Could The Strike Help Jericho?


by Paul William Tenny

That's my thought after pondering for a moment where we find ourselves. SyFy Portal is speculating that CBS may fill the time slot recently vacated by the recently canceled Viva Laughlin, after they spin up some press and get the machine moving. For the time being, they'll fill that hole with reruns of other programs currently producing new episodes such as CSI and some reality garbage.

But what about the strike? There has been some speculation too that Jericho will be held back until January or later to start filling in air time when the other shows run out of scripts due to the presumed writers strike that will probably happen sometime in early November. I've been the only person around to suggest that Jericho's revival had less to do with angry and persistent fans as it did the uncertain landscape which the networks and studios find themselves.

The strike was looking extremely likely well before the authorization vote was called, and I think it is past the time that we put some serious weight behind the possibility that CBS brought back a limited run of new Jericho episodes as a backup plan to mitigate some of the strike damage.

And now it occurs to me that if CBS holds Jericho back until the other shows start running out of scripts and everyone is forced to start showing reruns and a flood of new reality programming, CBS will be one of the only places in town that has original programming to air - and good stuff at that, in Jericho.

This brings a much greater potential for eyeballs with no other new programming anywhere on TV that isn't reality garbage, it could give those limited number of Jericho episodes a rating unlike any the show has ever seen before. It's really a shame and I'm sure CBS is cursing itself for not ordering more episodes, because if this is the scenario that plays out, those seven episodes aren't going to last very long.

If they had a full season banked, of even half of a regular season, it could help CBS and whatever studio produces the show hurt just a little bit less than everybody else during the strike. On the other hand, it's just as likely that a strike will drive away so many viewers that it won't matter either way.
in Television

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