Tonight “Jericho” returns on CBS as the result of a campaign by rabid fans to save the show. They famously sent nuts to the network’s offices to convince them to reverse its cancellation, which CBS ultimately did. That’s apparently given hope to loads of other fans of other canceled shows. Last summer “Veronica Mars” devotees sent Mars Bars to the CW in a failed attempt to revive the show. Now the latest show getting the “Jericho” treatment is USA’s canceled sci fi drama “The 4400.” The show set records when it premiered four years ago, but USA canceled it late last year in order to make room for new shows that better fit its great characters tagline. Starting this month, “4400” fans began sending bags of sunflower seeds, the favored snack of one of the show's stars, to the USA offices, hoping to convince the network to at least schedule a miniseries to tie up the loose ends left in the season-ending cliffhanger. June Terrell, of Memphis, Tenn., a member of the Save “The 4400” campaign, talks to Media Life about the “Jericho” effect, USA’s reaction and what her group is hoping for.

 
How did you come up with the idea of sending the sunflower seeds?
 
I don’t know which person did it, but someone came up with the idea and threw it out there. As far as sunflowers seeds, we were thinking about the “Jericho” campaign, and Jeffrey Combs’ character on “The 4400” loves sunflower seeds.

Other ideas were syringes of green liquid, like food coloring or something to look like Promicin (the drug on the show that either kills or gives super powers to those who inject it), but I guess the sunflower seeds seemed like a better idea.
 

How have you publicized and organized it?
 
There are some on the message boards that have put up web sites. There’s a guy from Turkey who, if you went to the large petition site, you’ll hear from him, he has all these different links for the campaign on his site. And there’s another poster who does the site SaveThe4400.net.

And then there’s another guy, he put a video on YouTube. It had pictures from different scenes from the show and talking about saving it, like the show has been abducted. (Laughs.)

There’s some very talented people on the message boards.
 
We’re also planning another mass mailing of seeds on Feb. 20, and on that day they’ll release a bunch of personal videos on YouTube.

Does the success of the “Jericho” campaign give you hope that this can work?
 
Oh yeah, once something like that succeeded, that gave everybody an idea that this could work.

Frankly, I don’t see why they canceled it, and they talk about ratings, but I’m not sure they count all the viewers who watch this show. There are people worldwide helping with this effort, and ordering seeds, etc., so I think there’s a lot more people watching than they realize.
 
On USA you see ads for “Monk” and “Psych” and other shows running all over, but you rarely see “The 4400” advertised.

How much hope did the “Jericho” campaign give to fans of other shows that have been canceled?
 
Well, we wanted them to at least give us a decent ending. We said closure, with all that’s happened, you know it’s not over. And they still haven’t told us what the catastrophe is that supposedly started all of this (what’s happening on the show). And then they introduced a third group of people from the future who sent agents back to the past and are causing all kinds of trouble.
 
The whole thing left us hanging, so we said, “At least give us closure.”

How many pounds of seeds are you hoping to send?
 
Well, we just wanted to send as much as possible. Nuts are much heavier than seeds, but by now we’ve probably shipped over 6,000 bags. The last count that was taken was 5,700, but another shipment goes out today and the running total will be posted on the site.

Have you heard any reaction from the network?
 
Besides “no comment,” the only thing we’ve heard are things in stories that have broke.

One said it would be difficult logistically to bring the show back. The only thing I know that would make it hard is, I know they were trying to sell off some of the set. We’d all help them [put together a new set] if they wanted to.

The actors seem to want to come back. They love the story and so do the writers. They’d like to finish it. So I don’t see where that would be a problem.
 

Have you heard anything from the cast, crew or producers of the show?
 
Some of them have web sites and they post on it. Jacqueline McKenzie has a site on MySpace, and at one point she said she and Joel Gretsch sent seeds. And she even put a link on her page to the SaveThe4400.net.
 
Jeffrey Combs also said something about loving sunflower seeds his whole life, although he never had the Giant brand. But he was thinking of getting some from the network since they probably have a lot by now (laughs).

Why should this show be saved?
 
Well, it’s a very good show and it’s very intelligent, which a lot of these shows aren’t. It has great characters and you really want to know their story, it really grabs you. It would probably have a bigger following if more people knew about it.
 
They could at least do a miniseries or something to give us a little closure. If you’ve been following the story you want to know what’s going to happen. There’s loose ends coming out of every question—the ending left even more questions—it left the main character at the end holding a syringe of Promicin, and you’re wondering, will he take it?

There’s a poll online where people think he will, but we don’t know because it ended there and we didn’t get to see.

Why do you think it was canceled in the first place?
 
Well they say ratings, but I think they were pretty good and higher than some shows that have come back. And that’s good considering a lot of people don’t know the show is there. But I think the ratings were fairly consistent overall.

USA’s saying they want to make room for some new series and other things, and I said, “Well, we don’t care where they put it, there’s already plenty of room with all of the ‘Law & Order’ marathons they have.” They should do a “4400” marathon to attract new viewers, so people can get into the storyline.
 

Would you watch online if USA were to tie up the story on the web?
 
Yeah, well on the boards there’s a thread where someone says there’s been some talk or interest about a book to tie things up. I know there’s a tie-in book that’s supposed to come out in the summer.

We think that’s great, but we do also want to get the series back on television. If that happens everyone will buy the book of course, but right now we haven’t given up on the network yet. I saw an ad for one of their new shows and I said to myself, “You’ve got to be kidding me, you’re replacing ‘The 4400’ with this?”