"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.

What a waste of food.

[dsanfte]

Seriously.

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

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.

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: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.

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.

Re:It's a TV Show

[hachete]

Also, whilst tanning, read a fucking book.

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: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.

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.

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.