Jericho” fans rejoice. According to director and producer Jon Turteltaub, a “Jericho” movie is in the works.

“We’re developing a feature for ‘Jericho’,” Turteltaub told iFMagzine. “It would not require you to have seen the TV show, but it get into life after an event like this on a national scale. It would be the bigger, full on American version of what’s going on beyond the town in Jericho.”

Turtletaub said that members of the TV cast would return and that the movie would have a substatial budget.

“Anything would be a huge budget compared to what we were dealing with,” he said. “If we had $40 million dollars to make a movie with, that’s 20 times more than we did before.”

Good news, if it comes true.

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Details here.

Apparently, the aim is to get another network — USA or The SciFi Channel apparently being the top two targets — to pick the show up. The longer this goes on, the less likely it gets, though. Already, one of the major parts of the shortened second season, Esai Morales, who played Major Beck, has signed up for a new show.

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Apparently, CBS is talking to Comcast about a deal that could save Jericho similar to the one that NBC struck with DirectTV to save Friday Night Lights:

For television networks, it is a common quandary: what do you do about a show that critics adore, that has a passionate base of fans, but that consistently gets mediocre ratings?

NBC, for one, thinks it has a creative solution. Last week, it announced a deal with DirecTV, a subscription satellite television service, that would keep “Friday Night Lights” on the air for a third season. DirecTV will help defray NBC’s production costs and in exchange will receive the right to show “Friday Night Lights” first.

Television executives say this model could help keep other sentimental favorites on the air. For instance, CBS Paramount Network Television has held talks with Comcast, the cable provider, about finding new life for “Jericho,” the low-rated drama canceled by CBS last month, according to two people briefed on the talks who requested anonymity.

Of course, as Amy Vernon points out, a Comcast deal wouldn’t have the same nationwide reach as NBC’s deal with DirectTV, but it’s better than nothing, right ?

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There’s another effort to bring Jericho back to the small screen next season:

The fans of Jericho have proven themselves to be among the most web-savvy in the television watching public.

They taken the next web-savvy step in their efforts to get someone else to pick up CBS’ twice-canceled post-apocalyptic drama, setting up an alternate “official” Jericho site in anticipation of the one on CBS “going dark.”

Here, apparently, is the plan:

March 23, 2008 – “How does it feel to be part of history? Don’t Tread on Me!” It’s the new battle cry of the next Jericho fan revolution. On March 22nd, CBS once again canceled Jericho, and within minutes, the fan efforts to solve the problem had kicked back into action. CBS’ serial drama Jericho, originally debuting on September 20, 2006, had been canceled once before, but the network resurrected it after the fans paid homage to Jericho character Jake Green (portrayed by actor Skeet Ulrich) uttering “Nuts!” to a request for surrender during the heat of battle. This line inspired a fan protest involving 40,000 pounds of nuts being shipped to CBS, forcing the network to reconsider its decision and to agree to a seven-episode Season 2.

According to CBS, Nielsen ratings had not been high enough this time around to encourage the network to buy into a third season for Jericho, leading to the show’s second cancellation before the March 25th airing of the seventh and final episode with had been shot with two alternate endings: a cliffhanger if picked up for another season, and an open-ended, show-ending conclusion to the seven episode arc storyline. CBS aired the latter version, and fans, deeming it also to be a cliffhanger itself, were inspired to begin the fight again to preserve Jericho for another round of storytelling.

Rumors had already begun circulating that Jericho’s Executive Producer Carol Barbee had been already ‘shopping’ the show to cable networks – where Jericho’s ratings, considered sub-par by CBS, would be stellar elsewhere. According to Barbee and other sources close to Barbee, the SciFi and CW networks continue to be possibilities for picking up Jericho. Fans have now sprung into action, currently sending e-mails and letters and making phone calls to both networks.

Jericho fans – well-versed in their abilities to make a difference through efforts involving over $20,000 in donations to the Greensburg, Kansas, building fund, DVD shipments to troops overseas, and an affiliation with Project Homefront – are now refocusing their endeavors toward an organized multiphase effort to win a new home for their favorite show. They also have set up an alternate online rally point in anticipation of CBS’ Jericho Web site eventually going dark.

For more information about Jericho’s latest fan revolution, or to learn how you can offer your assistance and your voice to making history again by finding Jericho a new home, please log onto www.jerichonet2.com/board to check out the New Save Jericho Campaign details for addresses, contact numbers, and ongoing efforts to give Jericho new life.

Good luck guys.

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Go check it out.

