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Jericho - Season 1
Part-Lost, part-The Day After, this television drama very effectively taps into palpable post-9/11 dread. The residents of Jericho are literally in the dark when they are cut off from civilization in the wake of a nuclear blast. Has the United States been attacked? How many cities were destroyed? Was it terrorists, or something way more sinister? It is up to Johnston Green (Gerald McRaney), the town's mayor (and series bedrock), to calm the community, keep its citizens from turning on each other, and protect them from predatory outsiders. Johnston's son, Jake (Skeet Ulrich), a "screw-up," returns home just prior to the blast following a mysterious five-year absence. Jake is at odds with his estranged father, who is running for reelection, and his brother, Eric (Kenneth Mitchell), his deputy. He isn't welcomed back by his former girlfriend, Emily (Ashley Scott), who is now engaged to a man who is missing following the blast. With the fate of America in the balance, one would think that "small town problems" wouldn't amount to much in this crazy new world, but it is Jericho's human dramas that resonate most deeply. On the most cherished TV shows, characters come to feel like family. Jericho's characters come to feel like neighbours. Dale (Erik Knudson), the orphaned teenage outcast, forms an unexpected friendship with the town's spoiled mean girl, Skylar (Candace Bailey). Robert Hawkins (Lennie James), just arrived in town, introduces himself as a former cop from St. Louis but his secret basement command centre suggests otherwise. Gray Anderson (Michael Gaston), a mayoral candidate, politicizes the disaster to undermine Johnston. Stanley (Brad Beyer), a farmer, falls in love with his condescending IRS auditor from Washington, D.C. (Alicia Coppola) and Eric plans to leave his wife, Alice (Darby Stanchfield) for bartender Mary (Clare Carey). But at the heart of Jericho's first season is Jake's hard-earned redemption in his family's (and Emily's) eyes (suddenly, he's a regular MacGyver, able to perform a tracheotomy with a juice box straw!). Star Trek has its Trekkies/-ers and Laurel and Hardy its fraternal organization, the Sons of the Desert. Jericho has its "Nuts," who mounted a monumental campaign to rescue the series after it had been cancelled. Fans posted a barrage of videos on You Tube and deluged the studio with peanuts (the significance is explained in the season finale). "What is it about this town that has you so addicted to it?" someone asks Emily at one point. Just watch a couple of episodes, and you'll also be hooked. This First Season set should rally Jericho's army and inspire new recruits. --Donald Liebenson
RRP: £39.99
Our Price: £13.88 (subject to change)
Editorial
Amazon.co.uk
Not Lost, but not found either...
Review date: 2008-09-28 Rating: 6 out of 10
I like Skeet Ulrich and, seduced by nice box design, I had high hopes for this series. Which weren't exactly dashed, but it didn't really deliver either.
The box is stickered-up (in the UK) with "LOST" comparisons but, frankly, other than it being survivor orientated nothing else is remotely similar. The 'mystery' somehow lacks much interest. I found that I never really cared about who had blown-up the cities and, in fact, it's pretty much revealed halfway in. It lacks the surrealism of Lost, with its weird non-sequiturs and bizarre coincidences and, most importantly, it lacks Lost's fabulously diverse, if frequently irritating, characters. It simply does not have the intensity or charge of that programme.
If I was to compare it to anything I'd say it was more like Smallville, but without the monster of the week and the special powers. It has that same homely small-town feeling, and the romances and in-family bickering are very reminiscent, with Jake's parents being a sort of real-life equivalent of Jonathan & Martha. I found that while a few characters were likeable (the IRS Mimi, Jake himself, Dale, and, best of all, Hawkins) there wasn't really much to compel you through it.
It's relatively 'realistic', for TV, but there were still little aggravations, like everyone burning upwards of 30 candles at any one time in their living rooms and none of them old stubs. Always lovely fresh new candles every time. How many candles would a small town have? With every family burning 30 a night, and an average of three days or so as a maximum burn time for a pillar candle, I reckon they should have run out in the second week. Likewise they were always b*tching about petrol (gas), but no-one ever hesitated to jump into a vehicle and dash off. And don't even start me on the tank, which they had in a barn and didn't pull out to use till the last minute, even although they were under threat of imminent invasion.
These things could have been overlooked if it had offered more intrigue but, bordering on pedestrian as it was, it only served to highlight the series' failure to engage. Good enough, but not great. And life's too short to watch something that isn't great.
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Reviews
The best show ever!!!
Review date: 2008-09-12 Rating: 10 out of 10
If you enjoyed anything from "Heroes" to "Lost" this is a programme you'll love just as much if not more. Once I started watching it I couldn't stop and anyone I have recommended it to have found the very same! It's got it all... thrill, romance, threat, intrigue... something for everyone. It made me laugh and cry. The acting is incredibly realistic and you won't be able to help forming attachments to each character. Just give it a go... you won't be disappointed.
