Senior Executive Vice President of Programming Operations

kkahl@cbs.com
I emailed her to ask if I can interview the writer.

2009-10? Jesus. Is she kidding? I mean I like the show, but give me a break.
Anyone who watched Babylon 5 back in the day knows how stupid the major networks are. Just like the movie and music studios, they want everything and are unwilling to recognize the stupidity of their actions. They take an involved, braincells-required show and:
* bounce it all around the week's schedule (B5),
* show it at a time that really does not work for the target audience (Firefly),
* show it so erratically and mix in repeats so that only the most loyal of fans (who read articles online to know WTF is going on) can keep up with the continuity (almost every show). Lets call this the Jitterbug scenario.

This last one IMHO is what kills more shows than anything else - network are used to all these one-off shows that could be shown in any order that they don't seem to understand that cerial stories need to be shown in a preordained order, and that if you mess with it that the casual viewers will get ticked off and stop watching. For example The X-Files was about 90% one-off episodes with about 10% of longer term story arcs, so as such wasn't affected too much by the jitterbugs, as compared to e.g. BSG, B5, etc.

For comparison sake, with the movie industry you have the studios paying hundreds of millions of dollars for these elaborate flicks that typically are either poorly conceived (who wants to see a remake of Poseidon Adventure less than a year after Halmark released their own?), poorly executed (The Matrix was awesome, but Matrix 2 and 3 felt rushed; Eragon had a great dragon but the rest was crap), too bland ("Oh My Goodness I Shrunk Our Fifteen Kids With Their 101 Dogs But The Cats Are OK 4: Johnny Eats Pudding", or all of the Me Too rip-offs & sequels), or just crap (anything by Uwe Boll, anything on http://imdb.com/chart/bottom). At the same time of hawking this crap, the studios are also pushing DVD sales and expensive home entertainment systems, but still bitching that ticket sales are suffering (no, they aren't sales are up year over year). Oh, and here's a new movie format that is completely incompatible with the other companies' but ours is better, and please buy all your movies again.

IMHO the main reason that B5 survived to finish was because JMS is (apparently) so good at budgeting, he kept every single episode within budget so that it couldn't be cancelled on pure monetary grounds.

The sooner that someone works out a good business plan for making serious TV shows work via direct DVD sales the better; that said, the B5 universe is being continued (no, Joe, please stop it, enough is enough!) via direct-to-DVD movies so if they manage to do well (his last effort, Legend of The Rangers, was truly terrible so I'm not holding my breath) the concept may have a chance.
What a schill.

"We canceled the show you like, but hey try one of these, we're sure you'll like them, they're shallow and mostly lame, and nothing at all remotely like the show you liked, that we canceled. We love you, smile"


I call Shenanigans!
People, you can help Save Jericho!! Go to the Jericho message boards at cbs.com; people are writing letters, taking out ads in Variety - and FOUR THOUSAND POUNDS of nuts have been delivered to CBS. Get involved!!! There are other sites, like rallypoint; google "Save Jericho" - join us!!

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