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Will CBS Find Closure For 'Jericho'?
Network deluged with e-mail, phone calls, nuts
By MICHAEL HINMAN
Source: SyFy Portal
May-20-2007
Less than a week after CBS pulled the plug on its post-Apocalyptic series "Jericho," fans have apparently been making contact with the network in droves, demanding that if nothing else, CBS find closure for the cliffhanger left at the end of Season 1.
That campaign has included letter writing and even the delivery of nuts to the network, highlighting one of the final words of the series when Skeet Ulrich's character of Jake Green tells the sheriff of the neighboring town of New Bern that is at war with Jericho, paying homage to a World War II story by his grandfather.
The campaign may have paid off, with CBS making an announcement on the official "Jericho" message boards that there could be plans in the works to at least wrap up the story.
"We have read your e-mails over the past few days and have been touched by the depth and passion with which you have expressed your disappointment," wrote Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment. "Please know that canceling a television series is a very difficult decision. Hundreds of people at the network, the production company and the incredibly talented creative team worked very hard to build and serve the community for this show -- both on-air and online. It is a show we loved, too.
"Thank you for supporting 'Jericho' with such passion. We truly appreciate the commitment you made to the series and we are humbled by your disappointment. In the coming weeks, we hope to develop a way to provide closure in the compelling drama that was the 'Jericho' story."
There are a number of campaigns under way to save the show, many of which were detailed by the CBS affiliate KWCH in Wichita, Kan. One such campaign is where peanuts are being sent to the network as part of a "Nuts To You, CBS." Another campaign asked fans to send e-mails to Kelly Kahl, senior executive vice president of programming operations at CBS. Fans have even set up a MySpace Page to organize a fan response.
Of course, such tactics have worked well in the past. The Save Farscape campaign was single-handedly successful in getting Hallmark Entertainment to produce a closure telemovie of "Farscape" that eventually was aired on SciFi Channel. Fan response to the cancellation of the short-lived Fox series "Firefly" allowed Universal Pictures to commission a motion picture based on the series called "Serenity." And the original "Star Trek" was one of the early examples of how successful fan campaigns can be when they forced NBC to order a third season of that show.
"Jericho" was cancelled last week in almost a last-minute decision as some close to the series was expecting a renewal even right up to the start of network upfront presentations in New York City. While the series had a strong run of episodes early in the season, by the time it returned several weeks after its first part of the season, "Jericho" had stiff competition against "American Idol"-fueled programming on Fox among other places, but was still generating decent ratings for CBS.
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