Fans get NBC to air Journeyman’s 12th episode

So some big news coming from Ain’t it Cool News (AICN) today, which I found thanks to Real Honest Films.

Apparently the 12th episode of Journeyman wasn’t going to be aired by NBC, but they’ve changed their minds thanks to all the fans out there. A website called SaveJourneyman.net has helped inspire NBC to air this episode, the last of those produced so far. They had ordered 13 of them, but only 12 were completed due to the strike.

I found SaveJourneyman.net yesterday but hadn’t had a chance to post on it yet. It looks totally different today as it appears they’ve switched to a blog format instead of the mess it was previously. Regardless of what it looks like, it may go a long way to saving my favorite new show of the season.

AICN got this news about the 12th episode exclusively, with a statement from Journeyman “mastermind” Kevin Falls:

Journeyman Fans–

NBC has decided to air the 12th episode (“Perfidia”) on Wednesday, December 19th at ten o’clock. That means our 10th episode will air on Monday the 10th (“Home by Another Way”), the 11th will air on 17th (“The Hanged Man”).

The decision to air the 12th episode had a lot to do with the passion of our fans through SaveJourneyman.net, the online petition and letters and emails to NBC executives.

And is it true you can vote once a day for the People’s Choice Awards?

There’s still no news on our long term future, but we can promise you this: three terrific episodes inside of ten days. Oh, yeah, and you’ll get some answers, too.

Your comments and pro-active attempts to save the show are very much appreciated by me and my fellow Executive Producer Alex Graves, Kevin McKidd and the cast, writers and crew. But more importantly, it’s working.

But don’t rest. We need you. We want a back nine–and beyond.

Thanks again,

Kevin Falls

Wow…three “terrific” episodes that will give us some answers. I can barely contain myself.

So this week is skipped because of Life taking it’s place for some reason (and showing on the following Wednesday), but then we’ll have Journeyman back for that week and then a double-dose the following.

SaveJourneyman.net linked to Groundling-Review.com has some radical ideas, one of them is to watch ALL the online episodes of Journeyman this Monday, December 3rd, since it’s the day Life is being shown instead. Perhaps all the ratings of fans watching it on one day might help?

(You can do this easily at work by playing it, turning the sound down and hiding it behind whatever it is you do on your computer)

There is also Save-Journeyman.blogspot.com, which proposes we take up a campaign much like fans did for Jericho when they found out it was being canceled. FOX CBS was slammed with tons of bags of peanuts, an idea I missed even though I watched it, but meant something to die-hards. So the idea here is to send boxes of Rice-A-Roni (the San Francisco treat – where Journeyman is set) to NBC.

(Sending things like this is the new fad, as UnitedHollywood.com is asking people to send boxes of pencils to the networks to support the WGA strike)

Also, while you are bored at work with nothing to do, this interview on Premium Holly with Kevin Falls is fantastic. Visit their website to read it, but check out the excerpt below. The 12th episode is going to be a doozy, since they figured it might be the last and wrote it that way.

And, a naked Dan Vasser traveling? Almost…

Episode 12 is the end of our order. If…and let’s not kid ourselves, it’s a long shot that we would get a back nine, given the strike and our questionable numbers…but we wrote it in a way so it could be the series-ending show. I mean, it wouldn’t answer every question, but it would give you a lot to chew on. We would give you some answers, and we’d withhold others. In the case we would actually go on to a second season, we didn’t want to turn over every card, but I think people will find it satisfying, and it’s really good. Alex Graves directed it, and he directed the pilot, “Friendly Skies� (1.2), and “Double Down� (1.7), which I thought were some of the strongest episodes. He’s a really good director. But in Episode 12, there is a scene where Dan is taking a shower, and he was going to travel naked to a mental institution, and the cool part of it is that he travels to this institution, where he runs into a time traveler, and you’ll get some of the answers to what goes on. And the idea of him traveling naked just became such a…it was so comic, and I think if you’re doing a 100th episode, or if you’re in your 3rd season, you’re allowed one of those. But because it may be our final episode, we just didn’t want to totally set it like that. So I think he’s either going to be in underwear or pajama bottoms. (Laughs)

Well, while there is still no word yet from NBC on whether or not this show will be back after the strike, all the news above seems promising. Fans saved Jericho last year, so it is possible, although the support for Firefly fell on deaf ears.