Starring Skeet Ulrich, Kenneth Mitchell, Pamela Reed, Ashley Scott, Gerald McRaney, Lennie James, Michael Gaston, Brad Beyer
Written By: Stephen Chbosky, Josh Schaer, Jonathan E. Steinberg
Directed By:
Studio: Paramount
Buy on Amazon.com link

I was told Jericho was a great show and that I should be watching it. But being the close-minded person that I am, I didn’t bother to check it out because I already had plenty of TV shows to watch throughout the TV season. I’m also skeptical with new shows because networks like to pull the plug on shows if they aren’t a big hit in the first few weeks. This show wasn’t picked up originally but the fans won CBS over. The die-hards fans sent CBS and Paramount peanuts and other messages to bring back Jericho. Now the show is scheduled to be back as a mid-season replacement and if it does well, CBS will order more episodes. I can say, after seeing every episode within a span of a week, i’m officially hooked on Jericho and CAN’T WAIT FOR THE SECOND SEASON! I think once people see the first season from start to finish, there will be a lot more fans and the word of mouth will quickly spread. I know I’ll be telling everyone about this TV show now.

Jericho is about a small Kansas called Jericho. The town likes to live in peace and not have to deal with too much drama until one day they have no choice. Everyone starts to see a mushroom cloud in the horizon and it ends up being a nuclear explosion. Most of Jericho survives the explosion and chaos ensues. Everyone in the town is in the dark and doesn’t know if they were the only ones that survived, what other cities got attacked, is there a working government, etc. The show centers around Jake and his family. Jake went away for 5 years and no one knew where he went. He comes back to clear things up with friends and his family. His father is the town mayor seeking another election term. His brother is the goodie two shoes type who’s married with a wife but has a secret as well. Jake was on his way out of the town when the bomb went off so he had to go back and stick around. But Jake gets in the middle of everything and gets the town out of a few jams and everyone starts to look to him to lead. Another mysterious man called Robert Hawkins shows up at the day of the bombings, with his family and offers his help. He seems to know a lot about the bombings and stuff relating to that. There’s lots of characters, and everyone is intertwined together. So it will be impossible to go over all the storylines but the two most important characters of Jericho are Jake Green and Robert Hawkins. The first half of the season is dealing with the nuclear bombs and the second half of the season goes into another direction with trying to survive in the new world.

I was really surprised by Jericho. I thought it would be some mildly interesting show but from the very first episode, I was hooked! I would come home each day from work, and watch a few episodes. I would be looking forward to coming home so I could watch more Jericho. There aren’t that many TV shows out there now that get me this excited. There are shows like Lost, Heroes, 24 and I’d also put Jericho in that category as well. I’m just happy the show is returning after all the fans sent CBS peanuts in the mail. I wasn’t sure why they sent them peanuts until I saw the very end to the last episode of the season. Jake says “nuts” to someone and I believe that’s where they got the idea. Either way, all the fans need a pat on the back for resurrecting the show back into prime time. I believe it’s coming back as a mid-season replacement with 7 episodes. If the show does good, CBS will renew it with a 22 episode season. So i’ve already begun spreading the word about the series and telling everyone they need to watch it. It has a mixture of everything; something both guys and girls will love. Another show this reminds me of is Firefly. Not just because the fans sent the network stuff as well, but the way the show is. A mixture of drama, action, comedy (or some funny dialogue) with a great ensemble cast. Also, the show has a great premise and gives you a reason to keep coming back to watch more. Some of the storylines and characters are so vague, you almost feel like throwing the remote at the TV because you want to find out more. The way the finale ended kind of pissed me off, because it left on such a cliffhanger. It’s a good thing it’s coming back or I might have sent some outdated nuts to CBS as well.

Usually Paramount TV show DVDs rarely have any extras on them, mainly because they are older shows. But since Jericho is new, there are some decent extras to hold fans over until the new season starts. There are some commentaries with Jon Turteltaub, Carol Barbee, Skeet Ulrich, and more. The Building Jericho was a nice half hour featurette about the TV series. It was an in-depth look at the creation of the TV show, and you get to see audition tapes, interviews and more. I really enjoyed seeing that one. The second featurette is about the nuclear arms race, and what would happen if stuff like this actually happened to us today. Besides that, there’s also a few deleted scenes on various episodes.

Overall, Jericho is a great show that I should have started to watch from day 1. But since I didn’t, it was hard to keep up with it but now that it’s on DVD; everyone should go rent or buy this DVD. Why? Because it’s an entertaining show that will get you hooked from the very first episode all the way to the season finale. The story is interesting, the characters are great, there’s action, drama, romance and all that other fun stuff. I highly recommend checking this show out! You won’t be disappointed!

Features:
Building Jericho
Deleted Scenes
Commentaries

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 CC

Video:
Widescreen 1.78:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:
English, Spanish, Portuguese

Favorite Scenes: Pilot, Fallout, Walls of Jericho, Rogue River, The Day Before, Aka, Casus Belli, Why We Fight
Rating: NR
Running Time: 960 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: