Thread: Jericho ...

Starts next Tuesday.10pm..(after Big brother)..Only 7 episodes so it will be short and sweet.
reported 1 major character will die

Can't wait. Plan to have a big bag of roasted peanuts to eat while watching, too

Tonight's Returning TV Show 'Jericho' Takes a Left Turn
By Lynn Davidson
February 12, 2008 - 18:04 ET

It it looks like CBS's resurrected nuclear holocaust survival drama “Jericho” is turning left. “It intentionally resembles Iraq” this season. Co-producer Jon Turtletaub stated “'Jericho' is not ignoring the political and social landscape” and star Skeet Ulrich added, “I feel like we were really making a statement to some extent.”

There were previous hints about “Jericho's" shift. In season one, main characters referred to military contractors as “mercenaries” and conspiratorial forces within the government were involved in setting off the nukes. The complication of the “occupation” of the “good” “Jericho” by the “bad” government mirrors the left's position on Iraq and the lefty screed that one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

A New York Times article about “Jericho's” return tonight at 10 pm EST hints at the change : http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/ar...=1&oref=slogin

If the first season was about how Jericho survived the attack, the second season concerns how the town responds and rebuilds. In interviews the producers and CBS executives said that first-time viewers would be able to enjoy the second season without having watched the first. Why? Because “Jericho” introduces a new face in Season 2: that of Esai Morales, once of “NYPD Blue,” who plays Maj. Edward Beck, a representative of troops based in Cheyenne, Wyo., who comes to lead the town’s reconstruction.


Through Mr. Morales’s character, viewers are introduced to the Allied States of America, a new country comprising the area west of the Mississippi River. The town of Jericho essentially becomes occupied territory. The military builds a base nearby to oversee reconstruction. A private contractor is commissioned to provide a semblance of law and order. History books are rewritten.

It intentionally resembles Iraq.

“People, and by people I mean our bosses, probably prefer to not get all political,” Mr. Turteltaub said. “But that said, ‘Jericho’ is not ignoring the political and social landscape.’ ”

Specifically, he said, the show raises questions about trust in government and the implications of having unchecked power in an unstable area. The producers had prepared a plotline about military contractors months before the private security firm Blackwater was in the news concerning its involvement in the deaths of Iraqi civilians.

The “Jericho” character Jake Green, played by Skeet Ulrich, dropped hints last season about his time overseas. His experience ends up being a crucial plot point this year. “I feel like we were really making a statement to some extent,” Mr. Ulrich said. “You always want to hold up a mirror, but you don’t want to let people know you’re doing it. Hopefully it’s just enough for people to draw the parallels.”

Fans have not flocked to recent feature films about the Iraq war. But “Jericho” is different, [co-producer Carol] Barbee said, because it is not “some big polemic about the war.” If anything, the show draws as many parallels to post-Katrina New Orleans as it does to postinvasion Baghdad.

There's a reason “[f]ans have not flocked” to the recent lefty America-is-evil anti-war films. Hopefully “Jericho” won't follow, but the press about the new season is worrisome.

I wish Hollywood knew that many viewers don't want their TV shows to make “a statement.” Sometimes we just want sheer entertainment without any of the political drama we encounter in real life. How difficult is that to understand? But shows keep getting more political, not less. New dramady “Eli Stone” is the standard social justice spin about greedy corporations sticking it to the common man. “Brothers & Sisters" and "Nip/Tuck” regularly stereotype conservatives. Even military-friendly "The Unit" dabbled in an evil conservative conspiracy entangling the ruggedly-hot team.

In this February 9 Newsday article, “Gerald McRaney's ex-mayor character wonders, “How does a government no one voted for [get to] change the Constitution?" That kind of statement could have come directly from Daily Kos.

So, will the show veer left, or will it continue to be a show that conservatives can watch without seeing the usual liberal clichés? I guess we'll find out in the next few weeks, beginning tonight at 10 pm EST.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lynn-da...akes-left-turn

If you missed last nights episode, here is a recap via TWOP.

They're renaming the country. That really can't be a good sign.


Condor
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 2
Aired on 2008.02.19

When the Usurper President decides to grace Jericho with a stop on his "Brainwash The West" tour, a little bit of hell breaks loose. Darcy steals a walkie-talkie to cause a "crash," which allows Hawkins to download some TS/SCI files proving that the bombs came from the former Soviet Union, not North Korea. (Jake has a bit of a freakout over this, which is odd, because Hawkins already told him where the bombs came from last season, but Jake might be catching the stupid from his brother and Emily.)

