JERICHO, CBS's drama about how residents of a small, peaceful, Kansas town band together to survive in the wake of a nuclear explosion, will return to the Network beginning Friday, July 6 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT). Rebroadcasts of episodes from the first season will air in the Friday, 9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT time period for the remainder of the summer.Sigh. IF JERICHO is to survive, and thrive beyond its recently announced seven episode reprieve, CBS MUST MUST MUST MUST x MEGA INFINITY SELL THE SHOW DIFFERENTLY!!!! I just demonstrated above, in a few simple paragraphs, that JERICHO is far more than it's consistently presented to be. CBS needs to completely reassess its promotional paradigm for this series, and not promote "life in a small town" - rather the scale, action, and thematics of the ideas at JERICHO's core. I'd say: sell it as a war tale. Promote the Tom Clancy-esque "internal coup/missing nukes" angle. Promote the little people against overwhelming odds subtext. Promote the people we love tiredly going off to battle down the lonely road. LOOK at what it is, and exalt it. Don't hide its substance. I've talked to 11 people about JERICHO since its cancellation / rebirth came about a few weeks back. None of them had seen the show - all of them believed it was life in a small town after Atomic bombs explode, and little else. They didn't think it sounded too interesting. I told each and every one of those people about the same macro elements I mention above. Each and every one of those people said "THAT I would watch!" Even a few hardcore, non-TV viewers. I don't know what else needs to be said. CBS is to be roundly commended for giving JERICHO a limited reprieve - but it also needs to understand the show, and appreciate why it struggled the first time around. Otherwise, the same mistakes will be made again. No one's gonna watch this time if it's being pushed as the same bill of goods. Finally, a few brief words about AICN's JERICHO coverage past and future. I'll keep this as brief as possible. The movement to pull JERICHO back from the abyss was nothing less than astounding. While not unprecedented, this is a rare interaction between a network and a fan base. Most importantly, it's entirely possible that CBS will now be evaluating JERICHO's "success" based on factors never before considered. DVRs, for example. Evidently, when CBS factored in the number of viewers recording JERICHO on DVRs, the series' audience increased by...what was it...10% (someone correct me if I'm wrong in the Talkbacks below). And, this doesn't begin to factor in the streaming of episodes, available through the series' official website. In short: it's possible that the parameters of a show's "success" or "failure" may change in the future because of what's happening here. In the future, shows like FIREFLY, ENTERPRISE, and so forth...which were unceremoniously sent to the gallows...may feasibly catch more of a break, or get a second chance, if JERICHO's resurrection is deemed successful & is seen as worthwhile by the numbers crunchers. So, this isn't just about JERICHO. In a sense, this is about all the shows Geeks like us ever wanted to keep on the air. It's about a hope that such series may not need for us to save them in the future. Maybe things will go well, maybe they won't. Either way, it all starts with JERICHO. Which makes the series, and the circumstances surrounding it, kinda significant to television viewers in general - and genre fans in particular. Just something to think about as we move towards Round 2.