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vaznettiAre 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.
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.
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Date: 2007-03-08 05:19 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2007-03-08 06:41 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2007-03-09 02:57 am (UTC)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.
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