Some thoughts on Jericho (to 1x14: Heart of Winter)

[vaznetti]

Are they changing the television schedules around, or am I having short-term memory problems? Whatever the case, I missed the first few minutes of Jericho last night (but will be able to catch them on the special Canadian rerun, hooray.)

I like this show more and more, as I watch it. Last week's episode was all about worldbuilding -- and particularly about what's gone on outside the town's borders. How will people get enough to eat, and keep sheltered and warm; who will they trade with and how; who's in charge of what. I am a big sucker for worldbuilding, particularly in a postapocalyptic scenario. I want to know how ordinary people are getting along, or failing to get along, and this show gives me that. This week's episode focused on the same questions, but on the personal scale: not how the world has changed, but how it's changed the people living in it.

The show manages an interesting balance of realism and optimism. I mean, society has pretty much fallen apart, and people are mostly looking out for themselves -- so for example people set traps on roads and steal whatever they can from the wreck. Or, as last week, thieves are hanged but some kind of slavery (maybe) is tolerated: there's no limit on what can be done except that imposed by force, and anyone with enough of an army can declare himself president. And beyond all that, there are the mercenaries and the larger question of who was behind the strikes.

Outside is dangerous, it's lawless, it's survival of the fittest. Inside Jericho, people aren't perfect, but they are able to pull together; inside Jericho we see people who find reserves of strength and caring they didn't know they had: this week it's Mimi, who keeps walking even though she's tired and cold, simply because people are relying on her, Roger, who (actually, I wasn't paying attention, because I don't find him all that interesting, but he clearly was demonstrating some kind of previously-unknown leadership ability and caring), and Sarah, who, it turns out, might not betray Hawkins after all.

Which, by the way, would be good: I don't want Hawkins' family to be harmed! I like Hawkins!

The one thing the show doesn't really have is emotional intensity. By and large, the characters are interesting, but not engaging. I'm not entirely sure why this is -- maybe it's just that a lot of the acting is by the numbers, or that the writing isn't very subtle. Certainly, it's had its moments -- in an early episode, there's a moment where Mimi is just overwhelmed by grief and anger, because everyone she knows is dead -- but most of the time, the plotting is good, but it doesn't click enough to make me engage, at least not fannishly. It's like a story you keep reading to find out what will happen, rather than because you love the characters. It's not that I don't like them -- I do like them, and I like that the show is allowing people to be flawed a lot of the time, and to be changed by what's happened to them -- but there's just something missing.

It's not a bad show, though, even if it doesn't live up to its ambitions.

Comments

[se-parsons.livejournal.com]

Hooray! Someone else is actually watching and enjoying this.

I haven't been talking about it because I thought no one liked it.

I feel the same way as you do. I don't love the characters, but everything else is ambitious and pushes the right buttons and seems believable. I love the way no one really knows what is going on outside.

And I like that so far the big bad seems to be rogue military contractors NOT the actual military. Outsourcing security is scary, and the show is handling it in a scary way.

[vaznetti]

I love how the outside world is full of scary and uncontrollable stuff.

I'm kind of wondering whether this will turn out to be one of those 24-style conspiracies where somehow military contractors are to blame for whatever happened. But yes, the way they're just wandering around and taking what they want -- I loved the episode back in the firsth alf of the season when they turned up in Jericho and Jake wanted to blow the bridge. (Especially because it was a moment when Jake wasn't right, and I like it when a show will let it's main character be wrong about something.) But we'll see, because next week, the marines turn up.

I think it's hard to talk about because of the plot/emotion balance. I mean, I love the plotting and worldbuilding, but wish I cared more about the characters.

[se-parsons.livejournal.com]

Jake is kind of growing on me now that we're seeing more about his guilt and why he knows what to do but can't seem to connect to anybody. I hope little schoolteacher girl comes back, because she's much more interesting than the blonde chick.

I adore Jake's parents and the kid from the grocery store. But, you see, I can't recall the character names, and that's bad this far into a show.

[vaznetti]

But, you see, I can't recall the character names, and that's bad this far into a show.

