Forgotten Television: Jericho

Jake Green (Skeet Ulrich) returns to his hometown of Jericho, Kansas after being gone for five years under mysterious circumstances, to claim his inheritance that his grandfather left him. The money is controlled by his father, Mayor Johnston Green (Gerald McRaney) who refuses to release the funds until he can prove that he has grown up and deserves the money. His mother Gail (Pamela Reed) tries to defuse the tension, but Jake says he needs to return to San Diego and begins driving home.  Before he can get too far, he and the rest of the town see a distant mushroom cloud as all their communication devices become disabled. Jake, distracted by the cloud, crashes into another car, and is injured, but begins to walk back into town coming across a school bus full of Jericho children who were on a field trip.  The bus driver is unconscious, the teacher has a broken leg and one of the children is seriously wounded with a blow to the throat. Jake performs a tracheotomy on the girl, saving her life, and drives the missing school bus back into town, becoming a hero.  As the series continues, Jake becomes one of the main leaders of the town and helps restore order while the mystery of who attacked the United States and why unfolds.  A war with a neighboring town also plays into the first season and leads up to the season’s climax.  Season two switches from the daily survival of the town to its involvement in the new political hierarchy established after the attack and discoveries of who the real enemy is.

Jericho is a CBS post-apocalyptic action drama which premiered on September 20, 2006, and ran for a total of 29 episodes, 22 in the first season and 7 in the second.  The series was initially cancelled after the first series, but the fan cry out campaigning to keep the show going actually caught the eye of CBS who admitted that this was the largest campaign to keep a show the network had seen using digital means. Fans even took out full page ads in News Papers to keep the show going. The studio finally relented and greenlit a short season 2 with the 7 episodes allowing the series to wrap up the storylines.  IDW Comics published two limited series adding a third and fourth seasons to the storyline. The comic book stories were conceived by the original Jericho production team and written by the series writers.  In 2013, Jericho creator Stephen Chbosky began talks with Netflix that was interested in the series and Skeet Ulrich was onboard, but CBS wouldn’t sell the rights and the deal fell through.

Jericho is a wonderfully well-done series with a great story and a lot of mystery, adventure, betrayals, conspiracies, and drama.  Not all the main characters make it through the series alive and as attested to the revival campaign, the show definitely had a cult following.  In fact, in 2007 it was ranked number 11 on TV Guide’s Top Cult Shows Ever.  Skeet Ulrich (Miracles, Scream) is amazing as always and leads a very competent cast none of which are a weak point in the series.  Overall, the show is just really well composed, written and filmed.  But like most original shows, it appealed to a smaller audience than what is necessary to keep it alive on a major network.  I, myself, am very conflicted about the show.  I appreciate it for the quality of program that it was, and appreciate it for its unique plotline, but I am very tired of post-apocalyptic dramas, and they actually make me uncomfortable and not in a good way.   If you are into well done post-apocalyptic dramas, definitely give Jericho a watch!