Okay, it’s a week ’til the second season of “Jericho” premieres. Time to really start getting excited…
As regular readers of Premium Hollywood know, we’ve been fans of “Jericho” from the get-go. Yes, we laid it on the line and acknowledged when we didn’t love everything we were seeing – both myself and John Paulsen went so far as to channel our inner Stephen Colbert, each of us putting the show on notice at one point or another – but when the series came back from its network-imposed midseason hiatus, it came back with all thrusters firing. Naturally, CBS then proceeded to cancel the series….and, just as naturally, the show’s fans rebelled. Defying the law of averages, the fans won: CBS reversed its decision and renewed “Jericho” for a second season. Yes, it’s shorter this time around, earning only a seven-episode shot at Round 2, but based on what I’ve seen, the crunch has worked in the show’s favor.
I was fortunate enough to get the show’s executive producer, Carol Barbee, on the phone for a few minutes, and she offered up quite a lot of scoop about the upcoming season…and although I did make sure to follow CBS’s requests to keep mum about certain specifics within the episodes, you should be forewarned that there are still plenty of small spoilers sprinkled throughout. (Also, I promise that there’s less of me talking as the conversation progresses; she just asked my opinion, so I felt obliged to give it!)
Bullz-Eye: Hey, Carol, how are you?
Carol Barbee: I’m good! How are you?
BE: Battling a cold, but hanging on. It’s a pleasure to speak with you; I think we spoke for about five seconds during the TCA Press Tour.
CB: Yeah, that sounds about right. (Laughs)
BE: Well, CBS has sent me six of the seven episodes in Season 2 of “Jericho,” and from what I’ve seen, my first reaction is that, for as much as I already loved the way the show had taken such a significant upswing at the end of Season 1, it looks like you even managed to fix the few problems I still had with it!
CB: Oh, wow, I’m so glad to hear that!
BE: I have to be honest that circumstances have kept me from putting in the second disc, with episodes 4 – 6, but…
CB: (In a hushed voice) Oh…!
BE: …but now that I’ve finished the first three episodes, I’m chomping at the bit to watch them!
CB: Well, at some point, I want to hear the problems that you think we fixed, because that’s really good to hear.
BE: Okay, well, granted, a lot of those problems were well on their way to being fixed as the second half of the first season found the show evolving. Like, I know there was a whole lot of talk about how the show would be partly like “Little House on the Prairie,” and it had definitely begun departing from that. Which was good, because, y’know, with a premise involving nuclear bombs going off in the United States, it just seemed like it should’ve been a darker show.
CB: Yes, thank you!
BE: And I’m sure that, with its new 10 PM timeslot, that’s going to help with that.
CB: Yeah, I think so, too.
BE: Did you ask for the later timeslot for that reason, or was that something the network just gave to you?
CB: It was luck of the draw. I mean, honestly, it depended on what their new shows did, so we could’ve been on Sundays at 8 PM or Tuesdays at 10 PM or Fridays at 9 PM. So we were prepared for anything. But we’re thrilled to be a 10 o’clock show. I think we are a darker show, and I think that’s the right place for us.
BE: I know that Season 2 was originally going to take place in Jericho, Cheyenne, and New York, but how did the direction of the season change when you got a smaller episode order than you’d anticipated?
