"Jericho" Fans Send Over Nine Tons of Nuts to CBS

nuts-to-CBS writes "After presenting 'Jericho' fans with a cliffhanging season finale, CBS promptly cancelled the program. The shocked fans quickly banded together, many using CBS' own public "Jericho" discussion forum, and began brainstorming on ways to convince the network to bring back the show for a second season. A plot point in the final episode of "Jericho" involving the expletive "Nuts!" (in reference to an historic conversation between generals) was turned into a campaign to send large quantities of nuts to CBS' NY, LA, and affiliate offices. Fans have sent a total of $26,000 for a pooled campaign hosted at Nuts Online to ship over 19,000 pounds of peanuts to CBS. Other efforts acquired over $9,000 to publish full page advertisements in Variety (National Edition) and The Hollywood Reporter for Tuesday, May 29th. This is expected to become the largest ever fan campaign to bring a television show back from cancellation." There's more about the massive fan rollout below. CBS created rich, interactive content online to accompany their show "Jericho," in order to extend its fan base to the Internet-savvy, TiVo-owning generations. Despite suffering through the all-too-familiar mid-season hiatus employed by many shows, the "Jericho" fan base remained strong throughout the break, partially due to the episodes being posted both for free on the CBS site as well as for purchase on iTunes. "Jericho" returned from the hiatus in the same timeslot occupied by "American Idol." CBS — which apparently still determines programming primarily on Nielsen ratings — decided to drop the show, regardless of the ever-growing and loyal fan base. Nuts Online includes live blogging from Jeffrey Braverman, the company's 26-year old CEO. Jeffrey's company has been shipping up to 5,000 pounds of peanuts a day to the CBS New York headquarters, and has been using their site to describe his experience along the way. Three other fan sites are documenting the progress: CBS Jericho Message Board, Jericho Lives, and Jericho Rally Point. Fans of Roswell were successful in bringing back their favorite program by sending mass quantities of tiny bottles of Tabasco sauce."

Comments

Jericho *was* Nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, I'm sure that the people at CBS are enjoying the free lifetime supply of tasty peanuts. Hopefully they'll send back a thank-you card. Maybe one of those new Star Wars Hallmark cards. (After all, it's the least they can do.)

That being said, Jericho went off the air because the show took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. When it first started, the premise was intriguing. A post-holocaust world from the perspective of those who have no idea what could possibly be going on. It makes for a great setup. The first few episodes were even fairly good, with the early problems from the detonation wreaking all kinds of havoc. After that? Things went downhill.

Pretty soon the show was focusing more on love triangles than it was on the fact that everyone was just trying to survive. Emergencies were regularly forced into the story rather than the characters having to deal with realistic difficulties. There was so much that they could be exploring, yet the show was being "the O.C. after the bomb". (Or whatever the latest "pop" show is for stupid teenagers. Anyone remember that scene from Stargate-SG1 "200"? Yeah, that.)

As interesting as it had been, I just lost interest in the show. Checking my iTunes library, it looks like I stopped at "The Day Before". 13 episodes watched, and I just couldn't stand it anymore. So is it really any surprise that Jericho got cancelled?

I realize that many fans are begging for a conclusion to the cliffhanger, but that will pass with time. Remember the show Sliders? Remember how it died in the 5th season with both the main characters wiped out, Wade killed off in a twisted experiment, the reason for sliding gone, and a hokey story about a mad scientist stuck its the place? The show lost its purpose, yet the producers ended the season with a massive cliffhanger in hopes that fan outcry would bring the show back. And after watching the final episode, you do get a feeling of, "You can't leave it there!"

But in hindsight, it's best that it stayed off the air. There was about a zero point zero zero chance that the O'Connell brothers were going to return to the show, and the writing had been of poor quality anyway. If the show had returned, we would have gotten another season of the show's slow and agonizing death. Why? It was best that it was put out of its misery.

(Of course, the show "jumped the shark" in the third season with the loss of John Rhys-Davies, but at least the "finding Earth" and "looking for Ma and Pa" subplot was interesting.)

So I'm sorry to say this, but let it die. It was a nice try, but hopefully a better show will take its place.

Re:Jericho *was* Nuts

[NMerriam]

I agree -- it was an intruiging premise that kept me watching for about 9 episodes, when it became clear they were basically a LOST-style show that was never going to bother answeing anything and just keep adding more and more complicated conspiracies and romances and subplots rather than focus on the thing that actually, you know, INTRUIGED us about the story in the first place.

