I was chatting with a friend on Twitter yesterday about the crime that is the all-but-certain cancellation of Kings.
I first met Dan during the (partly successful) fan uprising to keep Jericho on the air.
For those of you unfamiliar with the late, lamented CBS show, here’s the basics in a nutshell:
A tale of a small Kansas town and its residents in the aftermath of a nuclear attack on most of America’s major cities, Jericho debuted in September 2006 to decent ratings, which it held onto through the fall before going on an unannounced winter hiatus.
By the time CBS brought it back in the spring, many people had forgotten about it; some thought it had been canceled. The network didn’t really publicize its return, either, leaving some fans happily surprised to stumble upon it.
It ended its season with OK, if not stellar ratings, but a very passionate fanbase, who were stunned when CBS announced, after the finale aired, that the show would not get a second season.
Harkening to a line spoken by Skeet Ulrich, who played the lead character Jake, in the finale, fans started sending peanuts by the truckload to CBS headquarters.
After receiving enough peanuts to feed every elephant in the world for the rest of their lives, CBS relented, somewhat and greenlit a short second season as a midseason replacement.
Again, the network stumbled, and waited to put it on the air until after the writer’s strike was over and new programming was once again finding its way to the airwaves. In the end, Jericho was canceled a second and final time, though it has found an extended life on The CW and Sci Fi (now SyFy) networks and its creators are still pursuing the possibility of a movie.
An undercurrent to the entire ordeal was this: Jericho did great on DVR ratings and online viewing. The regular old Nielsen ratings weren’t measuring the show’s true viewership, fans argued. The network didn’t listen.
What does any of this have to do with Kings?
Read full story
Beyond that, however, was the opportunity to see the great Ian McShane in another role. McShane was the incredible Al Swearingen on the late, great, truly lamented Deadwood.