Fang's Bites

Jericho Is Back!

Albeit in reruns on The CW, but starting November 30, the first season of Jericho will be on at 7 p.m. Sundays.

It’s wishful thinking on my part, but perhaps if the ratings do well enough, maybe we can get that third season we’ve all been waiting for?

The CW had outsourced its Sunday primetime schedule and ratings were beyond abysmal.

Here’s the new schedule as of next Sunday.

5:00 – 6:00 p.m.: EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS/THE GAME
6:00 – 7:00 p.m.: THE DREW CAREY SHOW
7:00 – 8:00 p.m.: JERICHO
8:00 – 10:00 p.m.: MOVIE

I’m glad to see Jericho back in any form. Remember, support the show and NUTS!!!!

Jericho’s Back!

Well, on SciFi in reruns, anyway. Season 1 is being run from the pilot to episode 8 today from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m.

Does this mean anything? I’m not sure, but it was nice to see Gerald McRaney, Skeet Ulrich, Alicia Coppola and the other cast members of this special show. I miss it.

So if you haven’t bought the Season 1 DVD, this is a way to catch up on the series. Watch it and you’ll see why I’m such a big fan of the show.

Save Jericho Again

A new ad paid for by fans of the canceled CBS show, “Jericho”.

If you’re a fan of the show like I am, lend your support to this site and sign up.

Alternate Ending to Jericho

I don’t know how the person who posted this video at YouTube did it, this is ending to the second season of Jericho had CBS picked up the series for another year.

Hawkins gives himself up to allow Jake to get away with the bomb. Watching this makes me sad about the ending of the series. I guess I’m in denial, but I still hold out hope that some cable network will pick it up.

Tuesday Night Update

I’ll give you a Tuesday night update here as I flip between the Red Sox-Tigers game and the coverage of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries.

Newsday’s Neil Best previews tonight’s “YESterdays” program on the YES Network which focuses on Alex Rodriguez. And Neil talks with 1050 ESPN Radio’s/YES Network’s Michael Kay about his criticism of Joe Torre.

The Sports Media Watch has a look at the final weekend TV ratings.

Paul J. Gough of the Hollywood Reporter says this year’s Kentucky Derby on NBC was the most watched since 2004.

Ken Schott of the Schenectady Gazette writes in his blog that the ratings for the Kentucky Derby ended just about even with last year, but had a higher viewership than last year. And Ken has his take on Don Cherry joining ESPN to help Barry Melrose analyze the NHL Conference Finals and the Stanley Cup Finals.

Tom Jones of the St. Petersburg Times says Cherry will definitely be worth watching on ESPN.

Judd Zulgad of the Minneapolis Star Tribune says ESPN scored by signing Cherry.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union says due to a clock malfunction in last night’s NBA Orlando-Detroit Eastern Conference semifinal game, the league is thinking about expanding the replay review.

Anthony Crupi of Mediaweek reports that thanks to the NBA Playoffs, TNT has knocked off USA from the top spot of the Cable Primetime ratings last week.

Here’s a story that will give Neil Best gallstones. John Eggerton of Broadcasting & Cable writes that the NFL Network has filed a carriage complaint with the FCC, alleging Comcast discriminated against the channel.

Christopher Byrne of the Eye on Sports Media blog reviews Jim Nantz’s book which was released today.

Julianne Smolinski of TV Week tells us that ESPN is teaming up with the Ad Council to urge men to take care of their health.

Jon Waldman of Slam! Sports says ESPN is denying it hired the WWE’s Jonathan “Coach” Coachman.

Wayne Friedman of MediaPost says CBS Paramount Television is shopping Jericho around to a cable network. I would love nothing more for Jericho to return.

That’s it for now.

Wednesday Evening Update

Blogger is scheduled to go down at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT so before that happens, let me give you some links that I could not get to earlier as I was doing a few things at work (like watch the Big East Tournament online).

Let’s start with Newsday’s Neil Best who writes in his blog that listeners to ESPN Radio’s Stephen A. Smith may no longer be subjected to his diatribes as the former newspaper columnist is negotiating a new contract with the Alleged Worldwide Leader.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell is in Day Three of his Minor League Baseball Logo Contest. And Darren has a quick sports business roundup.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union says a local TV station will produce a half hour special on Siena’s journey into the college basketball postseason.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has some news about the AVP Tour, the pro beach volleyball tour, and it gives him an excuse to show babes in bikinis (yes, I looked, how could I not?).

CBS Sports talks about its Selection Sunday special. And CBS Sports’ Lesley Visser recaps the network’s NCAA Tournament seminar in New York earlier this week.

