Jericho is gone. Again. Another sci-fi series that didn’t attract sufficient audience numbers for its network to deem it worthy of survival. What makes this familiar scenario relevant to us is that after its initial cancellation, Jericho was renewed thanks to fan efforts.

Any Star Trek fan worth his/her comm badge knows how the original series was saved from cancellation by fan campaigns - twice. For those who need a refresher, after the first season in which the show never rose above 52nd place in the ratings, NBC was reluctant to renew it. Members of the Science Fiction Writers Association, spurred into action by Harlan Ellison, prompted fans to write to NBC, which they did in record numbers. That fan uproar encourage NBC to not only announce the return of Star Trek on air - an unprecedented action - but to ask fans not to write any more letters!

After a creatively spectacular but still ratings-challenged second season, the show was once again threatened with cancellation. A pre-emptive strike, spearheaded by fan Bjo Trimble, launched hundreds of thousands of letters into NBC mailrooms and planted protests by mobs of picketing fans on their doorstep. Once again, NBC announced that the show would return.

Fast forward forty years: Jericho had a strong start in its first season, but when that season was split in two by a three-month hiatus, ratings of the second-half episodes were halved. CBS cancelled the show, and outraged fans rose up in protest. Taking a cue from a character’s line in the season’s final episode, nearly 5,000 fans sent nuts to network executives to show support for the series. CBS relented, bringing the show back for a seven-episode arc.

5,000 fans?

Flash back four years: Star Trek: Enterprise had a small but very loyal audience on UPN. After the third season, the show was definitely “on the bubble” and in danger of  not being renewed. Fans rallied, forming groups like The Enterprise Project and SaveEnterprise, sending letters of support and taking out paid advertisements in the show-business trade publications. Perhaps encouraged by these vocal fans (though likely more interested in DVD sales and future syndication deals), UPN and Paramount brought Enterprise back for a fourth season.

After a creatively spectacular but still ratings-challenged third season (where have I heard that before?), the series was again in peril. This time, collected into a single entity named TrekUnited, fans took to the streets. Visible shows of support were evident at Viacom headquarters in New York and in front of the fabled Paramount gates in Hollywood. Actors, writers and producers from Enterprise greeted the excited fans.

In an unprecedented move, TrekUnited sought fan contributions to directly fund the production of a fifth season. According to founder Tim Brazeal, the group collected over 100,000 signatures on on-line petitions, had over 800,000 members on its mailing list, and deluged UPN with so many phone calls that they dedicated a special phone number and voicemail to accomodate them. Tim and the TU staff did over 300 interviews with major media outlets who were curious about this exceptional fan phenomenon.

Not only that, but over 8,000 dedicated Star Trek fans pledged money toward continuing the journey of Archer’s NX-01. Not nuts... cold hard cash!

So... fewer than 5,000 fans got mighty number-one network CBS to change its mind, but 8,000 cash-carrying Star Trek fans were unable to convince sixth-place UPN... whatever happened to UPN anyway?

Most likely UPN was not going to renew Enterprise no matter what fans did. Long gone were the top-level executives at Paramount and UPN who had been supporters of both Star Trek shows on that network. A valiant effort, nonetheless.

CBS managed to benefit from the Jericho situation: from the buzz surrounding the fan activities, to getting the mini-season produced before the writer’s strike that crippled all other productions. They brought the series back for seven episodes, but started airing them during the strike. It meant they had original shows to present, but television viewing was already in a slump. They insisted the producers create two versions of the final episode, one of which was a cliffhanger that would set up the next season. When the last episode aired, though, it was the other series-finale version. I wonder what kind of ratings would have been needed to make them decide the show was worthy of another season.

Any time that fans can bring about a change in a network decision, it’s a good thing. I applaud the Jericho fans for their creativity and tenacity, and I’m glad they got the chance to enjoy another story arc for their characters, however brief.

Grand Slam Convention - This Weekend!

As I mentioned in my last column, Creation Entertainment’s Grand Slam convention in Burbank, California is very Star Trek focused this year. I’ll be attending on Sunday (Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto on stage together - are you kidding me?!?!) and I hope to see you there!
 

Big Bang = Big Laughs

If you haven’t seen this season’s hit comedy “The Big Bang Theory” you’re missing a treat. The two main characters, Sheldon and Leonard (get the 1960’s TV reference?), are young physicists at Cal Tech and - not surprisingly - nerdy Star Trek fans. In the pilot episode, they confess to playing something called Klingon Boggle, “Just like Boggle... but in Klingon.”

Series executive producer Bill Prady is a veteran comedy writer (“Dharma & Greg”, “Gilmore Girls”, “Caroline in the City”) but he also wrote the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Bliss” - where Seven of Nine discovers that the ship is being eaten by a giant bio-plasmic organism.

The writing staff clearly has an affection for technology and intelligence; where scientific technobabble might serve the purpose on most shows, they are very careful to present things that actually DO make sense to an educated viewer. I have to say that this was the one show I was looking forward to coming back with new episodes after the strike. Check it out! Monday nights on CBS.

Star Trek Remastered

The Star Trek Remastered episode this weekend is "Obsession" - production number 47, which aired smack in the middle of the second season on December 15, 1967.

Ralph Senesky directed, one of his six original-series episodes including “Is There in Truth No Beauty”; he also worked on nearly 70 other television series. Script is by Art Wallace, who also penned “Assignment: Earth” and numerous episodes of the series “Dark Shadows”.

Hoping we’ll see a remastered version of the deadly cloud creature that haunts Kirk’s memory. High “redshirt” factor in this episode, with two killed and one mortally wounded right off the bat in the prologue, two more attacked shortly after that, and then two more!

Jerry Ayres played Rizzo, the lone survivor of the first attack. Of course he dies later, after giving Kirk important information. Ayres should have known better; in the first-season episode “Arena” he played O’Herlihy, the lone redshirt to beam down with the landing party. He makes it just four minutes into the episode, and then he’s vaporized!

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