CBS made the right decision for two reasons. First, given the network's dubious crop of new fall offerings - how long did "Viva Laughlin" last? - "Jericho" clearly deserved a second chance. More importantly, though, "Jericho" is good, an intriguing mix of soap opera, social drama, and conspiracy that deserves to be promoted as the thinking-man's "24."
That's the show that springs to mind as you binge on "Jericho" episodes, available online and on a four-episode mini-marathon that airs on Sci-Fi tonight. Except that "Jericho" is a post-9/11 fantasy that's far more dark, nuanced, and plausible than anything Jack Bauer has stumbled into.
The series began with the sort of plot Bauer has always managed to foil: a string of nuclear bombs detonates, destroying much of America. But some towns far from the population centers are intact, including Jericho, a picturesque hamlet in western Kansas.
It's a place with the expected amount of soap-worthy pathos. As the series began, the mayor's prodigal son (Skeet Ulrich) returned to make good, patch things up with Dad, and find common ground with his straitlaced brother. Over the season came a fair amount of love in a time of fallout, plus a mystery driven by a covert federal agent (Lennie James) who was camped out in town, searching for the truth.
But mainly, last season was a meditation on frontier justice, as Jericho and its neighboring towns began competing for scant resources and settling disputes with ammunition. Some of what played out was fairly paint-by-numbers. The town's newly elected, appeasement-minded mayor turned out, of course, to have the wrong idea. But there was creepy realism in the disconnect between old-world-order and new. "I am about to go to war with New Bern, Kansas, the home of the nearest Costco," one character said at the end of last season. "Today is already just about as weird as I can handle."
