Save Jericho!
Jericho (image from supersatellite.com)
There’s a qualitative difference between American broadcast network TV programming and that offered by smaller cable stations. The networks (CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox) have larger budgets, much more viewers and command greater and more demanding advertisers. Because they are national and broad-based, they must also cater to a broader and less niched audience.
Cable networks, like the CW or SciFi, tend to have niche markets and smaller budgets. They pay their actors and producers less, but are content with their minority market share because although it is small, it is dependable. Stargate SG-1 is an example of a niche show that could not survive on broadcast network TV, but thrived after moving to the less demanding niche system of the SciFi channel. While the networks canceled it for sound economic reasons, SciFi ran with it and made it the longest running science fiction show in American TV history.
This brings us to a little show called Jericho. When CBS introduced Jericho last year, the show was meant to be a genre-busting monster, like ABC’s Lost. A parallel online mystery was planned, with all sorts of marketing tie-ins. But, for a lot of reasons, Jericho just didn’t have the mass appeal of Lost, and was canceled at the end of its first season.
But a dramatic and touching fan campaign, involving the delivery of tons of peanuts to the CBS offices (see, “nuts” was a theme of defiance in the show), miraculously brought Jericho back from the dead. Not since fans protested the cancellation of Star Trek in the 1960s had this been a successful tact in America.
So Jericho was brought back for a limited 7 episode run. But ratings are lower than ever –again, for a variety of reasons, including CBS positioning it at 10pm after the atrocious Big Brother. It seems unlikely that it will be renewed for a third season.
And this is where the niche markets of cable stations come in. Jericho’s ratings, while poor for a network show, would be tremendous for a cable show. It would mean cutting salaries of some of the stars, but I hope SciFi or the CW or another station has the foresight to pick up this show, because, frankly, it’s one of the best TV dramas currently on network television (second only to the near-perfect Lost).
Pertinent to this site are two questions. First off, does Jericho qualify as science fiction and why is it being discussed on Skiffy? Jericho is about the social, emotional and political aftermath of nuclear bombs going off in middle America. It’s told from the perspective of a small town in Kansas that miraculously survives the explosions. We know what they know, and nothing more. So, strictly speaking, this is not classic science fiction, as no science has been fictionalized. But the scenario is fantastical and akin to premises plumbed by instruments of science fiction. Jericho is technically a post-apocalyptic adventure, but there’s nothing cheesy, futuristic or unbelievable about it.
Second, why is it worth saving? What makes it so great? This is hard to describe. Everything about the show, given its low budget and small scope, is done to near perfection. The stories are small but exist against an enormous political backdrop. The writing is of the highest quality. In a recent episode, a man mourns the death of his deaf sister. He is shown signing to her corpse, a scene so touching because that is how he would have communicated with her in life: the writing accurately depicts a true representation of the repercussions of death.
The characters are lovable and flawed. Our hero, Jake, has a dark secret that we do not know until circumstances pry it from him in the second season: he was involved in war crimes in Iraq. The most interesting character is a fellow named Hawking, played to perfection by Brit Lenny James. We know that Hawking was somehow involved in the bombings, but we don’t know in what capacity. Is he a good guy or a bad guy?
And the acting is tremendous. In an exchange between Hawking and an army major, dialogue and delivery were projected with such tense precision that it was like watching a verbal chess match. See, the drama of Jericho is not from the nuclear bombs or the men with guns, but from the terse and complex interactions between individual characters whose motivations and agendas are never quite clear, but which plainly matter.
The problems in the town of Jericho are small but immense. The details are important. One episode focused on how to get power back to the town, which now is the only niche of civilization for hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles. Another dealt with townsfolk hiding from the nuclear fallout blowing toward them from bombed urban centres. As winter approached, more episodes dealt with how to secure food and conserve fuel. And throughout these seemingly banal predilections, the mystery of the bombings themselves deepened, the social tensions in the town tightened, and a sudden terrifying and intriguing fact revealed itself: Hawking still has a nuclear bomb hidden in his shed.
Yet Jericho can still be subversive and, frankly, kick-ass. Want to see the Most Shocking Gunfight in TV History? Watch this, from episode #4 of Jericho’s shortened 2nd season, as the Little Deaf Girl takes on a team of mercenaries. Warning: major spoilers and carnage.
I cannot sing the praises of Jericho loudly enough. Here’s hoping another miracle saves it for a third season.
