Last Tuesday night, TV viewers rendered their verdict on Fox's The Jury: Guilty — of a lukewarm series debut. Only 4 million tuned in to the courtroom drama's two-hour premiere, which lagged behind the NBA finals on ABC, Last Comic Standing on NBC and WB's Summerland. For producers Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana — the men behind HBO's Oz and NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street — that had to hurt.
"We didn't expect to start out extremely well," Levinson tells TV Guide Online. "I don't think anybody thought that. The only unknown was the fact that the NBA finals ran smack into us. That's not something you can anticipate in advance. We're gonna have them [this] week, too! It impacted on us."
It also doesn't help that Jury lacks recognizable stars who might draw viewers to tune in. Levinson, who plays a judge, is the cast's biggest name! "Then we're in trouble," he laughs, adding, "We wentread more