Fans fit the battle of 'Jericho,' and CBS came tumbling down
Posted: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 2:45 PM by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper
Filed Under:
TV
It's official: After being pressured by fans, who sent 50,000 pounds of peanuts to its New York office, CBS has brought back "Jericho," the America-after-the-bombs drama that the network had earlier canceled.
Regular readers of this Weblog know that readers were passionate about "Jericho" -- when I wrote about canceled shows, "Jericho" was far and away the most-mourned show in the comments. Readers felt the premise was original, and despite the grim bits, enjoyed seeing regular families in a small Kansas town try to cope with the unimaginable: An America that had been bombed and had lost its communication network, with multiple people declaring themselves president in different parts of the nation, and the people of Jericho fighting to learn even such basic information as which major cities were destroyed.
It's entertainment, sure, but it's also sobering, giving us something to think about. We all know deep down that we'd really be in trouble if so many of our modern conveniences were taken away -- few folks can go all Pa Ingalls and raise their own food today -- and the show reminded us how much we take for granted.
"Jericho" featured some chilling scenes in its first season, scenes that would have stuck in my head even if the show didn't return. April, who was pregnant, died along with her baby in the town's undersupplied, understaffed hospital of ailments that almost certainly would not have killed her in a regular, pre-bomb hospital. A group of characters made a chilling visit to a former fairgrounds where a newsboard gives them tantalizing information about the outside world. While there, the townsfolk discover that a man they were planning to trade with quite possibly has turned to keeping people as slaves in a bloody back room. And neighboring town New Bern goes to war with Jericho, in a situation that seems all the more scary for the creepily plausible way it develops.
It's going to be interesting to see the summer speculation on where the show will go with its new life. Veteran actor Gerald McRaney, the town's mayor and a show mainstay, apparently was killed off in the season finale. Unless the show pulls some magical twist and brings him back, he'll be missed. He delivered possibly the best lines of the series, saying something like "I am about to go to war with New Bern, Kansas. The home of the nearest Costco. Today is already just about as weird as I can handle."
So come on, "Jericho" fans. Share your thoughts about what will happen to the town, its inhabitants, and the splintered nation, in a second season of life after the bombs.