Paul Gough of the Hollywood Reporter writes that online revenue is a significant portion of CBS’ profits from the NCAA Tournament. Tim Mullaney of Bloomberg says CBS will also double its advertising revenue from its online showing of the NCAA Tournament as compared to last year. Jon Lafayette of TV Week says ad buyers love March Madness.

Paul Daugherty of the Cincinnati Enquirer isn’t too enthralled about seeing Bob Knight on ESPN. By the way, I saw Knight’s debut on ESPN’s SportsCenter this evening. It wasn’t bad. He was being typical Bob and even showed some signs of humor. Even though we’ve all seen his temper, Knight does have a sense of humor.

The Media Bistro Fishbowl NY blog says ESPN is now using sex to get people to read about the Olympics, having gold medal swimmer and resident hottie Amanda Beard to answer questions.

Shelley Smith of ESPN says the NCAA is investigating the University of Connecticut for a possible recruiting violation for arranging a trip star freshman Maya Moore to visit the network’s headquarters in nearby Bristol last year.

Lee Cendrowicz of the Hollywood Reporter says the Olympics in Communist China will lead to a big global ad surge on TV.

For Jericho fans, it’s another cliffhanger of waiting to see if CBS will renew the show for a 3rd season. Brian Stelter of the New York Times says it’s not looking good right now.

That’s it for now. Maybe when Blogger comes back, I’ll have the review of Real Sports up.

Videos of the Week – Jericho Returns

Some videos for you as we get ready for the premiere tonight. You may seen these already.

First, the cast and crew thank the fans for bringing the show back.

CBS put together a video on the Battle for Jericho.

If you’ve forgotten, here’s the first season in a nutshell.

And here’s a behind the scenes look at a napalm run from the season premiere tonight.

Enjoy. NUTS!

More Jericho Linkage

I’m definitely getting ready for Jericho tonight. I’ll give you some more links related to the premiere at 10 p.m.

Lynette Rice of Entertainment Weekly talks with Jericho co-executive producer Karim Zreik about the show’s return. And EW’s Marc Vera has a photo gallery which gives you what’s happened in the show thus far.

Jonathan Storm of the Philadelphia Inquirer admits he was wrong when he originally reviewed Jericho last season. Vinay Menon of the Toronto Star talks about the “NUTS” campaign. Michael Storey of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette says the first two episodes of this season are as good as they come. Andy Tarnoff of OnMilwaukee.com talks with Brad Beyer who plays Stanley. CNN picks up an Associated Press story about Jericho’s resurrection. Tyrone Warner of Canada’s CTV.com says a Canadian politician teamed up with an online distributor of nuts to get Jericho back on the air.

I’ll put up a couple of Jericho videos coming up. Don’t forget the premiere tonight at 10 ET/PT.

Jericho Returns Tuesday

After what has seemed to be 7 years, the series, “Jericho” returns to CBS on Tuesday. After a hairy situation last year after the network canceled the show, a large letter writing campaign plus the “NUTS” campaign helped to bring the series back. Now, this is for a limited run, just 7 episodes, but that means producers will cut to the chase to get the stories in.

Remember that Jericho is a fictional Kansas town that survived a nuclear holocaust. Several U.S. cities including Washington, DC, Denver, Atlanta and San Diego were destroyed. Now, there is a loose confederation of states that includes Kansas.

Jericho survived the attack from neighboring town, New Bern. Now, in the new season, we’ll see the new President of this confederation and how Jericho and New Bern will get along.

Most of the cast is intact. It’ll be interesting to see how the new season goes.

The advance word of this 2nd season is good. Thomas Connor of the Chicago Sun-Times has a positive review. Joanna Weiss of the Boston Globe says the new season is a win for the viewers. Maria Elena Fernandez of the Los Angeles Times looks at the “NUTS!” campaign that brought the show back. Mike Hughes of the Arizona Republic says Jericho is one of the few series that came back. Diane Werts of Newsday says the second season premiere is strong.

Tom Jicha of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel says Jericho is “worth a view”. Hal Boedecker of the Orlando Sentinel says the show deserves its second chance. Chuck Barney of the San Jose Mercury News talks to two members of the cast who are from the Bay Area. Al Norton of BostonNOW talks with the lovely Alicia Coppola who plays Mimi.

The Watching Jericho blog has a sneak preview of the premiere (don’t click on the link if you don’t want to be spoiled). But you can watch the first five minutes of the season premiere here. Let me tell you, I was mesmerized by that video. And head on over to the Jericho Lives site which was in the forefront of the “NUTS! campaign to lend support to the effort to keep the show on the air.

