UPFRONTS FALLOUT FALLOUT: MARS BARS WITH NUTS

As is old news in this age of the intarweb tubes, Jericho got a bit of a reprieve. A midseason slot and a small order of episodes. Enough to tie up the loose ends, at least, and the hope of maybe a full-on return jf the ratings warrant it. All of this the result of fans shipping greating heaping piles of nuts to the network for reasons explained elsewhere.

Now the Veronica Mars fans are emboldened to try something (which I wonder why they didn't before, since there's never been a time when VM went into the upfronts completely safe (well, maybe last year, with the secret message)). I think maybe there was the idea that the whole sending of objects and letters didn't work anymore. The last few instances where it got anything accomplished, it generally didn't last too long that I recall (I could be wrong).

Here's how I'm looking at the difference between the two. Veronica Mars has had three full seasons to establish itself and try to build its base and after three years, despite Dawn Ostroff apparently being a fan of the show, the CW saw little future for the series and lo, the axe did fall. Ostroff has dropped hints that there might be something for us VM fans, but Rob Thomas didn't seem to know anything about it. It may just be trying to engender some good will (as with all the talk of Whedonverse projects following the truly unjust cancellation of Angel in favor of a show that never even made it on the schedule, nothing has materialized). I don't think piles of Mars bars being sent to the network is really going to do it at this point. Though, at a buck or two a bar, it would make a case for the subscription model that doesn't really seem to exist yet.

Jericho, on the other hand, started out its one season with solid ratings. It was a bright spot in the new season's offerings from CBS. Then, the series was put on one of those highly questionable hiatuses (hiati?) in which fans must wait for, like, three months to get a new episode and worse, no reruns during that time, so no new fans can find and get caught up on the show. When it returned, it was scarcely a surprise that rating were way down. CBS shot itself in the foot. The campaign to get Jericho back on the air simply shows CBS that they could have handled it better and gives them an opportunity to redeem themselves and maybe salvage something from their own mistake.

Between the two, though, gimme the perky P.I. / FBI intern any day.

And you know, just to grind in the hurt, the Veronica in the FBI presentation for the fourth season will be on the third season DVDs, so we can see how awesome it could have been.