"Jericho" Axed For Good After Already Being Canceled Once And Revived By Peanut Campaign

LOS ANGELES — "Jericho," the post-apocalyptic CBS drama whose devoted fans rallied to save it from cancellation, has met its end.

The show failed to increase its audience and will air its final episode Tuesday, the network said Friday.

"Without question, there are passionate viewers watching this program; we simply wish there were more," CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler said in a statement. "We have no regrets bringing the show back for a second try."

"Jericho," which stars Skeet Ulrich, was canceled last May, triggering a fan protest that deluged the network with about 40,000 pounds of peanuts _ a tribute to the defiant "Nuts!" line uttered by Ulrich's character in the first-season finale.

CBS relented and ordered seven new episodes, which started airing in February.

Networks rarely reverse a show's cancellation, but CBS has proven its flexibility at least once before. In 1983, after "Cagney & Lacey" was canceled and the network was bombarded with protests, the police drama was brought back in 1984 _ and ran successfully until 1988.

The network also likely took into consideration the dent a long hiatus put in the show's viewership.

Last fall, "Jericho" was averaging 10.5 million viewers. When it returned in the spring, it drew about 8.1 million, about a 23 percent decline from the first half of the season. It's been averaging about 6 million viewers in its current run.

Comments

[mugwamp]

12:35 PM on 03/24/2008

My wife and I tried to give this series ago (we rented the first season DVD #1), but it was the most amateurishly written/directed show we've ever seen. The actors were ok, but the words they had them say and the direction was sap TV 101.

Anyway, my problem with this show was mainly the poor, ham-handed writing. Setting was ok, cast was ok. As a 'technical' person, the technical aspects of this show stunk to high heaven. And that 20 year old girl with the broken leg that is somehow a technical genius (and of course, everything she says is bullshit).... grrr... (I could go on, but I'll save you listening to me rant)

The show did have a good plot and could be as good as LOST if they had writers that actually graduated high school and not Oprah Winfrey's school of sap and amateur plot points.

"Don't you people break my heart again". Cripes, I threw up in my mouth a little.

[nastyvirus]

12:28 PM on 03/24/2008

HOO RAY! Hopefully gone for good.

Unfortunately, some hick town cable station might try to resurrect Jericho, just like the ill-fated rescue of Battlestar Galactica, which btw was a better series in the 1970's when it was absolutely terrible.

[BlackJAC]

03:42 PM on 03/24/2008

I see you're one of those GINO types who just has it in for the Peabody Award-winning remake for no good reason.

[TakLoufer]

11:41 PM on 03/23/2008

I lost interest in this show when it went all militaristic and nasty, right after the episode where they go to the "swap meet" and one of the girls was menaced. Later on I heard that Jake's father had died and that galvanized it for me: a show no longer worth watching. The dad was the strongest character and without him, Jericho would have been like Bonanza without Lorne Greene.

What they should have done from the get-go was a modern version of Pat Frank's classic post-nuke novel, "Alas, Babylon" in mini-series form with Skeet in the lead; at least that one had a sense of hope and humanity to it.

[NoSillyName]

08:07 PM on 03/23/2008

We can always go here and vent:

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/jericho/

Might be bitching into the wind, but whatever. Lots of other people are doing it.

[Passenger57]

07:51 AM on 03/23/2008

I guess CBS said, "We're only doing seven episodes; we don't need no steenking budget"! I think it is (was, after Tuesday) one of the better shows on TV. I think it was more "real" than any of the ten jillion "reality" shows clogging the airwaves. We simply cannot have a show on TV that tells us what they're going to do to us if we don't play ball. I'm going to buy the DVDs before they "disappear" from the shelves.
No more "airwaves" after 4/09...

[shotgunjohnny]

11:43 PM on 03/22/2008

:( one of the better shows on tv. Now with the wire gone, I am in serious withdrawal.

[PhxJustice]

02:30 AM on 03/23/2008

At least we still have Dexter, Boston Legal, Weeds, Dirt, The Riches, Nip/Tuck (though this last season wasn't all that great), Breaking Bad and Mad Men. Then there are my guilty pleasures of Torchwood (BBC America), Las Vegas and the great reality programming on the very gay friendly Bravo.

[wm1066]

03:57 PM on 03/22/2008

When people are watching thier own distruction its hard to watch it as entertainment.
Why not do a show in the Delta with two dudes in a corvette helping katrina victims?
Think 'Route 66' in New Orleans.

[BlackJAC]

12:24 PM on 03/24/2008

Fox did have a post-Katrina New Orleans cop show this year called K-VILLE. It was a solid crime drama, but Fox has torpedoed it, too.

[Smartey]

11:19 AM on 03/22/2008

This is certainly no big shock. The show had a great original premise, what with multiple nuclear strikes occurring all over the U.S., but after that the science fiction angle pretty much ended. From there, we were treated to stories about how one small town kept life going with food, energy, fuel, and of course sexual interruptions (the sex troubles were THE most difficult for everyone to handle, natch). In truth, it was pretty much a soap opera that had - not a background in a hospital, or big business, or the typical sudsy, dramatic locale - but a small town filled with mostly uninteresting people. To spice it up, they made everyone more concerned with their hormones than the nuclear fallout. The first season, they spent most episodes trying to gather supplies, and they squabbled over them with a nearby town. For this second year brief run, the producers decided to make everyone think a Halliburton-like company did the bombings. Suuuurrrre.

