Fans send tons of Nuts to CBS as protest

[Bobkatz 0]

www.nutsonline.com/jericho

www.jericholives.com

Very amusing way to pressure an inconsiderate network.....if you watched Jericho or just like a fun campaign against a big corporation, get in there and send some nuts to the CBS CEO

NY TImes today:

May 21, 2007, 12:03 pm

Misery Chastain Cannot Be Dead!! Or, A Way to Save “Jericho”

Every compelling story produces its own brand of fans, with their own distinct style of story-worship.

But a group of fans really shows its colors when it gets the news that the story it loves is over.

When “Everwood,” the misty teen-flavored television drama about love and loss, was canceled last year, its fans grew tearful and elegiac. When Fox shut down “Arrested Development,” its fancy and clever sitcom, the fans acted tough and above it: I guess real comedy was too cool for network losers.

And now, since “Jericho” was officially dropped from CBS on May 16, its fans are having their nationwide wake. And what a dark, mushroom-cloud-blocks-the-sun event it is.

When I wrote a live blog from the television upfronts last week on the new culture-events blog ArtsBeat, the entry that drew the most comments by far was the CBS wrap-up. Almost all of the commenters on that post, possibly by design, had “Jericho” on their minds. Phrases like “CBS should be ashamed” and “O.K., now I’m really ticked off” were commonplace.

You know, CBS should perhaps just have known better than to convene a group of ardent fans for a nuclear-apocalypse show (note suspiciously locked Wikipedia entry) if they were going to jilt those fans so suddenly. Turns out the “Jericho” audience is a volatile, uneasy lot. (Just Google “save jericho”).

Having started just last fall, and played unsuccessfully against “American Idol,” “Jericho” is an adventure series about a group of tough Kansans trying to survive after nukes have taken out America’s major cities.

Fans of the drama — in which survivalism, vigilantism and a measure of anarchism are not only tolerated but necessary — are, like its characters, a hardcore and flinty bunch. Take one look at their message boards and you’d see they were unlikely to take bad news from jackbooted network thugs lying down.

The male fans resolved: “They nuked Jericho … we’ll nuke them!” And they poached the show’s rough-and-ready characters for their own video spinoff: a hit on CBS’s headquarters.

Female viewers also felt abused. Below, one resolved not to be Tina to CBS’s Ike anymore. Her parting line? “I hope your ratings shrivel up and fall off.”

The phenomenon of fans wreaking havoc on those who abort their favorite stories — think Kathy Bates in “Misery” — is at least as old as the novel. The crowd that allegedly begged Dickens to tell them whether Little Nell had died in “The Old Curiosity Shop” somehow believed he also grieved her death, though he was of course her murderer.

Other readers are less forgiving or naive. In the 19th century, some readers even tried to sue authors who “abused” or “killed” their favorite characters.

So “Jericho” fans: your videos are great, but what about taking

LA Times.....

CBS responds to 'Jericho' fans: We'll let you know how it would have ended

By Maria Elena Fernandez, Times Staff Writer

May 22, 2007

How will it end?

click to enlargeWe were on to the "Lost" legion and "Heroes" worshippers, but who knew there were also "Jericho" junkies?

A "Jericho" online movement is afoot to bring back the just-canceled CBS drama, starring Skeet Ulrich. The show, which explored the aftermath of nuclear attacks in the U.S., seemed like it was going to be one of the TV season's hits, but a large chunk of its audience disappeared during its winter hiatus.

CBS, like the rest of the networks, announced its fall lineup last week, and the network decided to cancel "Jericho" because the show had "lost its engine," CBS President of Entertainment Nina Tassler said.

Since then, passionate "Jericho" fans have organized and bombarded the network with letters and e-mails that state feelings, such as, "This show has touched us like no other before" and "CBS has cast aside a gem in Jericho." An online petition, http://www.jericholives.com , already has 60,000 signatures. One fan even wrote a Bring Back Jericho poem and posted it at http://jericholives.com/fight.htm .

Tassler was so moved by the response that she posted a letter to the fans on http://www.cbs.com , her spokesman, Chris Ender, said.

"She was touched by the letters and e-mails she's received because they each had independent voices," Ender said. "It was not an organized cookie-cutter type campaign. She was touched by the thoughtfulness of the response and wanted to directly respond to them."

In the letter, Tassler told the fans that she also loved the show: "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 to the compelling drama that was the 'Jericho' story."

CBS executives will meet this week to discuss how the network can let the fans know how the "Jericho" story would have ended.

[Dr_LHA 3]

Jericho was ####### IMHO, but its a real shame that CBS have to treat their fans like this. Television audiences are on the decline, and when TV companies pull ####### like this, its not really that surprising. I mean, I often avoid watching new shows, not because I might not enjoy them, but because I'm acutely aware that they will most likely be cancelled just as I've made an emotional investment in them.

[MHandMB 0]

I was really annoyed that they cancelled Jericho. They hyped it up in the beginning, got everyone interested, then put it on a looooong hiatus, which killed it. The last episode was a cliffhanger if I've ever seen one, and the fans are just really irritated that it's being replaced with reality tv tripe. I hope there is some kind of resolution, even if it's just a miniseries tying up the storyline.

[Scott & Lai 12]

Jericho will be back next season, for seven episodes at least.... I know because a friend is in it

[JoeMama 0]

Can I claim my 2 nuts back I donated for the protest?