The Best Show You're Not Watching... and never will.
Late September, 2006. I was recovering from a nasty virus and had taken some sick days off work to recuperate at home. What better way to do that than just planting oneself in front of the tv. I was wondering what to watch when I came upon a listing in TV Guide for the premiere of a new show called Jericho. Hmm. I had heard about this show. It's main theme was a "What if?" concept. What if... the US suffered a terrorist attack and 23 major American cities were destroyed by nuclear bombs? I remember there was some initial criticism of this show before it began and also of Jon Turteltaub, the producer. I gave it a shot anyway.
It starts out in a typical midwestern Kansas town. The protagonist is Jake Green. A 32 year old portrayed by Skeet Ulrich. He returns home after a few years unaccounted for and is met with the usual handshakes and hugs by fellow friend growing up Stanley Richmond played by Brad Beyer. He then returns home to be greeted by his mom and dad, Gail Green played by Pamela Reed and Johnston Green played by Gerald McRaney. Johnston is also Jericho's mayor so given his previous show's title, the only natural and appropriate nickname came to be: Mayor Dad. Hee. *ahem* But I digress. Jake and Johnston have a falling out and Jake decides to leave. Cut to a brother and sister playing hide and go seek and the sister trying to find her brother, Cut again to Jake listening to the radio in his car and suddenly static. Again, the sister finds the brother on top of the house. She cries out that he's not supposed to be up there. He doesn' t respond. The camera pans up and we see he is mesmerized by a giant mushroom cloud on the horizon. Cut back to Jake driving his car and he sees the same thing in the distance. As he is taking his eyes off the road, he naturally runs into another car coming the opposite way. Also during mushroom cloud scene, a school bus is on the road hits a deer and goes off onto the side.
Jake recovers from the accident and checks on the occupants of the other car which he finds dead. He attempts to make his way back to town with an injured leg and happens upon schoolchildren who need help. He follows them back to the bus where he meets injured school teacher, Heather Lisinski played by Sprague Grayden . He finds a little girl with a badly injured throat. Of course, she needs a tracheotomy but he has no empty tube. So, he asks all the little kids to get the straws out of their juiceboxes and fastens them together into a workable tube MacGyver style. This scene is a nitpicker's delight but I won't get into that here. Because of the missing schoolbus full of children, Jericho's sheriff and his deputy went out to look for the school bus and radio in that they found it. As they arrive, they realize that it's a prison bus. The sheriff goes inside and the deputy looks around the bus. The deputy tells the sheriff that he doesn't seen anybody else around but the sheriff does not respond.
Jake manages to get the bus going and makes it back into town where the townspeople are all relieved to have their children back. And really, when someone saves a bunch of children, how can they not be a hero? And that's just the pilot!
And I left out the part of Robert Hawkins' character (portrayed by Lennie James) on purpose. Why? Because his awesomeness is a journey one should discover on their own totally without preconcept.
Jericho is indeed that show that tackles the "What if" concept. What Americans take for granted is totally taken away. Survival skills come into play, relationships change, relationships become even stronger. People rise to the occasion and become better than they were before while others dwelve deeper into their primitive instincts. Perhaps the most disconcerting scene is one where a map of the US is littered with pushpins of cities... that are no longer there.
But alas, Jericho had come to an end. While highly touted by critics, the ratings were not there to support it for a second season and it was canceled . Upon news of this, fans everywhere sent in hundreds and hundreds of nuts (has to do with the season finale of the first season) and CBS decided to give Jericho a second season as a thank you to the fans for not letting the show go quietly into the night. We were granted seven new episodes for season two.
But again, the ratings were not there. The deathslot of Tuesday night at 10/9 PM CST did not do it any favors and once again, the show has been canceled. Tonight will the be the last broadcast of Jericho on broadcast tv. Luckily, two different endings had been filmed. One with a cliffhanger ending in hopes of a season three and another, which has more of a closure feel for it and for the fans. The second one will air. There is a chance that perhaps SCIFI will pick up this wonderful show and air it, but as was pointed out before in various news articles, the productions costs may be too high for SCIFI to pick it up so I will not hold my breath.
So if you have the money and/or the time to watch this show (29 episodes total; 22 for the first, 7 for the second), I encourage you to do so when it comes out on DVD (which the first season already has). You will not be disappointed.
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