I know everyone on this website would eat up that season 2 idea, but most of America obviously found it as silly as it truly was. And once again, goofy liberal crap ruined a perfectly good entertainment venue, and turned off the masses. Don't liberals ever wonder why nobody falls for this stuff on TV, or on the ratings-challenged Air America radio? The constant barrage of America-Is-Full-Of-Evil conspiracy garbage leaves most of us cold. And leaves Hollywood lefties out of work.

[LivingStardust]

09:52 AM on 03/22/2008

Treats? rofl. THREATS. That would be "threats" that the producers received, although I think no one would be surprised a a TV producer getting a few treats. Would someone please perfect the Self-brewing, Self-Cleaning Coffee I.V.? For God's sake! We can send a man to the moon . . .

[LivingStardust]

09:49 AM on 03/22/2008

If you don't think that the schedule jockeying and short shrift season were not only an effect of the writer's strike, but political pressure over storyline, then you have not been watching the show. Jennings & Rall = Halliburton/KBR/Blackwater. 'Nuff said. Was that the proximate cause of death for this show? No, the strike was probably most impacting on this cancellation, but if you don't think the producers didn't get treats over that storyline, you'd be not only wrong, but foolish, and unfamiliar with how mercenaries operate. Yeah, it failed for valid TV business reasons, but you can count on there being other palm prints on the back of the corpse CBS throws out the window.

[BlackJAC]

12:18 PM on 03/24/2008

The concept itself was the reason for its demise, for it was extremely depressing. During the '80s I grew up having zero problems with the idea of spending my twenties in an F-14 cockpit removing the Soviet Air Force from the skies of Europe during World War Three. When the Cold War ended, I was a high school freshman and was suddenly confronted with the possibility of having a future. RED DAWN and its assorted dime novel knockoffs were entertaining back in the day, but today they're quaint holdovers from an era that should remain bygone.

[Smartey]

09:13 AM on 03/22/2008

This is certainly no big shock. The show had a great original premise, what with multiple nuclear strikes occurring all over the U.S., but after that the science fiction angle pretty much ended. From there, we were treated to stories about how one small town kept life going with food, energy, fuel, and of course sexual interruptions (the sex troubles were THE most difficult for everyone to handle, natch). In truth, it was pretty much a soap opera that had - not a background in a hospital, or big business, or the typical sudsy, dramatic locale - but a small town filled with mostly uninteresting people. To spice it up, they made everyone more concerned with their hormones than the nuclear fallout. The first season, they spent most episodes trying to gather supplies, and they squabbled over them with a nearby town. For this second year brief run, the producers decided to make everyone think a Halliburton-like company did the bombings. Suuuurrrre.

I know everyone on this website would eat up that season 2 idea, but most of America obviously found it as silly as it truly was. And once again, goofy liberal crap ruined a perfectly good entertainment venue, and turned off the masses. Don't liberals ever wonder why nobody falls for this stuff on TV, or on the ratings-challenged Air America radio? The constant barrage of America-Is-Full-Of-Evil conspiracy garbage leaves most of us cold. And leaves Hollywood lefties out of work.

[Grulg]

09:03 AM on 03/22/2008

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ Sorry, whatever.

[Mattie]

12:40 PM on 03/22/2008

it was a really good show, there's not much on anymore other than reality crap, so it's to bad. I hope they do a movie to tie up the loose ends.

[pennyfortheguy]

08:20 AM on 03/22/2008

Any oppurtunity where I can use the name Skeet in parlor conversation is invariably a good one. Skeet.
We hardly knew ye. nuts
Maybe Sci-Fi'll pick it up.

[aikani]

07:23 AM on 03/22/2008

It isn't surprising, since the show was incredibly well written and acted. And in some things, may have hit just a little too close to home. What with a domestic "security" firm being actively involved in a conspiracy to build a new and better america.

[Libsrule]

03:50 AM on 03/22/2008

Actually as I recall, Star Trek was the first show where fans kept the show on for one more year.

Arrested Developement was another.

I can't understand just what it takes to keep a show on the air. NOT every show can be in the top ten all the time. I don't understand why some shows can't have shows for a few years that are not in the top ten. OR use a cable outlet.

FIREFLY was another great show they screwed up. Huge fan following but not enough to keep it on the air. There is nothing wrong with giving shows some time.

Oh well, the good stuff keeps getting dropped while the crap that aims for the bottom seems to bring out the brain dead in droves.

I'd NEVER make a good exec in Hollywood.

[PhxJustice]

10:49 AM on 03/22/2008

FOX has never been able to make a serious science fiction based program truly work. They put both "Firefly" and "Space: Above and Beyond" at the 7:00 pm hour on Fridays and it killed both programs. Both were great shows and its just too bad the FOX executives didn't back them up.

[Passenger57]

07:43 AM on 03/23/2008

I don't know how many seasons it was on before they killed it, buy FAMILY GUY was another popular show that got dumped. When the DVDs came out,they flew off the shelves. The not-so-dumb dum-dums at FOX took notice....
On the first show of the new season,the creators made a joke of it by having Peter Griffin rattle off every FOX show that they kept on the air after they canned FG that turned out to be a bunch of crap. It was a long list.
After April 2009, the phrase "on the air" will be obsolete....