TV Roundup: Jericho

Jericho didn't make the CBS fall upfronts. It debuted to good ratings, went on winter hiatus, and never recovered. The show's saga (pompous term for 22 episodes, I know) is interesting because of what occurred in the show dramatically and what its fate says about the changing world of television.

First, the show itself. Jake Green (Skeet Ulrich, not looking at all like Johnny Depp anymore) returns home to Jericho, Kansas, after a long, mysterious absence. He runs into old flame Emily Sullivan (Ashley Scott and her ample bosom of hope) and his friend Stanley (Brad Beyer) whose farm is being audited by the IRS in the person of Mimi (Alicia Coppola). Just as the hometown reunion is reaching maximum awkwardness, nuclear explosions rock the world.

That's the setup, and the pilot was just about as bad and stiff as that paragraph sounds. Characters ranged from stock to cardboard. Only the actors redeemed the cliches. Gerald McRaney and Pamela Reed were (as usual) excellent as Johnston and Gail Green, Skeet/Jake's parents, and when Lennie Harris appeared on the screen, I became happy, even if he was playing a character best summarized as "The Mysterious Negro of Omniscience." Characters behaved stupidly and the writers didn't seem to have any idea what might be the after-effects of nuclear detonations, either scientific or societal. The first couple of episodes were borderline awful. Mediocrity was to be cherished.

Then a funny thing happened. The showrunners were smart enough to realize what was working and what wasn't. Nothing ever goes as planned on a television or movie set. The key is to maximize what's right and minimize what's wrong. Jericho began to do that. Skeet Ulrich looks like thirty miles of bad road and leaves you wondering just what the hell he's done to himself since Miracles got canceled? Ashley Scott inspires thoughts of wood, only it's the maple and oak variety rather than the Cialis sort? Minimize the Jake/Emily love story. Gerald McRaney and Lennie Harris dominate every scene they're in? Suddenly Johnston Green and Rob Hawkins are getting a lot more story. No real good explanation for the big "who dropped the nuke" storyline? Focus on how a community might cope with any disaster that ruptured the fabric of society. Does the Eric/April/Mary triangle suck all the air out of the room? Hey, if April dies of pregnancy-related complications after Eric leaves her, we've got years of survivor's guilt to serve as motivation.

Maybe it was planned. Maybe they had it in mind all along, but it didn't feel that way to me. It felt to me like the producers were tinkering on the fly, trying to see what worked and discarding what didn't. I'd bet money that many of the elements of Hawkins' story were made up fast, even if the big arc was predetermined.

BTW, the saga of the family Hawkins provided one of my favorite TV moments of the year. In a mini-arc that coincided with the show's improvement, Sarah Mason (Siena Goines) shows up in Jericho. She's Hawkins ex-partner in whatever nefarious doings he was part of. We learn that she's not to be trusted and the whole affair culminates with her holding a gun on Hawkins in his living room. Shots ring out. Is Hawkins dead? Naw. His daughter Allison (Jazz Raycole, and isn't that the coolest name?) has picked up his gun and plugged Sarah. Hawkins and his wife, Darcy (April Parker) run to her to console her after this terrible event.

Allison's reaction? "I'm okay. Really." I almost fell off the couch laughing. "Hey, dad, I'm a stone killer. Must be your genes." Yeah, post-nuke life be different.

Jericho was righting itself, growing from embarrassing pilot to interesting with potential. I believe its cancellation was indicative of just how TV is changing and how networks are still oblivious.

First, the winter hiatus killed the show. Even Heroes, 2007-08's freshman hit, suffered a ratings drop after taking time off. Broadcast networks are going to have to learn a hard lesson: repeats don't work and hiatus kills. One reason networks still do this is the asinine "order 13 and if we like it we'll go to 22" model. Look at what cable nets do. USA has something on the order of 8 episodes of Monk in January, then it's off until 8 more in July. SciFi will run the second season of Eureka this summer. They'll run it straight through and then it's off. CBS, listen to me: If you like a show like Jericho, order 13 episodes. Shoot 'em and air 'em. Ratings good? Don't try to short-order nine more eps for the same season. Order another 13-22 for next fall. Make the runs shorter and run them straight through.

Second, a show's return must be an event. Jericho aired its last fall episode, "Vox Populi", on 29 November 2006. The next new ep, "Black Jack", aired on 28 February 2007. That's three full months. What about dead-of-winter February makes it a good time to run more episodes? Introduce a limited-run series, maybe, but bring back a show that people haven't seen since Thanksgiving? A show that was just starting to find its own artistic voice? On top of that, CBS did exactly bupkus to promote the return. The networks apparently assume "Hey, they'll be home with their asses on the couch. They'll find it. What else they gonna do?" The answer? They'll do a lot. Networks still don't seem to realize that they are one of several options and the public is no longer beholden to them for content.

Third, the 22-episode season must go. I know someone will cry "Gunsmoke used to do forty (or however many) episodes a year!" No, they didn't. Gunsmoke (and Bonanza, et al.) did four episodes ten times with different actors. Seriously, you ever watch one of those old shows on TV Land? They had three plots and six story elements for variety. They would mix and match by, apparently, posting these on a wall and throwing darts. Seriously, TV is so much better now, but better also means competitive. There's also more of it and, honestly, a finite number of people who can do a good job creating the stuff. Borrow from the British model. Shorter seasons done at higher quality, perhaps set an episode limit during development. If your story can be told fully in 50 episodes, why try and flog the show for six seasons? Why drain a good show of all life and creativity by insisting that it go on well beyond its natural life (this is the X-Files rule)?

So that's Jericho, a modest little show that might have been pretty good, but because of a slow start and network idiocy, never got off the ground. I'll miss it, but not a lot.