Review: Stargate Sg-1 – “The Ark of Truth”
A long time ago, there was this great movie called Stargate, which surprised everyone by presenting a smart, well-acted, science-fiction adventure that was accessible to the slobbering masses. It successfully plumbed the tired old Erik von Daniken theories… you know, the ones about aliens visiting ancient cultures on Earth and helping our forebears to build such things as the Pyramids of Egypt (because, obviously, they were too dumb to do it without extraterrestrial help).
Stargate told of US airforce officers travelling to a distant planet by means of a “stargate”, a doorway to a wormhole, to meet a population of humans enslaved by an alien posing as an Egyptian god. For a surprisingly large demographic of viewers who were fascinated by both science fiction and ancient history, Stargate was pure gold.
Interestingly, the movie was successfully translated to the small scene with the creation of Stargate: SG-1, a show whose premise built upon the whole aliens-did-your-grandmother thing by suggesting that the galaxy is teeming with life -human life- brought there by meddling dictatorial aliens. The premise was fantastic and, via the perfect plot device of the stargate itself, allowed for some great adventures.
But Stargate: SG-1 surprised many of us by not just being a Star Trek rip-off or a throwaway weekend adventure show. Stargate was smart and adult. I didn’t discover the show until well into its 3rd season, and was shocked to find stories that were internally consistent and that did not talk down to its audience with meaningless technobabble or “particle of the week”. Facts that we learned about the physics of the stargate were consistently applied and incorporated into actual physics, making the show all the more plausible and exciting.
Stargate quickly became my favourite TV show. I have likened it to “comfort food” because I knew that each week would bring me the intelligence, adventure and good production that I craved in a television show.
Unbelievably, despite repeated threats of cancellation and moves to different networks, Stargate secured a run as the longest continuously broadcast science fiction show in American TV history, capping its 10th and final season with an elegant and intimate finale. Yet many in the mainstream TV-watching audience had never seen an episode or had even heard of the show. Though it was survived by its weaker spin-off, Stargate: Atlantis, the intimacy, quality, respect and intelligence of SG-1 did not resonate with a large enough audience to merit its rescue from the network hitmen.
Clearly, there was a dedicated audience of die-hard fans keeping the show alive all this time. It was to this hardcore group that the first direct-to-dvd post-cancellation SG-1 movie was targeted. Called “The Ark of Truth”, this feature length offering tied up all the loose ends from the last 2 seasons, but wasted no time in filling in a back story for new or casual viewers. This was for dedicated fans only.
Viewed in that context, the movie works fine. The story is simple. The great villains of the last 2 seasons, the Ori, are dead, but their followers persist in their crusade to, of course, invade our galaxy and enslave all humans, etc. The team, minus the beloved and much missed Richard Dean Anderson, must locate the fabled “ark of truth”, which can finally put an end to the Ori threat. This means that they finally get to go to the Ori galaxy, a plot development that allows for some great space visuals.
Shot on 35 mm film and scored beautifully, it has that big screen look and sound. But it still has a small screen feel. And this is a problem. One of my beefs with Stargate is how every alien planet looks like British Columbia, and how every alien society is essentially a bunch of white folks in torn felt, walking around Pioneer Village while speaking without contractions. This was foregiveable in the TV show, with its limited budget and time. But with the new powers granted to a full-length movie, surely some money could have been spared for more believable alien environs? I would have preferred less spectacle and more authenticity.
The story itself is disappointing, complete with my least favourite resolution device, the deus ex machina ending… literally. There were plot holes and lazy elements aplenty, many of which could have been addressed with a bit more screen time. But instead of allowing for that time, there is an extended and pointless scene of one character climbing to the top of a mountain. Yes, it looked great, but didn’t really advance the storyline much.
It pains me to criticize a Stargate offering, but “The Ark of Truth” is lesser than many of the show’s best episodes. But as a two-part episode, it would have functioned well as a broadcast finale on regular television.
Despite its flaws, “The Ark of Truth” accomplishes its goal, to tie up loose ends for dedicated fans. Casual viewers will not find this offering appealing in the least. But this hardcore SG-1 fan was pleased to see these characters flash across my screen once more, and I’m glad I invested the time to enjoy this bit of nostalgia. I have greater faith in the next SG-1 movie, however. Called “Continuum”, I suspect it focuses more on a good story and less on playing with an expanded budget.
