Director Barry Levinson ("Rain Man") and writer Tom Fontana ("Homicide: Life on the Street") have teamed up to bring
"The Jury" into your home. Since I read "Twelve Angry Men," I've always wanted to see a television series based on a jury, but I knew that would be next to impossible to pull off due to the transient nature of juries - you need characters that you can identify with, grow with, and despise; how can you do that if you're introduced to twelve new characters every week?
These guys and the Fox network believed they've found a way to resolve this delima. They'll be using flashbacks to piece together the crime, and central characters associated with the justice process to help you have a security blanket.
I think it is a risky approach, mitigated by bringing in heavyweights Levinson and Fontana. The danger is in the possibility of losing the audience. It takes a really interested viewer to watch a show that constantly jumps from scene to scene: it takes a great deal of effort (and money) to find 12+ GOOD actors each week, loyal viewers HATE bad acting unless it's a quirky mystery like "Murder She Wrote," sophisticated viewers won't stand for characters that don't unfold from week to week.
In my opinion, the only way for this to succeed is to target the Generation-X audience and manage scene transitions according to their particular level of A-D-D. Gen-Xers consists of adults who are reaching that stage in life where fast cars, explosions, and sex start to take back seat to more serious, thought provoking drama. They also are THE Internet generation. They know the power of the mouse click, as well as the power of the channel button on the remote control. When Levinson and Fontana do a scene transition, it had better flow in a direction that doesn't lose the viewer's interest because the viewer can't click the back button, so they'll opt for the channel button.
My prediction, without having seen a single show, is that it will be cancelled after the third airing. What do you think? How long will it survive?