I did watch the finale just to see what if anything had been resolved, and have to admit I was somewhat interested in what would happen, since it was actually about the freaking story the whole show was supposed to be about. But no, they decided to leave viewers with a completely unsatisfying show by wasting episode after episode on farmer love triangles while civil war, military coups, and nuclear terrorism in the continental United States were apparently too boring to be dealt with until well after many people had given up on the issues ever being talked about again.

You know the old joke about IBM marketing would sell sushi by calling it "cold, raw dead fish". CBS apparently hired IBM marketing to write this show because they started with an inherently story-filled premise and managed to fill hour after hour with dull flashbacks on generic midwestern family crap that could have been lifted from episodes of Seventh Heaven.

Re:Jericho *was* Nuts

[NMerriam]

The second half of the season didn't deal much with love triangles, rather it focused on the Hawkins character, who was much more interesting than the Jake character.

See, I had the exact opposite reaction -- I thought the Hawkins character really made the show so silly and artificial that it distracted the writers from the core concept. It's like they had the show ready to go and then they said "But we need a mysterious cryptic character like Locke from LOST!"

Hawkins seemed to function as a Deus Ex Machina whenever the writers couldn't solve a problem or wanted to throw in a curve ball. Nuclear bombs destroying the country and the survivors having to figure out what to do is really plenty interesting as a premise -- we don't need some guy with super-duper hacking powers, a nuclear bomb and ninja skills (who speaks Chinese and works for the Trilateral Commission) to move into town the day before it all happens.

And his whole ex-wife and kids drama was just as dull and uninteresting to me as Jake's girl troubles. Adding a ninja ex-girlfriend back from the dead who may be trying to double-cross him while working for the Man in Black is not interesting, it's unnecessary.

If the writers from Jericho had been in charge of Heroes, they would have spent 7 episodes dealing with Claire and an ex-boyfriend, a pregnancy scare, her mom having an affair, etc. Hiro discovers he can stop time but instead of trying to save the world he spends the first 22 episodes going back to his childhood and crying while watching his father learn to ride a bicycle and wondering why his Mom didn't breast feed him. Syler would have shown up in the last half of the last episode of the season, and the writers would wonder why the show was being canceled.

Re:Jericho *was* Nuts

[freakybob]

Oh come on, SOMEONE has to mod that one funny. Topical, too - reference to another cancelled show with a loyal fanbase.

Re:Jericho *was* Nuts

[sherylb33]

Maybe it didn't appeal to you. It did however to 9 million viewers. The rating for the show held steady at number 2 in it's time slot only after AI. Everyone knows that in this day and age the method of rating viewers is broken. They do not count internet viewers, those who watch on Tivo or DVR or on itunes. None of these venues are counted in the 8 million. Today these computer savy viewers need to be counted. Or, do you think that people who take advantage of technology should be cast aside because they live their life and watch TV programs at their convience and not on the networks schedule!! The CBS website for Jericho is the most popular TV websites ever and has been since it was first created. Just so you know I am not gereatric. Although I think that the older viewers are also important comsumers. I think you got the premise of the program all wrong. It is about a small rural community...who is totally cut off from the rest of the country and they have to join together to survive. It is a story of family, friends and neighbors facing and having to survive in this new world that they have directly before them. They are curious about what is going on in other parts of the country but their struggles are for their own community's survival. It is not a story that tell of what's going on in different parts of the country. It is a story of one towns efforts.

Re:Jericho *was* Nuts

[NMerriam]

I am guessing that you are not a writer for TV

I'm guessing you didn't notice the show was canceled. And the number one breakout hit of the season is Heroes, which was written exactly the way Jericho SHOULD have been written -- taking an exciting premise and actually exploring it. Putting normal people we can recognize and identify with and throwing intensely crazy situations at them to see how they handle it. Characters developed over time, reacted to the amazing situation they were in, adapted, acted to try and change things (both for good and ill) and became drivers of the story at some times wile being pulled along by events larger than themselves at others. That's how you write compelling fiction.

I can't think of any character in Jericho that actually had a decent character arc of any kind, that changed in any significant way. It's a town full of stoic men and women who rise to the situation and have lots of mysterious military training that allows them to solve any problem without having to do any particularly hard work or make any tough choices. We're told through flashbacks that many of them were different people BEFORE the story we're seeing now, but that isn't the same thing as getting to know a character as one thing (and liking or hating them for it) and then watching them grow into something else due to the circumstances and their own choices.

