Product Description
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The complete TV series Jericho.
.com
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Season One
Part-Lost, part-The Day After, television's first Code Orange
serial drama very effectively taps into palpable post-9/11 dread.
The residents of Jericho are literally in the dark when they are
cut off from civilization in the wake of a nuclear blast. Has the
United States been attacked? How many cities were destroyed? Was
it terrorists, or something way more sinister? It is up to
Johnston Green (an Emmy-worthy Gerald McRaney), the town's mayor
(and series bedrock), to calm the community, keep its citizens
from turning on each other, and protect them from predatory
outsiders. Johnston's son, Jake (Skeet Ulrich), a "screw-up,"
returns home just prior to the blast following a mysterious
five-year absence. Jake is at odds with his estranged her, who
is running for reelection, and his brother, Eric (Kenneth
Mitchell), his deputy. Nor is he welcomed back by his former
girlfriend, Emily (Ashley Scott), now engaged to a man who is
missing following the blast. With the e of America in the
balance, one would think that "small town problems" wouldn't
a to a hill of beans in this crazy new world, but it is
Jericho's human dramas that resonate most deeply.
On the most cherished TV shows, characters come to feel like
family. Jericho's characters come to feel like neighbors. Dale
(Erik Knudson), the orphaned teenage outcast, forms an unexpected
friendship with the town's spoiled mean girl, Skylar (Candace
Bailey). Robert Hawkins (Lennie James), just arrived in town,
introduces himself as a former cop from St. Louis, but his secret
basement command center suggests otherwise. Gray Anderson
(Michael ton), a mayoral candidate, politicizes the disaster
to undermine Johnston. Stanley (Brad Beyer), a farmer, falls in
love with his condescending IRS auditor from Washington, D.C.
(Alicia Cla). And Eric plans to leave his wife, Alice (Darby
Stanchfield) for bartender Mary (Clare Carey). But at the heart
of Jericho's first season is Jake's hard-earned redemption in his
family's (and Emily's) eyes (suddenly, he's a regular MacGyver,
able to perform a tracheotomy with a juice box straw!). Star Trek
has its Trekkies/-ers and Laurel and Hardy its fraternal
organization, the Sons of the Desert. Jericho has its "Nuts,"
who, in heroic It Takes a Village spirit, ed a monumental
campaign to rescue the series after it had been cancelled. Fans
posted a barrage of videos on You Tube and deluged the studio
with peanuts (the significance is explained in the season
finale). "What is it about this town that has you so addicted to
it?" someone asks Emily at one point. Just watch a couple of
episodes, and you'll also be hooked. This First Season set should
rally Jericho's army and inspire new recruits. --Donald Liebenson
Season Two
The second season of the cult favorite Jericho shows in gritty,
emotional detail why fans adore this show. It's intelligently
written, and manages to make its out-there concept not only
believable, but mesmerizing. Part post-apocalyptic sci-fi, part
Western, part conspiracy thriller, and part juicy human drama,
Jericho in its second season explores how the citizens of wee
Jericho, Kansas, are coping six months after a nuclear bomb
destroyed most of the town--and the fabric of the country. The
layers of character and plot development, rare on network TV,
continue to surprise and develop. Our hero, Jake (Skeet Ulrich),
is helping put the pieces of his town and life back together,
while hostile forces from neighboring towns plan attacks. And the
mysterious Robert Hawkins (Lennie James) is hiding in town with a
literal smoking --a nuclear warhead that may prove the attacks
were carried out not by Iran and North Korea, but by internal
forces. Hawkins is on the run, and Jake is in on his secret. Amid
all this chaos arrives Major Beck (the charismatic Esai Morales),
who's been sent by the acting Western government to instill order
in Jericho. "The nightmare is over," he intones to the shaken
townsfolk. "Order will be restored."
The nightmare is far from over, however, which accounts for
Jericho's intense drama and creative storytelling. The viewer is
never totally sure whom to believe, keeping the viewer just off
kilter just enough to want to watch another episode, and then
another. Extras on the boxed set include terrific audio
commentaries on virtually every episode, which lend even greater
appreciation to the set designers and cinematographers. There's a
featurette, "Rebuilding Jericho," giving fans in to the
conception of a post-apocalyptic America, and deleted scenes, and
perhaps most interesting to devoted fans, an alternate unaired
ending to the season finale--worth watching just to see where the
creators imaginations can take them. --A.T. Hurley
