Watching Jericho

The New York Times has an article explaining CBS’s decision in breaking the season of Jericho in two, using both 24 and Lost as a guideline and their weak showings when interspersing repeats in with new episodes throughout the whole season.

Deep into the fall 2006 season, for example, CBS had no idea what to make of “Jericho,� a show about a small Kansas town cut off from the rest of the country after nuclear attacks on big cities. Kelly Kahl, the chief scheduler for CBS, convened a meeting in October to deal with some pressing questions. Could the show repeat episodes successfully (something “Lost� and “24� have never been able to do)? How would the show manage to get through a 36-week television season with only 22 new episodes? Would die-hard fans have the patience to wait through a long interregnum for fresh episodes?

“We realized we had a different animal on our hands,� Mr. Kahl said. He acknowledged that CBS looked for answers from the track records of “24� and “Lost,� each of which had taken different approaches.

Instead of following the traditional formula of alternating between reruns and new episodes, they decided to completely split the season in half, making sure that we would be able to have new episodes back-to-back on a regular basis. Now if I can just be patient enough to wait for February.