Jericho, which might be the only TV show this blog has ever highlighted, has been cancelled -- again -- after getting new life through an seven-episode second season. Those new episodes end this week.
I’d love to say that I am outraged that the show, so promising after season 1, was cancelled again. But honestly, during this second season the show has been a shadow of its former self. Many of the best-loved characters have been AWOL the entire season. The new characters simply aren’t compelling or believable. And the stories -- which used to depend on themes of communities and families dealing with horrifying uncertainty, isolation, and survival -- now consist of trite morality tales about bad corporations and conspiratorial government officials, with thinly-disguised swipes at Dick Cheney and Haliburton. The show has gone from a unique premise that was well-executed, to a thoroughly ordinary, even dull, show with little to separate it from the pack of other CBS dramas.
Apparently I’m not the only Jericho watcher who feels this way. The ratings really reflect viewer apathy, and it was for the low ratings that Jericho was cancelled again. There’s been rumors that the SciFi Channel may pick it up, in which case I hope they treat the second season as somebody’s dream they had when they were taking a shower and just start where the first season left off.