Pure, unadultered (and unbelievable) schmaltz
Review date: 2008-08-14 Rating: 4 out of 10
I had high hopes for this series based on the reviews, fan-boy following the series has and the concept. Unfortunately this suffers from the usual over-production endemic to US series - the photography is colourful and bright, interiors look like they featured in a magazine, everyone is beautiful, everyone's teeth are white and hair coiffured, and no-one is remotely believable.
The first episode was well done and gripping and I thought "this is going to be good like everyone says". Sadly the drop-off from episode 1 is massive. After that point it becomes a slushy mix of melodrama (extra-marital affairs, teen romance) and episodic drama (each week the denizens of Jericho face a new challenge and overcome it - fallout, fires, food shortages, power cuts etc).
The biggest problem is the plain lack of believeability. The US is "attacked" with nuclear weapons, planes crash, birds die, fallout clouds loom. So what do people do? Go to the snug-looking bar and pretend it's an episode of Friends. And the people aren't ordinary: all the guys are "hunks"; all the women "babes" in keeping with most US TV. Like the Pamela Anderson-alike ex-girlfriend of the erstwhile hero. As if she would be in smalltown Kansas with her high-flying banking husband - what bank is he meant to be working at?
She's not the only immaculate beauty - everyone has lovely lipstick, mascara, trendy haircuts or rugged stubble-covered square chins. So after a nuclear blast and war, people will spend hours making-up before they trot down to the bar to flirt and play pool. Nuclear armageddon sounds okay to me!
Clearly reality is a concept the writers have chosen to ignore. Soon after the nuclear blast, fallout hits the town in the rain. Nevertheless the next day everyone's out standing in the puddles being glamorous with no concern for radiation. Actually radiation appears not to be a problem and obviously has no effect on anything like crops, drinking water, the air people breathe. And although there are some complaints about a lack of power - beer is cold(!), there seems to be no problem keeping the bar nicely lit for intimate encounters.
Also, Jericho must be twinned with the city in Logan's Run. No-one is allowed to live in Jericho beyond 55 (I'm guessing at the age of the shrewish shopkeeper). There are no old biddies - everyone is young, handsome and very, very clean and fresh faced. Perhaps radiation is like pro-retinol or anti-cerimides and makes everyone young looking?
The layer of treacle-y schmaltz covering the show doesn't help either. The show is almost propaganda for social togetherness and team work. I can almost hear the chants of "USA!", "USA!" in the background. Nothing can't be overcome with the town pulling together and anyone not joining the cause is clearly A Bad Person.
The most painful example to date is the potential destruction of a corn field by insects. The shrewish shopkeeper wants part of the farm in return for the pesticide. The major will only help if the farmer will split his crop with the town. Just as the farmer decides to burn the infected crop, along comes the whole town to help pick the corn and the store owner provides the pesticide for free, all to a slushy romantic soundtrack just in case we missed the fact this was a Very Poignant And Emotionally Moving Scene.
This would have been better had it been made in the UK in the late 80s or early 90s with elements of Threads and Survivors thrown in (I say early 90s as since then, UK TV has suffered the same over-production sheen of glamour as US TV). In fact, go and rent Threads and the first season of Survivors - much more challenging and realistic.
Could not watch it till end...
Review date: 2008-07-22 Rating: 4 out of 10
This is a soap...!
I loved Prison break, 24, Heroes, Spooks, Life on mars... But Jericho has nothing in common with those great TV shows. The nuclear bomb explodes in episode 1, and then almost nothing else happens ! We see a few people in the city of Jericho trying to survive in their small town, fighting some bad people who want to kill them. The bad against the good, some romance... Always the same thing. Could you imagine the life in a small city in the middle of nowhere in the US ? This is Jericho. It is sooo boring when you come to episode 8 or 10...
Criminally cancelled
Review date: 2008-05-17 Rating: 10 out of 10
What is it with US networks? They always seem to cancel the best series. Take this gem of a series; it was hidden away here in the UK on the hallmark channel and it didn't have enough viewers in the US (try advertising more CBS!)Skeet Ulrich leads a top notch cast in this post apocalptic drama series. A terrorist attack cuts the small town of Jericho off from the rest of the US. This eventually leads to a war between Jericho and the nearby town Newburn because supplies are running out. It starts of slow (maybe putting new viewers off) but the acting is superb and the storylines are thrilling. More importantly the charachters are believable and we can understand their actions. The fans bombarded CBS with trucks of nuts after something that is said in the season finale. Something involving taking action and war! The fans listened and so did the network season 2 was made (only seven episodes) but the series was cancelled again. CBS are trying to their credit to get the show a new home (maybe the co-owned CW - why don't they just put it on there?) Great stuff - you won't regret buying this.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Skeet Ulrich
Gerald McRaney
Ashley Scott
Pamela Reed
Creators:
Skeet Ulrich (Primary Contributor)
Ashley Scott (Primary Contributor)
Director(s):
Recording label: Paramount Home Entertainment (UK)
Manufacturer: Paramount Home Entertainment (UK)
EAN: 5014437938336
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 6
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2008-03-10
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 910 minutes
Language: English (Original Language)