And yes, I have written fiction professionally before (and will again). I went to school for, among other things, writing. I love purely character-based stories. But you can't spend so much time navel-gazing that you lose track of the actual plot for huge portions of the screen time. You can't sell a story as "The world is going to end in nuclear war! How will America survive?" and then deliver Green Acres crossed with 90210.

What a waste of food.

[dsanfte]

Seriously.

It's a TV Show

[techsoldaten]

It's a TV show. Get over it. They cancelled Firefly, now Jericho is gone. As an alternative, these people should consider:

1) Going to the gym
2) Taking a loved one out to dinner
3) Taking up art
4) Relaxing with friends over the internet
5) Fixing some of those pesky things around the house
6) Getting a dog for companionship instead of a television
7) Volunteering for experiments on drugs to treat obsessive compulsive disorder
8) Going for a walk in the woods and experiencing nature
9) Getting a tan

There are so many other things to do in life that worry about a man soap opera.

M

Re:It's a TV Show

[idonthack]

10. Fix the government
11. Various charity organizations
12. Protest something that matters

and of course

13. Profit

Re:It's a TV Show

[Simon Garlick]

This is all way too much effort over THAT PARTICULAR TV show.

Jericho was crap. Good riddance.

Re:It's a TV Show

[badasscat]

(getting a tan? gee, that's not superficial or anything....)

The difference is it doesn't cost $19,000 or $26,000 or whatever to get a tan... and if it does, whoever spends that much deserves all the ridicule they get. You could feed a family of four on that much money for a year - and we have no shortage of needy people in this country.

I'm not the kind of guy that goes around pointing out how all these vanity things we do are bad because that money could be better used elsewhere. Hey, if it makes you feel good, then whatever. But still, there's got to be a limit... a point where you say, "you know, this is kind of a ridiculous; there are more important things to worry about." It's not as if these people are getting anything tangible for their investment. They're sending a corporation a bunch of nuts. At least if you spent $26,000 on a tan, you'd still end up with a tan to show for it. These people may as well have just taken all that money and flushed it down the toilet. And that makes the whole thing kind of offensive.

I'll bet they're all really proud of themselves too.

Re:It's a TV Show

[hachete]

Also, whilst tanning, read a fucking book.

Re:It's a TV Show

[TheRaven64]

Hmm, you've given me an idea. Every time a politician does something that irritates you, post them a peanut. At the end of their term, they are put into a trebuchet, with the peanuts as the counterweight. Any that survive are permitted to stand for re-election. Any that don't are no longer part of the problem.

Re:It's a TV Show

[GTMoogle]

That's a surprisingly creative solution. The problem being, of course, that all the politicians will send each other tons of peanuts, and all knowing their impending doom, will unanimously change the law to avoid it.

Re:It's a TV Show

[mark_0945]

This fight to Save Jericho is about larger issues. Too long Nielsen's flawed ratings system has controlled what is aired in North America and it's about time this ends. Jericho is quality television....... you can say what you will about television but it effects everyone's life in North America even if they don't watch it. As for that American Idol crap it's not only effecting television negatively it's also effecting music negatively.... Yeah fighting to save Jericho has bigger impact than just getting the show back on the air.

Re:It's a TV Show

[dbIII]

Do you really want these people trying to fix government?

No - I think vetinarians should do it so it would be less cruel - although some skilled farm workers with those special pliers or rubber rings would be just as good.

Re:It's a TV Show

[sherylb33]

I think that maybe you missed the point on this. We are parents of five children ages 10 to 17. We monitor very closely what is viewed on the TV in our home. Jericho is the only prime time program that we have watched this year. As a mother, I was impressed that the writers were able to write story lines that appealed to every member of our family and I was even more impressed with the fact that they were able to write Jericho without putting in language and content that would have made me cringe and turn off the TV. Our children are involved in many activities such as sports programs, music lessons, dance lessons (for the girl's)and they are all on the honor roll at school. We also go out to dinner occasionaly and they all attend youth group meetings and activities at our church. I am proud to say that my family is one of the many who are joining this campaign to save Jericho. We need to let the entertainment industry know that we want quality programming. We have limited amounts of time for TV in our schedules.....and during that time we want interesting and entertaining programs to enjoy.

