In another one of those “say it isn’t so” moments, after starting off to strong ratings in the fall, the CBS series “Jericho” might not make it to a second season.
Variety listed several shows on the various networks that were on the bubble for not being renewed this week and the post-apocalyptic CBS drama was among them.
Ratings for “Jericho” have been off slightly in recent week as it goes against the 300-pound ratings gorilla that is “American Idol,” [however, compared to NBC and ABC programming, “Jericho” was holding its own].
Is CBS in the running to become the new FOX by cancelling genre shows?
If CBS does decide to pull the plug at least “Jericho” would get an entire season run, unlike last year’s promising series “Threshold” which was uncermoniously pulled from the network when it failed to find an audience [after only eight episodes aired].
Hopefully the real news of the return or demise of “Jericho” will come early enough so producers can wrap up storylines and answer all of the fan’s burning questions.
They probably should not have taken that mid-season break. It seems a few shows just don’t recover after going on a 2 month hiatus – go figure!
Well, BSG and SG-1 have been doing the “half-season” dance for a while. I think is the network fault for not advertising enough the return from the hiatus. I have sevaral friends that still dont know that Jericho is back on air!
Dugg!
http://digg.com/television/Jericho_On_the_Bubble_it_might_NOT_get_renewed
I think Jericho lost a lot of momentum in the mid-season hiatus…plus returning against Idol didn’t help.
The 13-episode run has also worked well for “The Shield”, “The 4400” and USA’s new hit “Psych” has been aired in 2 separate 6-episode runs.
It may just take people a while to get used to seeing that kind of programming on the major networks. I also think it would have helped if CBS had told people ahead of time that that’s the way they were going to air the show.
That said, while time constraints have taken “Jericho” off my viewing schedule, I do hope CBS keeps it around.
Ahhhh, they are making room for the next season of Firefly!
James.
I agree!!! I completly lost track of when the show was on, and now that it’s back I miss so much – I’m almost giving up.
I’ve given up on medium, which went away, and I’m not sure if it back yet either?? If it is – when is it on?
Stupid TV
I just caught up thanks to video on demand. It was pretty sweet to have just 2 commercials, and they were for other CBS shows.
The show is good, I really hope it can at least wrap up.
This sucks… first I find out that HBOs Rome gets canned now Jericho might…. blah, very sad.
I LOVE JERICHO and have never missed one episode.
IF CBS cancels it I will be heartbroken.
The ratings are down b/c of American Idol…that’s all.
What does CBS think they have that they can put up against American Idol that will do better than Jericho? The ratings really aren’t that bad when you think about the show it is up against. If it weren’t for AI (which no show has yet beaten) then Jericho would be number 1 beating out its competitors on NBC and ABC — so what the hell is wrong with CBS execs. It’s not like the show is costing them tons of money. There is very little special effects, the only really big name drawing a large salary is Gearld McRaney — So CBS, what the hell is wrong with you?
I wonder who would win in ratings… American Idol or Heroes
“Medium” is back, and just as good. NBC didn’t start running episodes until December, I think. They were going to use it as a “mid-season” thing to give a chance to a new show, but that show tanked and they brought “Medium” back sooner.
It’s currently on Wednesday nights, I think 9pm.
I also think there are going to be less than the usual 22 episodes for this season because of that, but I could be wrong.
If they take off Jerico, other than maybe a show on the history channel, I won’t even have a reason to turn the tv on wed. I would have time to play more gears of war.
Are you serious? And I was expecting a second season.
The reason the “half-season dances” work so well for Battlestar and SG-1 is that they’re usually on in the time when other series’ are in repeat mode. (i.e. summer, March-April) If you’re trying to start the second half of your season just as the Idol-atry is getting into full swing, then you’re going to take a hurtin.
I stopped by the official CBS Jericho webpage and was checking out what was being said about the possible cancellation of the show. While no official word from the network is expected until late April or early May, if the show is being cancelled it will come as a total surprise to the cast and crew as they are already preparing for season two. They have even talked about some surprises for next season with some characters getting more camera time than they got this season.
So, it looks like everybody, including the hired help, are in the dark about this news and also have to await word from CBS.
It really does seem as if “American Idol” dictates programming these days. I look at shows on the CW that go extremely top-heavy in the season so they don’t have to go up against Idol too many times and lower the overall ratings for the season.
That said, I wonder if what might save Jericho is the on-line traffic. I know NBC’s decision to stick with The Office was based on the sales on iTunes. So, if the networks can find another market for shows, that might save them.
At this point, I could go either way on Jericho. It’s descending into just awful the past two weeks and I wouldn’t miss it were it to wrap things up and go.
It would be foolish of CBS to cancel Jericho. It’s numbers are not great, but neither would anything else they have if they were up against American Idol.
It is in second place for its Wed time slot, losing only to AI. Also, the numbers don’t take into account people like me, who usually watch AI and then watch Jericho online afterwards on the CBS website.
That having been said, network execs behave stupidly on a regular basis canceling shows before their time, and it goes without saying that Jericho would post much better numbers if it were on Thursday nights or on any night when it wasn’t up against Idol. I haven’t seen this past week’s numbers though, when Idol was on at 9pm rather than 8, reducing Jericho’s competition in that time slot.