Jericho Canceled For Good
Sunday March 23, 2008
Skeet Ulrich as Jake Green in Jericho.
© Greg Schwartz/CBS
"Without question, there are passionate viewers watching this program; we simply wish there were more," CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler said in a statement, reported by the AP. "We have no regrets bringing the show back for a second try."
Jericho's ratings started dropping off immediately after it's much-talked-about season premiere in February. Ratings for the second episode were 23% off the premiere; viewership has hovered below 6 million and a 2.0 rating for the balance of the season. Even the premiere itself was on par only with an average episode of the first season, garnering about 7.5 million viewers. (For comparison, other middling CBS shows like NCIS have been over 10 millions, and shows like American Idol have been getting in excess of 25 million viewers.)
What happened this time? My guess is that the show took some risks this year that may not have paid off. The compulsive appeal of watching a single town cope with the isolation and depredations that followed a nationwide nuclear Armageddon, so arresting as the through-line of season 1, was replaced this season by a suspense plot involving high-level corruption in the new Allied States of America. Meanwhile the show lost two of its strongest characters, Johnston and Gail Green (Gerald McRaney, whose character was killed off, and Pamela Reed, who returned this week for a very welcome cameo).
In other words, even though the writing, acting, and production continued to be top-notch, Jericho season 2 ended up effectively being almost a completely different show from Jericho season 1. And the new storyline, while continuing to elicit strong performances from stars Skeet Ulrich (Jake) and Lennie James (Hawkins), created a narrower focus that continually sidelined most of the cast, particularly Ashley Scott (Emily), with very little to do.
Word has it that Jericho's producers, warned by the weak ratings, filmed two endings for Tuesday's seventh episode – one if the show had been canceled and one if it was going to be picked up. The decision to cancel the show this week was made, I would imagine, in part to ensure that viewers get closure on the insurrection plot that's been developing over the last few weeks. Will Jake and Hawkins be able to take down Jennings & Rall? Will Major Beck listen to his conscience, or remain loyal to his uniform? Will Mimi and Stanley get a chance to tie the knot before the sets are taken down and the lights switched off? Tune in Tuesday.
Comments
There are many shows on telvision that do not even come close to the wonderful story line that I have seen in Jericho. CBS did not want to give Jericho a shot to make it a hit. The writing and acting are top notch. If CBS really cared about the show they would have shown the first episode over again so people could get interested in it.
There are so many show on their channel that stink…that they don’t know when a good show hits the station.
I enjoy a show tha really makes a person think and Jericho is one of those type shows.
I am very upset that CBS has again lost their minds and are cancelling Jericho. I wish they (collectively) would pull their heads out of their backsides and leave the show on the aire.
Well CBC you had 1 good show that I watched and now your removing that. Your going to cancel a show with no ending? What you don’t realize is the most people tape the show or watch it thru On demand but they do watch it.
You need to get some new management at CBS. I never watched CBS and only started when Jerico started. Now Bye Bye CBC because you don’t have anything else even close to Jerico so I guess NBC will be my favorite.
You should have given it more time because with the writer striking so their greedy butts can get more money most people started watching other things or doing other things. I just hope and pray that some other network has the good sense to pick up the show and run with it. I’d love to see CBS have egg on their faces.
The show has been setup to fail. It shows so late in the day 9pm CST that most people go to be by 8 or 9 for work the next day they want to watch it but have to stay up late to. As when it was first shown it was on CBS but with it being shown on Scifi most people dont have scifi on basic cable and thus cant watch it. So in my option CBS set this show up to fail and want it to fail.
well here in New zealand there’s so many sucky shows that when we get a good one you just know they’re going to can it thats why i download mine and watch em befor they get the chance to it’s pretty typical of american tv staions if they cant show poo loads of ads then a show gets canned so i say BOO to CBS dont you realise we dont want reality we want to get away from it no wonder there’s such a huge drug problem there
CBS should try a different time slot, like Monday at 8pm. 10pm is too late most people work and go to bed early. Jericho Rocks!!
Well my take on this is that the big networks system no longer works. Over and over again they suits that run these networks cancel shows that have loyal and devoted fan bases. The reason is that the numbers are not as high as they would like. Whatever happened to having good quality shows that have reasonable numbers and stopping all this “must be the top of the time slot nonsense”. Moonlight which is another fantastic show is tettering on the edge of cancellation. This is just plain stupid. We need more “niche” “quality” shows that really develop devoted fan bases and have budgets and ad sales which support lower numbers. BTW since when has 6,000,000 people, 6 Million for gods sakes been a small number.
My fav. show of all time was recently canned as well, Blood Ties on Lifetime. It had excellent numbers for a show shoved into a Friday night time slot of 11.00pm with no advertising. It was FANTASTIC. There should be a new network called Niche Network which caters to us devoted fans and our shows.
Saw final tonight, here in Canada. It was good, and without spoiling anything, it leaves a crack in the door, while wrapping it up.
Too bad. Next season would have been awesome. A second civil war. With Kansas being the spark once again. Absolutely brilliant.
Turn Kansas into a split state a la Missouri. Brother against brother. Somehow J & R could have gotten the Payton Manning lookalike to align with them for some concocted reason and he’d sort of have to ‘fight’ against his brother Jake for a season until he was finally ‘redeamed’. Some shit like that.
But no…cancelled. Are you kidding me? They should move it to Sci-Fi channel like SG-1. Or make a friggin movie.
How Harry Turtledove-like it could have been.
The writing wasn’t *that* good. It’s still CBS after all. Decent material, awful dialogue.
They almost lost me when the scale of the “last man/town on earth” story widened. But, I thought they brought a compelling thriller angle to this season.
Wow congrats CBS, you once again show how dumb a station you are, you cancel a show with a loyal following of nearlly 6 million viewer’s, with nearllt 400 channels to pick from thats a fery good no. You cancelled a very good show after only 2 seasons when many shows take at least 3 years to really pick up, and you idiots kept Star Trek: Enterprise on for 4 years with only 1 million people watching it, and Enterprise stunk. I only have one thing to say to you CBS, WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!