Re:It's a TV Show

[vorpal22]

The viewers made an investment of their time and effort (i.e. arranging their schedule to watch their show). While the networks are under no obligation to do so, if they feel compelled to cancel a show, it would be respectful to their viewers to produce one more episode to wrap things up as best as possible and bring completion to the series as opposed to leaving it hanging and unresolved.

Re:It's a TV Show

[Guppy06]

"As an alternative, these people should consider"

Why are you wasting your time posting on here instead of doing any of the things you have listed, hypocrite?

would poor people in Darfur eat peanuts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, I wonder...maybe that would be a better use than bringing back a freakin' network TV show. Our culture is soo narcissistic and self-centered. Don't mod this down...leave it alone at the most, but what I'm writing is unavoidably true.

Might poor people in Darfur like to have this food

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, I wonder. Maybe helping poor people by feeding them would be a better use of food than bringing back a freakin' network TV show. Our culture is sooo self-centered and narcisstic....sadly, some people involved in this will probably put this on their resumes as "volunteerism." They probably think they are reaaaally doing something great for the world...that they're on some meaningful crusade. and if you're going to mod me troll, think first...are you doing it because what i'm saying is inappropriate or untrue (its not), or because it annoys you to be reminded how shallow YOU might be.

and i would feel very different about this if Jericho was some form of high art or something that uplifts the human spirit or culture...that is also a good use of resources...but it isn't. It's a shitty tv show that people are mindlessly addicted to, just most of the rest of shit on tv.

Witness the fall of the Republic

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Thousands of Americans are dying in a foreign war that by all accounts we are not doing well in, and the opposition party is much less concerned with fixing the problem than making political hay. Our health care system is a shambles. A major American city is also still in shambles more than a year after an enormous natural disaster.

After all that, what makes Americans stand up and say "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" but a canceled television show.

My fellow citizens, and all you others, I fear that this may be a grave sign of the failure of the American Experiment.

Re:Witness the fall of the Republic

[Anonymous Coward]

To quote from memory: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of wealth; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

Forgive me if I butchered it. ;)

Re:Witness the fall of the Republic

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

After all that, what makes Americans stand up and say "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" but a canceled television show. Perhaps it is because 'the people' feel like they have more chance of changing the cancellation of a TV show than they do have of changing the course of direction that their government takes.

Re:Witness the fall of the Republic

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

It's funny you should mention that. 'The People' get to vote for their government, not their television. It's funny you should mention that. The powers that be present two nearly identical candidates on television and 'the people' get to vote for the one they like the most, really doesn't sound very empowering.

Re:Witness the fall of the Republic

[gilroy]

It's funny you should mention that. 'The People' get to vote for their government, not their television.

It's funny you should mention that. The powers that be present two nearly identical candidates on television and 'the people' get to vote for the one they like the most, really doesn't sound very empowering.

And that's why it's the end of the Republic -- because the citizenry accepts that. Despite overheated claims on both sides, most elections in America are in fact legal and fair. It isn't Soviet Russia where there are insurmountable legal barriers to running. But Americans don't care enough (or don't have enough faith or whatever) to demand real choices and real candidates -- or, for that matter, even to run for office on any level. Most people just want to feel their opinion is heard somewhere. Democracy is hard work and touch-tone dialing the latest American Idol null poll is easy.

People say they don't vote because the system is unresponsive. But in fact, the system is unresponsive because they don't vote.

There's also a horizon problem, in that most Americans want a payoff within a short time period -- an hour, tops, but preferably before the end of the next commercial break. Real change takes time, as real systems have social inertia. So we can't be bothered to focus on any process long enough to achieve real success.

But in the end, the hell of it is, this truly is a representative democracy. We get exactly whom we deserve, and they're Just Like Us. More's the pity.

bah

[INeededALogin]

Talk to me in 3.5 years and lets see if Jericho is still in the top 100 of amazon sales.

Let it rest in peace

[Lurker2288]

I enjoyed the show, but I feel okay that it ended where it did. The so-called cliffhanger pretty well summed up the whole spirit of the show: stuff's really messed up, some people will descend into savagery, but others will hang together and try to keep things soldiering on. Sure, if they did decide to bring it back, we might learn how that final battle would have ended, but where to from there? Better to end on something of a high point* than to fizzle through a second, lackluster season.

*I say something of a high point because upon reviewing, it's clear how much better the early episodes were compared to the later ones. The more we learned about the bombs and the plot behind them, the less interesting the whole story became.

