As viewers were waxing nostalgic over the period of World War II (1941-5), CBS already had a hit sitcom set in that period, the comedy-adventure, Hogan's Heroes, which was entering its 2nd season in 1966. CBS then purchased a WWII drama from producer Norman Felton's Arena Productions & MGM that they thought would be a complement to Hogan.
Jericho told the story of a 3-man team of agents operating behind enemy lines. Problem was, CBS also launched the more contemporary Mission: Impossible that same season, and it managed to last into the 70's. Worse for Jericho, the first half of the show aired opposite Batman. Game over.
ABC, by the way, also had a pair of WWII-themed series: Rat Patrol lasted two seasons, and had one cast member in common with Jericho, that being Hans Gudegast, aka Eric Braeden, later of The Young & The Restless. 20th Century Fox's Blue Light, with Robert Goulet, lasted just one season.
Here's the intro. Bill Woodson is the narrator.
Co-creators Richard Levinson & William Link would find their niche in crime dramas, starting with Columbo, and would return to CBS with Murder, She Wrote, some 20 years after Jericho.
No rating.
7 comments:
I watched a few of these on WA Instant when it was still active, and it is out on DVD through WA. Not that memorable, but not terrible either.
As you mention, truly pounded by the competition and cancelled at midseason. Ranked 73rd out of 91 shows with a 14.4 rating. NBC was winning the time period as of early Jan. 1967 with DANIEL BOONE (19.9 rating, 27th), with ABC not far behind with BATMAN (19.3, 37th) and F TROOP (18.8, 39th). CBS' replacement, COLISEUM, didn't do any better, ranking outside the top 70 at season's end.
You think maybe it was on the wrong night, Hal? Or was it just a case of one too many shows set in the same time frame (WWII) airing that same season?
Your history is a tad wonky.
- CBS was mainly a comedy-variety network in '66.
Jericho and Mission: Impossible both started that season: Jericho did indeed fall to established shows on other nets - but Mission wasn't an immediate hit either: it was a "bubble" show all that season.
Conventional wisdom held that if you'd switched the timeslots of the two shows, you'd have switched the results as well.
(Or not: another popular theory was that Lucy Ball used her company's clout to get Mission a renewal - with the proviso that a different leading man might help - and that's another story …)
- The Man Who Never Was was not a WWII show; it was contemporary, set in the Cold War, in Germany and most of Europe.
This was the show that Robert Lansing was put into at the last minute, when his Western pilot (The Long Hunt Of April Savage) ran into pre-production snags and lost an ABC sale.
At the same time, the ...Never Was pilot also lost a sale when the prospective sponsor took a dislike to its original lead, a Canadian actor named Donald Harron.
To make some lemonade out of it all, ABC went to John Newland and suggested that Bob Lansing simply be plugged into ...Never Was.
This necessitated reshooting the pilot - and recasting a supporting role, which in the first pilot was played by the then-unknown Donald Sutherland.
Them's the breaks.
The experience soured Donald Harron on Hollywood, and so he went back to Canada, where he became a popular comedy star, creating 'Charlie Farquharson', the grizzled country newscaster that he ultimately took to Hee-Haw - and glory (and that's another story …).
Anyway, that whole WWII theory of yours doesn't hold here, So There Too.
Ok, it's been a while since I did a piece on Man Who Never Was, and got the time frame wrong.
From watching it, I felt like JERICHO was intended to be similar to MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. in tone, but IMO it just wasn't very distinctive and the actors were nowhere near as charismatic as the stars of M:I.
Just wasn't anything about it that really stood out IMO. An average show, from the 3 episodes I watched. I think it was going to last a single season regardless of time slot.
FWIW, the competition rated even higher in the second half of the season after COLISEUM replaced JERICHO: DANIEL BOONE ended with a 20.8 and F TROOP with a 19.1 rating at season's end. So CBS might have been better off just giving it the full season.
As for M:I's debut season, it was in danger at mid-season, ranking 65th out of 91 shows and third in its timeslot with a 16.1 rating.
Rallied somewhat after being moved back a half-hour at midseason and ended the season 51st out of 113 shows. The improvement saved it.
The things you learn. Thanks, Hal.
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