Jericho - The First Season DVD Review

Jericho is a small Kansas town where not much happens, which is why Jake Green (Skeet Ulrich) always seemed to find himself in trouble while growing up as the son of the town’s mayor. Jake has been out of the town for a long time, forced to leave under bad circumstances and only returning with hopes of getting his inheritance money for a mysterious investment. His father turns him away and he is on his way out of town when a giant mushroom cloud appears in the sky near Denver. Suddenly it appears as though there has been a giant attack on the larger cities of America, but there is no information to be found in the small town remaining. The people of Jericho are forced to work together to try and figure out what is happening and what they need to do in order to build a life and survive in a nearly lawless land.

Jericho is obviously feeding off of the fears since 9/11, and I suppose there are far more unhealthy ways to deal with these fears. Jericho is often an intelligent show in looking at the major changes should something like this happen. Suddenly fallout from the blast becomes an issue, as does the survival of the crops in order to last. Television, cell phones, and even the luxury of buying gas suddenly become lost. Even the rich find that they have no more power than the rest considering money has very little value in what may be a lost government. The lack of communication as the mystery slowly resolves is what makes the show interesting and suspenseful from episode to episode, although the answers are often a cheap substitute for the suspense. Each episode reveals a little more to the mystery, taking a cue from the hit show Lost, which avoids answers at all costs.

There are twenty-two episodes in season one of Jericho, and surprisingly it is a show that becomes more interesting the more it is watched, even though the characters are not all well-developed. The episodes are fit onto six discs, each paired up in slim-disc cases. The sixth disc contains the special features. These include two featurettes, one dealing with the main “What If?” premise of the show. The other featurette, “Building Jericho” is slightly more in-depth, looking at the process to get the show on air, including casting tapes.