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Jericho (CBS)
This post originally appeared on Screen*Play.
You may not want the wrong people knowing that Jericho is still here.
Jericho (CBS)
In this day and age, when tuning to CNN bring news of nuclear threats in so many different parts of the world (more than one IS so many), CBS‘ new drama series might just send some small shivers down your spine.
CBS Summary: Jericho is a drama about what happens when a nuclear mushroom cloud suddenly appears on the horizon, plunging the residents of a small, peaceful Kansas town into chaos, leaving them completely isolated and wondering if they’re the only Americans left alive. Fear of the unknown propels Jericho into social, psychological and physical mayhem when all communication and power is shut down.
MILD SPOILER ALERT: That describes the premise of the pilot set in what could be Almost-Anywhere-America.
Skeet Ulrich (Jake Green) returns home to Jericho from who-knows-where, after 5 years, to see his estranged family. His visit first takes him around town where he lies to everyone about where he been and what he’s doing, which we never learn in the pilot. What we do find out is that his father and brother are really angry about something.
The sleepy town goes about their day – like any other – when a mushroom cloud appears in the sky. The silence of the scene is cut only by the sound of your own heartbeat at the sight of something you’ve only heard about but expect to leave this earth never seeing. It’s disturbingly beautiful.
Some townspeople begin to piece together what happened, others throw their morals out the window and turn on each other, and some carry on completely unaware. It slowly becomes clear that at least two major US cities have been hit and Jericho could quite possibly be on its own.
Mayor Johnston Green (Gerald McRaney), Jake’s father, tries to maintain order, but has no real idea what to do. And so the story begins of how a little town called Jericho will try to survive our worst nightmare – a nuclear attack on the United States.
With the backdrop of post-apocolyptic America, Jericho will certainly tug at one’s mind with lots of what if questions. But, in this hi-tech world with allies across the Atlantic and Pacific, just how long would life really be like that unless the world as we know it were decimated ala Stephen King’s anthem The Stand.
There-in lies the rub. Like what slowly became of Lost (ABC), the premise in and of itself leaves too much room for doubt, or the torture of time passing too slowly to sustain interest. Survival in the face of this kind of tragedy has a curious appeal, but I’m not sure in this case if it’s strong enough for the long haul.
wednesdays at 8pm
series premiere: september 20
I just watched the Four Horseman episode and I think the show has a lot of potential but seriously, how much of the small character plot can we take. Give us something to keep watching; like who did this and what are we doing about it. Are we being invaded or is this a terror strike worse than the twin towers. Bottom line; the plot is moving too slow. Much slower and I will wait until the last episode to tune back in to wrap this up.