Archive: US TV 2008

In the US: Tuesdays, 10pm ET/PT, CBS. Returns February 12th

In the UK: Hallmark, etc, when the time is right

Cast your mind back a while. Jericho was, for a while, one of the big hits of Fall 2006. An odd mix of right-wing lunacy and left-wing lunacy, it asked what would happen if nuclear bombs went off in almost every city in the US. Soap opera for survivalists, it turned out, with our noble survivors planning farming patterns, how to avoid nuclear fallout and how to shoot at anyone from a neighbouring town who moved – while deciding whether to leave their wives for the pregnant mistresses. All this was married with the tale of a cool black undercover CIA guy who knew that wacky people who thought the US should have attacked the USSR in 1962 were behind the bombs.

As I said – you get lunacy from both ends of the political spectrum in Jericho. But it was more entertaining than it sounds. Honest.

Then oops. After running non-stop all Fall, after the Christmas break, ratings fell off because everyone forgot it was on, and the show got cancelled at the end of the first season.

But you know what? If you send truckloads of peanuts to CBS TV executives, it turns out that they’ll revive a show – for seven episodes at least. And in the vacuum left by the writers’ strike, maybe it could get those stellar ratings back again when it airs next month.

Continue reading “Preview: Jericho 2×1-2×3”

In the US: Thursdays, 10/9c, ABC. Starts January 31, 2008
In the UK: Not yet acquired

God. He’s a slippery old bugger, particularly when you’re trying to make him a central theme of a mainstream television show.

Do you spend your time trying to prove he doesn’t exist? No, because you’ll be boycotted in minutes by various pressure groups, and it’ll be roughly an hour before a network executive pulls the plug on you, even assuming you didn’t annoy all the God-fearing, red-state audiences into not watching you in the first place.

Or do you come over all fundamentalist (cf Saving Grace), thus annoying the Hell out Muslims, atheists, et al, as well as any other fundamentalists that don’t share your particular view of the Bible?

Eli Stone goes for the much-trodden, wishy washy middle-path. To quote one of the characters, for any event, “there are two interpretations: the scientific and the divine.” Yes, joining Signs and I Am Legend in the exciting world of inoffensive ambiguity is Eli Stone, prophet at large. Or maybe not. It’s up to you. Your decision. We’re not telling you anything.

Continue reading “Preview: Eli Stone”