It begins Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. I’ll be watching and hopefully so will you.

Thursday Stuff

Time for some links today.

This is the day when the MLB Draft is televised for the first time. ESPN2 gets the honors so the Alleged Worldwide Leader will have the drafts of the NFL, NBA and MLB in its fold. Today’s draft is being held at Disney’s Wide World of Sports complex Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel has a preview. The Chicago Tribune’s Teddy Greenstein says any draft is an inexact science. Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star says ESPN2 is hoping for a good number in the ratings. Tim Lemke of the Washington Times says ESPN2 is wading into uncharted territory. Carl Stewart of the Oakland Tribune isn’t too enthralled about ESPN’s decision to televise the MLB Draft. Jill Painter of the LA Daily News has a more positive spin on the draft.

ESPN which has put college basketball games on multiple platforms (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN360) is doing the same for the first few minutes of the NBA Finals tonight. Can you say overkill? The Sports Media Watch blog says the use of multiple channels is excessive.

Jerry Garcia of the San Antonio Express has an interview with Ahmad Rashad of NBA TV.

The Des Moines Register reports that the annual rivalry game between Iowa and Iowa State game will be on Versus only. This is part of a sublicensing agreement between Fox Sports Net and Versus. Overall, five Big 12 games will be seen on the little-seen cable channel. So Big 12 football games will be seen on ABC, ESPN, Fox Sports Net and Versus.

LSU is moving its football and basketball games from Sirius Satellite Radio to XM.

The NHL has signed a deal with Sling Media to share clips online. Sling Media makes the Sling Box which MLB is fighting.

Chris Cobb of the Vancouver Sun says Don Cherry’s appearance on NBC Monday was more to promote himself than anything else. I disagree, but Cherry has never liked people from Vancouver so this is par for the course.

On to Jericho, the New York Times reports on the excellent decision by CBS to bring the series back next season. Matt Webb Mitovich of TV Guide writes about Skeet Ulrich thanking the fans for the NUTS campaign. The Hollywood Reporter says most of the cast will return. The nutty Kristen from E! has more on the Jericho resurrection.

And yesterday was the last day on the job for the great Bob Barker.

N-U-T-S!

Three cast members of Jericho made this video. It was released today, probably before the news of Jericho’s renewal became official.

The Return of Jericho

June 6, 2007

To the Fans of Jericho:

Wow!

Over the past few weeks you have put forth an impressive and probably unprecedented display of passion in support of a prime time television series. You got our attention; your emails and collective voice have been heard.

As a result, CBS has ordered seven episodes of “Jericho” for mid-season next year. In success, there is the potential for more. But, for there to be more “Jericho,” we will need more viewers.

A loyal and passionate community has clearly formed around the show. But that community needs to grow. It needs to grow on the CBS Television Network, as well as on the many digital platforms where we make the show available.

We will count on you to rally around the show, to recruit new viewers with the same grass-roots energy, intensity and volume you have displayed in recent weeks.

At this time, I cannot tell you the specific date or time period that “Jericho” will return to our schedule. However, in the interim, we are working on several initiatives to help introduce the show to new audiences. This includes re-broadcasting “Jericho” on CBS this summer, streaming episodes and clips from these episodes across the CBS Audience Network (online), releasing the first season DVD on September 25 and continuing the story of Jericho in the digital world until the new episodes return. We will let you know specifics when we have them so you can pass them on.

On behalf of everyone at CBS, thank you for expressing your support of “Jericho” in such an extraordinary manner. Your protest was creative, sustained and very thoughtful and respectful in tone. You made a difference.

Sincerely,

Nina Tassler

President, CBS Entertainment

P.S. Please stop sending us nuts

The DVD will be out on 9/25!!! A Tuesday, of course and I’ll be at Best Buy on the day of release. The 20 million tons of nuts actually made a difference.

More later.

Some more Wednesday Stuff

Giving you a few more bits of news today.

First, the fine blog, Sports Media Watch looks behind the poor ratings of the NHL for Games 1, 2 and 3 and what programs finished ahead of them. Saturday night’s ratings for NBC were very bad as you’re aware by now.

Newsday’s Neil Best says Chris Russo of WFAN has debuted a new feature today on NBCSports.com called “Sidelines”. Best notes that Russo waves his arms a lot on camera and it’s true. I think Mad Dog will told to stop that eventually.

How nice of NBC (sarcasm). They’re going to allow blogs like this one post video clips of news and sports programs.