Holland style Hurricane Protection?

[McDutchie]

Its all aout priorities, but on New Orleans, I sincerely think that reconstruction of that city is a vain task unless it will recieve Proper (Holland style) Category 5 Hurricane Protection.

Holland style? I would hope not, as Holland doesn't get any hurricanes. That's a good thing too, because we'd be well and truly fucked if we did.

Fuck Jericho

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

I'll go one step further and say what needs to be said here.

Fuck Jericho.

Interesting premise?
yes

Interesting execution?
Not from the first fucking episode.

Friends of mine were obsessed with Jericho, but jesus, Jericho's writers couldnt write drama for shit.
Not even deaf meghan could save it for me, and she's fucking awesome.

'OMG, the world is coming to an end! but wait, you know what's even more interesting? bland interpersonal drama and bullshit quasi-moralistic plotlines and the melodramitcist of all melodramatic skeet ulrich performances!'

Dont care... dont care... *DONT* *CARE*

Fuck Jericho. With so much *decent* television on, its no wonder that CBS decided to pull a fox and replace a lackluster, if rabidly followed and obsessed over by its 3 fans, serial drama with a REALITY SHOW ABOUT CHILDREN BEING LEFT TO RUN A TOWN BY THEMSELVES. Yes, Jericho got replaced with Lord of The Flies 2: Electric Booglaloo: Lord of The Flies Reality TV.

Yes, this is flamebait.
Yes, I'm an asshole.
But,
No, I'm not wrong.
Fuck Jericho.

Shomer-FUCKING-shabbas!

Re:Fortunately...

[the grace of R'hllor]

Probably successfully.

Hate Jericho fans? Why?

[roundrockhorn]

To all the haters, we get your point. I would remind each of you however that many years ago a letter writing campaign saved a show called Star Trek and got it two more seasons. Back then, that was unheard of but today campaigns of this nature (Save Jericho) and size are also unheard of. I'd like to remind the posters here that were it not for shows like Star Trek, a lot of our technological comforts might not exist today. Star Trek caused people to think about the technology involved and inspired generations of fans to create, explore and experiment with new technologies.

In a very loose comparison, Jericho has also caused many people to stop and think. In a world that is often times uncertain, Jericho took us away from our usual worries and got us to examine ourselves a little more closely.

In a world gone completely mad, the residents of Jericho struggled to keep their humanity about them. What would any of us do in the same situation? The show challenged us to think about just such a possibility. I grew up in the Cold War era and I remember a movie called The Day After. Back then, we had to think about a full out Nuclear War. Today we have to think about dirty bombs. Not much difference is there?

So, while you may hate the fans of this show for trying to save it, remember that a movement like this can show what's best about humanity because we have pulled together people from all over the free world and united them in one common voice. We've done it faster than anyone ever has and in larger numbers as well. CBS wanted to reach the 18-49 market and with new delivery methods like the Internet. They did reach us, but failed to recognize it and canceled our show. Now, we will fight to get it back and no ammount of criticism will impede us from finishing what we started. Keep hating our movement if you must, but we'll keep on truckin'.

20,000lbs of nuts, an ad in Variety and The Hollywood Insider, articles in the NYT, ABCnews.com, E!, syfiportal and countless local media outlets have been the first wave of our voices being heard. We know that they are being heard b/c the cBS execs have failed to strike the sets and have stopped returning the rented props for the show. Thanks to slashdot for helping us get the word out.

If you are interested in seeing what the show is about go to cbs.com\jericho and watch the episodes. If you lost interest in the middle of the season, go watch the second helf...it was really good. The love triangle is just a natural part of humantiy in a situation like that and was a part of the show...like it or not. It is resolved, and they move on in the second part of the season.

Save Jericho
NUTS to cBS
Thanks to nutsonline.com
jerichorallypoint.com
Shaun O'Mac and his radio show
and countless others who are working tirelessly to coordinate our campaign.

Joint the fight...it's not too late.

Re:Hyperbole Ho!

[STrinity]

Just look at what happens to shows that have been "saved" -- the third season of Star Trek contains all the worst episodes, including Spock's Brain and The Children Shall Lead. Battlestar Galactica came back as Galactica 1980, which even the most hardcore fans like to pretend didn't exist. Buffy made the jump to UPN after the WB axed it, and the result was an absolute train-wreck. And the new Family Guy episodes are painfully unfunny.

Let it go.