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There are plenty of theories out there trying to explain what went wrong with Jericho.

Thomas Connor at the Chicago Sun Times thinks that Jericho lost steam because Season Two lost focus of what made the show good:

The show was beloved in its first go-round because, I think, it was a tale of true patriotism and America’s core values (and it creeps me out a little to write those phrases, given how they’ve been so commonly co-opted by the right wing as rhetorical weapons). It had (again, shudder) family values. It was a story of what really matters in people’s personal lives; the political stuff was a vehicle for that. But when it came back, the political vehicle was a runaway train. It became just a sub-Tom Clancy political thriller, with a byzantine plot that involved shadowy figures and conspiracies — absent of the real people with real motivations that made the first season so engaging.

Last night’s finale sealed things off ably enough — even despite what had become this season’s trademark leaps in logic (and, man, travel time between Cheyenne, Wyo., and Jericho, Kan., must be among the best airline service in world history) — and ended things on a broader note of American values (freedom, truth, justice, if anyone remembers those). It was disappointing only for those of us who wished the show would go on.

But that disappointment set in long ago, and I think most fans would admit that the loss of Gerald McRaney (his character was killed at the end of season one) was the real death blow to this show. His character’s son, our hero Jake (Skeet Ulrich), couldn’t hold the center, especially while splitting the moral high ground with his brother, whose personal flaws overcame his sympathetic qualities too early in the story. And when they killed Bonnie for, apparently, no good reason, well, the humanity had clearly leaked out of the story.

(There’s actually a business aspect to how that happened: The show’s original writers did not return for this second season. After the show’s cancellation, they moved to another new series, and when the show was renewed they were stuck in contracts for that other show and couldn’t escape. So the source material in their heads likely was lost.)

Personally, I liked the second season’s focus on the politics and intrigue of the attacks and the Allied States. It was certainly more interesting than devoting more screen time to useless characters like Dale, Skylar, and Emily.

From another perspective, a Boston Globe television critic thinks that part of the explanation can be found in the fact that Jericho was unlike any other television show:

Most of the time, on TV, we get the opposite message. The detectives, lawyers, and forensic scientists of the enduring “Law and Order” and “CSI” incarnations are universally good. The fighting forces of CBS’s “The Unit” sacrifice greatly to save us all. Even the corrupt cops on FX’s “The Shield” are softies at the core, skimming off the top to pay for family essentials, such as private-school tuition for autistic kids. And though each season of Fox’s “24″ has its fair share of government high-ups gone bad, the traitors are always exceptions, destined to be caught.

To the end, “Jericho” made no such promises. If “The Wire” was a real-time look at corruption and fatal compromise in Baltimore, “Jericho” was a worst-case-scenario fantasy, spelled out with intriguing detail. It began with a dread attack: 23 American cities destroyed by nuclear bombs. It asked what would happen next from the perspective of regular folks, represented by the good-hearted citizens of a Kansas town.

This season, the good people of Jericho were occupied by an army loyal to a corrupt pretender government, which was intertwined with a Halliburtonesque company called Jennings & Rall. The small-town heroes had proof that the government was covering up the true source of the attacks, and may have had a hand in the plot. (In a nice touch, they had to prove their case to Texas, which had formed an independent republic and revived its Alamo spirit.) Yes, there were elements of crazed conspiracy theory here, but the premise wasn’t entirely unrealistic; the vision of an encroaching military was clearly built on fears of post-9/11 government overreach in the name of national security.

(…)

[T]he finale offered a hint of what would have come if the show had won a third season: a civil war between the forces of good and corruption, and a decent chance that corruption would still prevail. Perhaps it’s no wonder it got so few takers; on TV these days, we still prefer to focus on the good.

Or, to put it more precisely, American television viewers would rather watch a bad rendition of “God Bless The USA” on American Idol than watch a television show that makes them think:

CBS’s sci-fi show “Jericho” limped across the finish line on Tuesday, attracting just under six million viewers for its series finale, Nielsen reported. “Jericho,” first canceled last spring but revived over the summer after an outcry from devoted fans, only to be canceled once again, finished third in its 10 p.m. slot, behind ABC’s “Primetime” (10.4 million) and a repeat of NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (8.5 million). CBS ranked fourth for the night, despite drawing higher ratings with an “NCIS” rerun at 8 (9.4 million), followed at 9 by “Big Brother,” which also attracted 6 million viewers but fared better than “Jericho” among adults 18 to 49. Fox easily led over all, thanks to a 90-minute edition of “American Idol” from 8 to 9:30 (24.4 million). ABC was second with “Dancing With the Stars” at 9 (17.2 million). NBC finished third.