I'm the same way: I have to go to the website whenever I want to post about it, because I don't remember what people's names are. In part, though, that's because I remember names by seeing them written rather than hearing them, so if other people aren't writing aboutthe show, I won't learn them.

I liked the schoolteacher (Heather, I think) too. As a character, more than as a love interest, I guess, but yes, better than the blonde chick.

[wyndhamfan2.livejournal.com]

"The one thing the show doesn't really have is emotional intensity. By and large, the characters are interesting, but not engaging."

Oh, I have to disagree with you on that! This episode most of all was full of emotional intensity, especially the moment between Johnston and Jake, when they talk about what happened in Iraq and how Jake killed a little girl there.

In fact, I find the relationship between Johnston and Jake very engaging and interesting. I mean, the two have gone from barely talking to each other to confiding deep sins to one another. (OK, mostly from Jake's part) It's fascinating to watch.

[vaznetti]

I find that it has its moments, but doesn't have quite the intensity of some of the other shows I watch (which, granted, includes Supernatural, which is just one moment of emo porn after another). But I do agree that the relationship between Johnston and Jake is wonderful, and I like the way it's developed from that initial hostility to this episode, where Jake can confide in his father -- although I also really liked that when he was recovering, he asked his father to forget what he'd said. I don'tthink he's ready to be forgiven or even understood.

[wyndhamfan2.livejournal.com]

Emo porn! LOL. You're right. When compared to Supernatural, it does pale somewhat.

Jericho is a great show. Unfortunately, it could've been greater if it's not so uneven - there are moments where you do go ZZzzz (Emily Roger scenes), and the conspiracy bits, I do hope they solve it soon because dragging it out can get tiresome.

If Jericho bucks up on the reality bits it could please the Jericho nitpickers (the bane of forums, in my opinion. :P) to let them relax a little too.

I so want Jericho to have a new season - only because I want to see the dynamics of the Green family for longer.

[vaznetti]

I think that a lot of shows are rough in their first season, and Jericho is no exception -- they have a huge cast and a lot of competing storylines, and I'm not sure they really know which ones work and which ones don't. I mean, I know which ones work for me (like you, I kind of stop paying attention when Emily and Roger is on screen, and I like Hawkins as a character and his family but don't care too much about the conspiracy, if only because it all seems so farfetched.) But I think they're laying the groundwork really well, and would like them to have the chance to build on what they've done.

Sadly, though, I don't think they'll ever satisfy the nitpickers: that's the kind of thing that just feeds on itself.

[thepouncer.livejournal.com]

The worldbuilding is making me very happy, and I admit I reveled in Jake's suffering this week. It was like something out of fanfic! Hurt/comfort with the traditional sharing of body heat against the cold. Plus, he's always been so together, so I got really into seeing him stripped of all his defenses.

I do think they could transcend the situation and become sublime, but they seem to focus more on the action and mundane than the emo-porn.

[vaznetti]

Jake and Stan curling up together for warmth! That was very cute, and I really like Stan.

I don't mind the focus on worldbuilding or the focus on people's ordinary lives -- I rather like it. I mean, I think it gives them a solid basis to work from, if they get a second season and keep going. Contrast something like BSG, which had a first season that worked brilliantly, but has kind of fallen apart because no one was paying attention to things like continuity and worldbuilding and what the effects of the apocalypse would be. Jericho is much more workmanlike, but not in a bad way.

[thepouncer.livejournal.com]

The comparison with BSG is apt, because I always wanted more of the day to day details of life in the fleet. Without that, they lost the narrative and everything since the middle of the second season has been flailing. It makes me sad to see it fallen so far.

I think if Jericho keeps going they'll have a solid base to expand into more emotionally resonant storytelling if they want to later.

[vaznetti]

I think that the fact that we only learned in S3 that the civilians in BSG are not sitting around all day eating bonbons is kind of telling. It started out with a lot of promise, as far as the worldbuilding went, but then focused so strongly on character that everything else -- including plot logic and continuity! -- got lost.

I agree that Jericho has a really good base -- and a range of interesting or at least potentially interesting characters -- and I really want them to get the chance to move everything forward. They're not incapable of hitting the emotional highs, but I'd like them to do so more often.