Jericho, Kans, is the post-apocalyptic town that won’t die. Or rather, “Jericho,” the show based on the post-blast life of that rural town, won’t be killed — not if fans have anything to say about it. CBS announced last week that the network was wrapping up the show after only one season. As was the case with many other dramas this season, a lengthy hiatus in the middle of the season drove away viewers, and “Jericho,” an unlikely success in the first place, never quite regained the audience that it had during the fall. But viewers reacted with swift fury, and said “Nuts!” to CBS (echoing a line from the show’s rousing season finale, which saw the residents of the town making a last stand against an armed attack from a nearby settlement).
Viewers inundated CBS with outraged e-mails and message-board comments calling for a second season of the show, and the network’s president, Nina Tassler, was compelled to post a message on a fan forum a few days ago. “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,” Tassler wrote. “Please know that canceling a television series is a very difficult decision. … 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 to the compelling drama that was the Jericho story.”
It sounds as though Tassler’s talking about a possible wrap-up TV movie (something “Deadwood” fans will have to be content with — if and when those wrap-up movies air, which may be up to two years after the show’s third season ended), but some fans have made it clear that that won’t be good enough.
“While it is very flattering that Ms. Tassler went out of her way to post a message for us online, I have to say on behalf of each and every ‘Jericho’ fan that not one of us will settle for anything less than season two, CBS or no CBS, and if they think our recent campaigning has been bad, it’s only going to get worse,” one fan, Melanie, wrote in an e-mail to me on Monday.
Could “Jericho” move to another network? Hard to say. Network dramas are far more expensive than cable dramas, which would make any cable network very wary of picking up the show (even TNT, which would be a good fit — fans have been pressuring that network to pick up “Jericho”). Still, even after it began getting clobbered by “American Idol” this year, “Jericho” had a respectable audience of 8 million viewers — a segment of which has proven itself to be very devoted (one fan petition already has more than 60,000 signatures).
If CBS does actually plan a wrap-up movie — or if the show makes the move to another network (and again, I don’t want to get fans’ hopes up — that is very unlikely), you can be sure I will let you know about it as soon as it’s announced.
My own two cents: The show certainly has some life left in it, but without a certain central character, who died in the season finale, the show is less attractive. The show deserves a wrap-up movie, but perhaps not another season, in my own humble opinion.
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All good things must come to an end
Will Tony Soprano go out with a bang?
That’s no doubt the question on the minds of fans of the HBO stalwart “The Sopranos,” which bows out for good June 10 after eight years.
It’s not hard to picture Tony getting whacked as the show closes. He’s certainly got a lot of enemies in the mob world, and as we know from watching the show (not to mention dozens of organized-crime movies), not too many former Cosa Nostra bosses spend their retirements on peaceful beaches. They’re far more likely to take a bullet and get dumped in a shallow grave.
But if there’s one thing that “Sopranos” creator David Chase loves, it’s to confound the audience’s expectations. Perhaps the series won’t end in violence. Maybe it won’t have much of an ending at all — after so many seasons of pushing the edge of the envelope on how stories are told on television, perhaps Chase won’t want to provide a tidy ending. Just as New Jersey is Tony’s fiefdom, “The Sopranos” is Chase’s baby — and he may just choose to leave us scratching our heads.
If you think you can guess how “The Sopranos” will end — or you have an idea how it should end — share it with us by May 30. Keep your entry to fewer than 50 words; the rest of the rules are available online. The entry that the Tribune deems the winner will get a sweet DVD boxed set of the first 5 1/2 seasons of “The Sopranos.”
So get your entry ready and send it in.
Or fuggeddaboutit.
— Maureen Ryan
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For complete contest rules, go to chicagotribune.com/sopranos
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