The positive reviews keep coming in for HBO’s documentary on Barbaro. Here’s one from the Orlando Sentinel.

HBO’s boxing curmudgeon, Larry Merchant is without a contract, but apparently is trying to come to terms with the pay channel. According to Dan Raphael of ESPN.com, it’s a two year contract with options for more.

The nuts campaign to CBS may have paid off. For those of you who aren’t fans of Jericho, fans of the show sent 25 million tons of nuts to CBS to protest the cancellation of the show. And the Hollywood Reporter reports the campaign may lead to bringing the show back for 7-8 shows next season. The network is working out details with some of the cast, writers and show staff. An announcement is expected sometime today and that is good news. I’m a big fan of the show and enjoyed watching it last season. I’m hoping to get a resolution of the storylines that were told very well.

That’s it for now.

ABC Upfronts Review

Virginia Heffernan complained about the cold, Jimmy Kimmel’s standup and talks about Oprah getting her own reality show. It’s all here.

Michael Ausiello of TV Guide has a running real time blog of the events today.

Jericho, one of my faves this season, has been canceled! No!!!!!!

However, CBS has picked up How I Met Your Mother and dropped Close to Home along with The Class.

Veronica Mars is not on the CW’s fall schedule.

I’m not happy seeing Jericho canceled. Not. At. All.

Jericho and Lost

Some thoughts on the two shows tonight.

I hope this isn’t the end of Jericho. The show ended the season on a very high note. New Bern trying to invade Jericho. The Green men, Johnston, Jake and Eric leading the defense of the town. Touching moments like Stanley, Mimi and Bonnie at the Richmond graves talking to Stanley’s parents. Alicia Coppola is a great member of the cast. So is Brad Beyer.

And it’s really too bad the show has to kill off cast members. I was hoping tonight’s death would be Mayor Gray Anderson, but instead, it had to be Johnston, killed by gunfire. Jericho had a Lost-type of flashback surrounding the wedding of Eric to April. The entire family is worried about Jake’s toast to Eric, but while drunk, Jake ends up doing the right thing.

And with Johnston’s death, Jake now becomes the leader of the defense of Jericho. I do want to know what exactly is up with Hawkins. Is he a rogue? Is he trying to defend against another nuclear bomb? We now know the old man is in the government, but is the old man bad?

I’m glad to see Heather back. I knew she wasn’t dead. We just need Sprague Grayden to be made part of the regular cast if the show returns next season. Tonight’s grade, an A. And we hope at the CBS upfronts next week that Jericho is on the fall schedule.

Lost has had some strong episodes lately. The first seven episodes of this season were absolutely horrible. Then after the long hiatus, the show began to rise to the level it was back in Season One. I hated Season 2, but the last seven episodes have been very strong. Then we get tonight’s confusing episode which tried to give some answers about the island. We now know Ben’s mother died at childbirth after having Ben in the woods two months early.

And then Locke challenges Ben’s authority, beating Mikhail into a pulp. It appears Locke is about to be the new sheriff in town. Ben wants to know about the secrets. So Ben takes Locke to see “Jacob”.

In the meantime, we get to know more about Ben. That is father is a miserable drunk and was lured to the island by the guy who helped Ben’s dad when Ben was born. That Ben was shy. That his father was a janitor and is the body that Hurley found in the VW van in the woods (nice touch to have the same Three Dog Night song play). That Ben was part of the team that killed the Dharma Initiative.

And we also see the castaways wondering about Jack and Juliet’s intentions. We do find out that Juliet told Jack of Ben’s intentions to invade the castaways. Nice to see Sawyer asserting more leadership. To me, Jack has become a throwaway character and I wouldn’t mind seeing him as part of the cast bloodbath that apparently began tonight.

So after Ben takes Locke to Jacob’s house, we go inside to see an empty chair. Ben talks to it and says to Locke, “Do you see him?” Locke does not and shines a light when all of a sudden, things move in the house and we hear, “Help me.” It’s Jacob, but Locke doesn’t want to acknowledge it.

And the following day as Locke and Ben are walking back, Locke notices they’re walking a different way. Ben says he wants to show him something. It’s a mass grave of the Dharma people. Then Ben shoots Locke and John falls into the grave. Ben asks Locke what did he hear? Locke finally tells him and it appears that Locke has died.

Now I didn’t see that coming. I know that there is supposedly a cast bloodbath and five deaths are coming, but not Locke! Damn!

Up until Locke’s “death” and I put that in quotation marks for now, I was giving this episode a C. But with the shooting, it’s raised to a B-.

Next week, Charlie is supposed to die.