The Walls Come Tumbling Down ...

Last Friday, the first half of the first series of Jericho ended on satellite TV. The ongoing story of the citizens of an isolated Kansas town, cut off from the outside world after a series of nuclear bombs go off in America; this is a show that's really grown on me.

At first, with it slow pacing, I feared we were in for a repeat of Invasion - and I would invest time and mental capacity into following a show only for it to be axed before there is any form of resolution.

But Jericho, with its lower production costs (there are no aliens needing special effects, for instance), is picking up speed and intensity as the community tears itself apart with paranoia and internal politics.

Anyone expecting Mad Max-style post-Apocalypse devastation will be disappointed, Jericho is about the gradual deterioration of society after such a cataclysmic event, and is therefore, despite the odd death and outbreak of violence, quite low-key. The show is more about - as are many of my favourites at the moment - what is going on in the bigger picture? Who set the bombs off? Is America at war or was it a terrorist attack? Have they been invaded? How come they could only pick up Chinese newsbroadcasts when the TV's momentarily worked?

Hidden away on the Hallmark Channel, whose content I had dismissed as "light-weight family dramas" (despite knowing that Hallmark has produced some great sci-fi/fantasy mini-series in recent years), Jericho has been quite overlooked in the general hub-bub of genre programming around at the moment, but it holds it own. I, for one, am looking forward to the season resuming on May 4 or May 11 (depending on which Hallmark announcement you believe!)