In his quest to get the truth out, Jake chats up a morose presidential press pool journalist and convinces him to blow the whole thing wide open. Too bad the journalist gets quietly murdered before he can even write his lede. (Jake has another freakout over this. He's getting soft.)

Meanwhile, the President gives a scary speech at Richmond Farm, raises the new flag, calls his fiefdom "The Allied States of America," and gives a funeral for the United States of America and her flag. Leaving for the Usurper President's Constitutional Convention, Grey appoints Eric Acting Mayor and promises he's going to ask POTAS some tough questions. Oh, and there are also these new hot-off-the-press textbooks that are already rewriting our history. Literally. (Jake doesn't have a freakout over this, but only because no one's told him yet. Or he can't read.)

Valente gives Beck a bit of a smackdown over the lack of progress and sends him an "independent contractor" to help him out with the day-to-day crap. At the very end of the episode and under cover of darkness, a clean-shaven D.B. Sweeney shows up to reprise his role of being a very bad man. (The Jake freakout on this one will be huge, loud, and probably quite red.)

http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com...Stories/Condor

Oversight
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 4 | Aired on 2008.03.04

[i]OH MY GOD! TELL ME THAT THEY DIDN'T JUST KILL -- ??? -- WHAT THE HELL YOU CAN'T KILL -- ??? -- WITH ONLY THREE EPISODES LEFT IN THE SEASON !! SOMEONE GET ME A DRINK!

Pant, pant.

Okay.

Trying to calm down here.

Yeah.
So, Frodale's smuggling business is getting thwarted by both military checkpoints and J&R business registration requirements, and he's not the only business suffering in Jericho. However, when Stanley is asked if Frodale can use the Richmond farm as a way to thwart the checkpoints, Stanley will have none of it. (You can't blame him, though, because he definitely thinks the Boston Tea Party is a bunch of old ladies with Wedgewood and furnished souls. Poor Stanley.) So, instead of going through Stanley, Mary sort of seduces a checkpoint soldier into looking the other way. However, before Frodale can even take advantage of this, Goetz arrests him; but he's later rescued by Jake, Eric, and Stanley, with a little help from Beck.

Upon learning from his Mystery Cellphone Man that information will reach Beck exposing the location of the bomb, Hawkins tells Jake it's up to him to get and destroy that information. Because Beck's office is in the process of being turned into a SCIF, accepting only eight privileged thumbs, Jake is in a pickle. However, since Heather's little thumb is one of the few and the proud, Jake convinces Hawkins she's their only hope. Heather takes some convincing herself before she slips into Beck's office and removes the necessary information.

In J&R news, Mimi discovers that SOMEONE is embezzling money from J&R, and when Trish confronts Goetz with the discovery, Goetz first menaces Mimi at the office and then shows up at the Richmond Farmhouse to get into a shootout with {{{ spoiler alert ....****** is critical, and I am stunned.

This is an unbelievably wicked show.

http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com...ries/Oversight

Jennings & Rall
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 3 | Aired on 2008.02.26


After Jake gets over his initial attempts to shoot D.B. Sweeney's Goetz where he stands, Jake tries to kill him in a different spot: his barcodes. No, seriously. Jake has intimate knowledge of J&R's practices, protections, and predilections toward OCD, and he uses this knowledge to make sure that Frodale's black-market vaccines for the Hudson River Virus get duly punched into a few significant arms around town. Of course, Eric helps out a bit by giving Trish something that J&R isn't used to: a conscience.

Also in this episode, Beck is putty in Hawkins's hands as the regional bad-ass obfuscates the truth about Sarah Mason until it becomes the truth. It all culminates in Beck's asking Valente a key question about the ongoing investigation, and Beck finally learning -- or at least suspecting -- that Valente is a big, fat, bald, Cheneylicious liar.

In other Beck news: Heather appeals to his softer side when she tells him about a town in Missouri that is secretly suffering from the Hudson River Virus. At first, Beck plays it off, trotting out the party line that if the town were really in trouble, the current administration would have swooped in before things got out of hand. Because, you know, they always do. It's quite likely that Beck shares our cynicism, because in a darkly-lit scene, Heather confronts him with the news that the Missouri town just got an army truck filled with vaccines and a med tech. Beck plays it off all humble-like, but the fact that he went above his chain of command to send the necessary help is as clear as the sound of Heather's zing-zing-zinging heartstrings. These selfsame heartstrings hit a flat zong when we all learn that Beck -- the hottie from McNottie, the pants from Penzance, the ass from...Kansas -- is married. But his wife seems to be missing, so, you know, there's still hope.

http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com...nings-And-Rall

Only 3 Episodes left!