Jericho – The 1st Season (DVD)

The show builds to a pretty hefty climax (a nice visual for you chubby chasers) and then punches you in the face before you can get your gun off!

Skeet Ulrich, Gerald McRaney, Pamela Reed, Kenneth Mitchell, Lennie James, Shoshannah Stern, Ashley Scott

“Jericho” is a drama about what happens when a nuclear mushroom cloud suddenly appears on the horizon, plunging the residents of a small, peaceful Kansas town into chaos, leaving them completely isolated and wondering if they’re the only Americans left alive. But in this time of crisis, as sensible people become paranoid, personal agendas take over and well-kept secrets threaten to be revealed, some people will find an inner strength they never knew they had and the most unlikely heroes will emerge.

Like most reviews I have to get something out of the way; this time I’m bringing my aim down on whomever designed the god awful menu screens for this set. YES I get the morse code in-joke from the show (for those of you in the dark: Each episode has some morse code at the beginning that give a clue of the show your about to watch) but when you pop this baby in you are assaulted by repeating morse code…as if that wasn’t bad enough the menu colors make it tough to figure out what you are selecting in a hurry…and believe me to escape the BEEPING you will be in a hurry. Ok sorry I had to vent about that one minor infraction to an otherwise decent box set…now lets review this sucker.

When I read about ”Jericho” getting canned like many people I just didn’t care. I’d never watched it, didn’t know anyone who watched, and honestly I stopped worrying about Skeet Ulrich’s career after ”Chill Factor” figuring he had died of embarrassment….though somehow Cuba Gooding Jr survived long enough to make ”Daddy Day Camp” god rest his soul. The show popped up on my radar back at Comic-Con where CBS brought the cast out to promote the shows return from the TV grave. For those in the dark again: The show was killed off after the seasons cliff hanger ending…fans were understandably pissed off having given up 964 minutes of their D&D time decided to send nuts to the offices of CBS in rebellion…the nuts being a reference to the last episode…that or they learned of Nina Tassler (The CBS Pres) severe allergic to peanuts…either way I’m assuming nobody sent macadamia nuts.

All nuts aside CBS has given Skeet a new injection of Depp DNA and they’ve got more episodes on the way and a DVD set to help offset the cost of removing the 40,000 pounds of nuts. (CBS should change their slogan to “We’ve got NUTS!”). Having now raced through all 964 minutes of ”Jericho” I can sort of see why the fans demanded closure, the show builds to a pretty hefty climax (a nice visual for you chubby chasers) and then punches you in the face before you can get your gun off. Its classic TV cliffhanger stuff, and pretty effective given the nutty response.

I guess if you were to describe this show you could probably do so by saying it’s like ”24” meets ”Lost”..with Skeet Ulrich. But that does the show quite a bit of disservice actually. Sure it has the political intrigue of ”24” and the people trapped/stranded dilemma’s of ”Lost”…and it does have Skeet, but it has something else you might not expect of a mashed up show like this; good writing and decent characters. Sure there are some major misfires in the season and sometimes its just downright hum drum, but half way through the season you can really see where they figured out the kinks and the show really started to pop (partially by killing off dead weight characters and plot lines), by the time you get to the end you really find yourself rooting for these small town folks

Speaking of the Skeeter I think his time in Jericho has actually redeemed him from his ”Chill Factor” crimes. He plays the small town Jack Bauer well and the role suits him.

Lots of extras (numerous commentary tracks, deleted scenes, a couple of good documentaries) accompany a good video (Supports the production standards of the show quite well. Vivid and sharp) and audio (Crisp and Clean for all your Skeety needs) transfer.

Rating :
Reviewer : Michael Dayspring