As in politics, the public gets exactly what it deserves.

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TVGuide.com: Will viewers have any burning questions coming out of the alternate ending/series finale?
Carol Barbee: Let me see…. I can tell you that in the original ending, Hawkins has to sacrifice himself to let Jake get away with the bomb and get it to Texas so it can be tested and prove that they were telling the truth. Texas would then swing their support to Columbus and defeat Cheyenne.

TVGuide.com: Does Hawkins mortally sacrifice himself, or just let himself get captured?
Barbee: Well, he gets captured but he’s also shot…. He’s pretty messed up, and Jake feels like he’s leaving him for dead. So we show you where he’s taken and you see that the mission for the next season is, “We have to go rescue Hawkins and we have to stop these [bad] guys.” When they see the alternate ending, it certainly completes the story from this season and tells you everything you need to know to have understood Season 2. It just doesn’t point to that next mission. You meet John Smith, the guy who’s been pulling the strings. It’s [played by] Xander Berkeley (24). You’ve heard him on phone calls, and Hawkins is surprised by who he is and where he is. So you know who John Smith is, you know who planned the attacks, you know why, you know how….

TVGuide.com: Now it’s just a matter of making things right in the United States?
Barbee: Right. We would have moved on to the next level of a civil war between the Cheyenne government and the Columbus government. But if your readers do have any more burning questions, let me know!

Barbee goes on to say that they will build on the finale that actually aired on the chance that the series gets picked up by another network, which Barbee talked about in an earlier interview:

TVGuide.com: Let’s talk about that “possible other life.” What are the chances of that happening, of a cable network picking up Jericho? And why it isn’t as easy as the fans would believe. A lot of fans are saying, “A cable network would kill for six million viewers.”
Barbee: I wish I knew…. I really don’t know what [the cable networks'] business models are. We get compared a lot to Friday Night Lights, but Friday Night Lights shoots in Texas and their budget is much lower than ours. Even with the restrictions that were put on us for this second season, we cut it pretty much to the bone. We might be able to get [the budget] a little lower, depending on where we are shooting…. I would imagine, though, that people would be thrilled to get our audience! We had eight million for our premiere, and even if we retained three or four million for a cable station, that’d be a good audience. I’m hoping these talks work out, but you never know.

Good luck with that one, I guess.

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If, as looks likely, we will not see Jericho grace our television screens again, then last night’s episode, while it had it’s flaws, was a fitting farewell to a truly unique television series.

In rapid time, necessitated, of course, by the shortened season and slimmed-down budget, Jake and Hawkins make their way to Cheyenne where they surprise a startled Gray Anderson, who himself had just witnessed the death of the Second Amendment at the ASA’s Constitutional Convention. Hawkins makes contact with the last surviving member of his team, Chueng, who helps them locate the bomb.

And that’s where the fun starts.

In the meantime, Major Beck is clearly uncomfortable with his orders to institute “Phase Three” sanctions in Jericho and, when he’s given the opportunity, reviews the laptop that had been found in Hawkins’ car. And that’s when his eyes are finally opened.

There were several great scenes in Jericho. Gray Anderson returning to town to find it nearly deserted and firmly in military control. Eric Green facing down Constantino and refusing to join in his terrorist campaign. And the remaining Jericho-ites burying Bonnie Richmond, after which Beck arrives and tells them that he’s no longer taking orders from Cheyenne, which he considers a corrupt government. There will be no Phase Three.

Meanwhile, Jake and Hawkins manage to get control of the bomb and take it to the Republic of Texas’ Embassy in Cheyenne (yea, I know, how did they get a whole embassy compound together in four months — big plot hole). With the help of the Texan Ambassador they escape in a plane and are just moments from Texas airspace when the ASA Air Force shows up and tries to force them down, only to be stopped by the Texas Air National Guard in what should probably be considered the first battle of a new Civil War.

And then one final scene. Beck his back in his office awaiting his fate. He’s shown his senior officers the contents of Hawkins’ laptop and told them to make their own decision.

They do. And, in one of the best scenes of the whole series, they rip off the ASA Flag patch on their uniforms and walk away. They’re with Beck, and when the war comes to Jericho they’ll be on the front lines.

When this series started, we were faced with the unthinkable — the destruction of 23 American cities by nuclear weapons. The citizens of Jericho, this little town somewhere in Kansas, were seemingly cut off from the outside world. As the first season went on, subtle hints were dropped about what had happened and what it meant for Jericho and America, but it wasn’t until the second season, with the arrival of the Allied States of America, that the true scope of the horror began to reveal itself. In the meantime, we watched the people of Jericho, Kansas try to rebuild their town and their lives only to be drawn into a Hobbesian war of all against all with their former fellow American citizens.

Now, it’s all come full circle. Jericho isn’t free yet, but thanks to Jake, Hawkins, and Major Beck, it is at the center of the next American Civil War. While there is some hope that we might get to see what that future looks like, I’m perfectly happy with how things ended.

Previous Posts:

Reconstruction: Jericho 2.1
Condor: Jericho 2.2
Jennings & Rall: Jericho 2.3
Oversight: Jericho 2.4
Termination For Cause: Jericho 2.5
Sedition: Jericho 2.6

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Carol Barbee, executive producer of CBS’ canceled post-apocalyptic series Jericho, told SCI FI Wire that talks are ongoing to find the show another home, perhaps on a cable network.

“I can’t really say [much] about specifics, and, … partially, it’s because I’m not the one having those conversations,” Barbee said in an interview on March 24, the eve of the show’s final episode. “[CBS] Paramount [Television, which produces the show,] has been pursing it, and our agents have been into that, so, you know, I am pushing those people and coming up with ideas to have those people pursue.”

Barbee wouldn’t offer details about any talks. “There were several ideas that have been floated, and there was some interest, but we’ll have to see,” she said. “It wasn’t something that could be sewn up before we were going to air the finale. … It would have been better had we been able to announce one with the other, but it just didn’t happen that fast.”

(…)

If Jericho is not picked up for another season by a TV network, Barbee said that she could envision it living on in some other form. “There’s definitely an Internet series to be had, and we always talked about a graphic novel, and … a movie,” Barbee said. “I mean, there are lots of things that I could easily see as a way to continue the story.”

But time may be running out. Jericho wrapped its second season of episodes back in November, just as the writers’ strike was beginning. Since then, the cast and crew have been freed to pursue other projects, and the show’s sets and backlot have been dismantled and either destroyed or put into storage. Barbee herself has moved on to another series, Swingtown, created by Jericho alumnus Mike Kelley, about the lives of couples experimenting with sexual and social mores in a 1970s Chicago suburb, which will air on CBS this summer and is shooting on the same stages once occupied by Jericho.

So there is hope, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of it.

The idea of moving to a cable network, like SciFi or TNT, has been suggested by a few people, but there are problems with that strategy.

First of all, the cable networks do not have budgets that come anywhere CBS can afford to put forward for a single show. One of the biggest problem with Season Two has been the fact that the low budget forced the writers to make cutbacks that became obvious — characters that disappeared for an episode or two only to pop up at the weirdest moments, and a lot of scenes that consisted of little more than dialog between two people (or, in the case of Hawkins and “John Smith”, one guy and his cell phone). If anything, the budget would be an even bigger issue at a cable network. Second, most of the cable networks shoot their shows in places other than Los Angeles and it’s unclear whether the writers and actors would want to move with the production. Finally, any move is going to result in a loss of viewers and a loss of continuity.

I liked Jericho. It wasn’t a great television show, but it was different from anything else that was on and it had a compelling storyline. It’s too bad it didn’t do better.

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In what might translate into another spring boom for peanut vendors, CBS has once again pulled the plug on its post-apocalyptic series “Jericho” following lackluster ratings.

In a decision first reported by SyFy Portal exactly one month ago, CBS has cancelled its series and plans to air a slightly altered series finale March 25 that is expected to provide story closure for fans who followed the plights of the residents of a small Kansas town following a nuclear holocaust.

The show had originally been cancelled at the end of the first season, but a well-organized campaign from some of the show’s biggest fans, which included delivery of 20 tons of nuts, convinced the network to give the show a limited seven-episode run. While “Jericho” had performed well in alternate distribution nodes like the Internet, it couldn’t capture the audience CBS was looking for, which sometimes was half the audience that would watch an “NCIS” rerun to start the night for CBS.

There is some good news, however, for “Jericho” fans hoping for life after CBS. The finale that will air Tuesday will not completely finish the story, The Hollywood Reporter says, especially as executive producer Carol Barbee had already hinted she was looking for interest from other distributors. However, the high cost to produce the show will make it hard for others interested in signing on.

“The March 25 episode of ‘Jericho’ will be the series finale,” CBS said in a release. “Without question, there are passionate viewers watching this program; we simply wish there were more.

Once again, damn, damn, damn.

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