Jericho (2006 TV series)

*Jericho*
Jericho
	Jericho intro.
Starring	Skeet Ulrich; Ashley Scott; Sprague Grayden; Kenneth Mitchell; Lennie James; Michael Gaston; Erik Knudsen; Gerald McRaney; Pamela Reed
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	3 (to date)
Production
Running time	60 minutes
Original release
Network	CBS
Release	September 20, 2006 –; present

Jericho is a CBS drama produced by CBS Paramount Network Television, with executive producers Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure), Stephen Chbosky and Carol Barbee. The show premiered on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 on CBS.

In the United States, the show is scheduled on Wednesday nights at 8 PM (ET/PT), airing before the CBS dramas Criminal Minds (at 9 PM ET/PT) and CSI: NY (at 10 PM ET/PT). It competes with two NBC sitcoms (Twenty Good Years and 30 Rock), ABC's Dancing with the Stars results show, Fox's drama Bones, and CW's competitive reality series America's Next Top Model.

In Canada, the series airs on CHUM Limited's OTA (over the air) Citytv and A-Channel stations, along with co-owned cable outlet Space: The Imagination Station. In Australia, the series airs on Network Ten and the premiere coincided with its U.S. debut, a first for an Australian network (it premiered September 21 at 8:30PM). In the UK the show will air on the UK Hallmark Channel.

Synopsis

Template:Spoiler The storyline revolves around the small, rural town of Jericho, Kansas, and what happens to its residents, in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion in nearby Denver, Colorado which causes a loss of power and communications that leaves Jericho isolated. The reasons for the nuclear detonation are not immediately known. Cut off from the outside world after learning of a second explosion at Atlanta, Georgia, facing rumors and fears of further attacks against other U.S. cities, and a breakdown of public order and the chain of command, the community must find some way to survive in the midst of panic and chaos.

The pivotal character is Jake Green, a 32-year-old prodigal son who returns home to Jericho for what he believes will be a brief visit, but becoming stranded when the nuclear strike hits. After a tense reunion with his father (the mayor of Jericho), Jake turns into an unlikely hero, rescuing others, organizing various efforts and protecting the town from dangers both inside and outside its borders.

Cities believed to have been attacked and/or destroyed

Established in the first episode:

Established in the second episode:

Established in the third episode:

These cities are presumed to have been either destroyed or severely damaged by nuclear explosions. As of the third episode, there is still no indication as to who might have originated these attacks.

Notes on cities

During a Mandarin Chinese news broadcast intercepted by a satellite TV in the third episode, red concentric circles are seen on a map of the United States, indicating that San Francisco （旧金山), Los Angeles （洛杉矶）, Denver (丹佛), Dallas (达拉斯）, Chicago (芝加哥), and Atlanta (亚特兰) have been attacked. While the Chinese names of Atlanta and Dallas are heard during the newscast, there is no mention of Kansas City (see below).
The same broadcast indicates that New York City was hit, with a series of red circles in that vicinity which are too far northeast to be Philadelphia, and the Chinese characters for New York (纽约) appearing on the screen. While New York City is never mentioned in dialogue, and is not revealed to the characters in the episode, this newscast appears to establish a nuclear explosion in New York as "factual" for the purposes of the show. Los Angeles is also established by Chinese characters shown on the map, and in dialogue.
Several characters discuss the red circles in the northwest as being either Seattle or Portland, but the circles are too far north to accurately represent Portland.
Since the Chinese transmission is a newscast, it can be presumed to be factual, at least in its intent. Kansas City, however, is not shown on the map and it is possible that other cities hit may be unknown to the Chinese news organization, or that the cities shown may be in error.
The Chinese characters seen below the map on the broadcast （血吸虫他。。。) translate to "schistosomiasis (blood fluke) he..." Others have translated these characters as referring to "blood sucking insects," or "blood sucking bugs," which is essentially correct as some flatworms cause the disease in question. The rest of the statement, which appears at the bottom of the screen, is obscured by the newscaster. It is not known if this particular reference has any relevance to the storyline. [1]
On the tape from a recovered airline flight data recorder, a pilot is heard discussing the mushroom cloud over Denver, and another pilot reports mushroom clouds over Kansas City and "south, somewhere in Texas," presumably the explosion at Dallas.
Emily makes the claim that both Wichita and Des Moines are "gone," but she is in a state of emotional upset and shock (believing that her fiancé is dead), and the context indicates that her statements are emotional and not factual. No evidence has yet been presented to support her claims.

Other notes

In the third episode, it was learned that a nearby National Guard armory at Goodland, Kansas had apparently been activated, with at least five tanks heading in a line along Interstate 70 towards Denver.
During the conversation replayed from a recovered flight recorder, two separate planes see F-16s on their way to Denver. One of the pilots believes that they are from the 131st Missouri Air National Guard unit, originating at Lambert International Airport in St. Louis, suggesting that St. Louis may not have been hit by an attack. (It should be noted that in real life, the 131st flies the F-15c, not the F-16.)
The events noted above are the first indication of a government or military response to the attacks.
The Air Traffic Control system collapsed during the attacks and thousands of planes were forced to land with no assistance, on highways and in fields. With "10,000 planes in the air, and no place to land" (according to the Robert Hawkins character), some would have crashed, while others may have made emergency landings. The fate of most flights is still unknown, but the airplane carrying Emily's fiancé apparently landed safely in a Nebraska field.

Episodes

Clips from the pilot episode became free to watch on Yahoo! TV several weeks before the episode actually aired on television.[2]

CBS is also showing the episodes on their Innertube site [3] after they air, although they cannot be accessed from outside the U.S. This is expected to continue throughout the season. CBS repeated the first three episodes on the Saturday nights following their original airings, as did Australia's Network Ten.

Characters

Online companion

Carol Barbee, in an online interview, announced that there would be a "digital connection" to Jericho through an online companion (at Jericho's official site) called Beyond Jericho. The television program gave the web address for the online companion. Beyond Jericho originally had a feature on the "other survivors" of the nuclear attacks. According to Barbee, the story was intended to be unique to the site, but, as the season of Jericho progressed, the online story would dovetail into the episodes themselves.

Beyond Jericho, however, has disappeared from the CBS website. While the first "webisode" was made available, everything concerning the "other survivors" story, including the site itself, disappeared before the second episode of the TV show was broadcast. No information is currently available as to why this occurred. The Jericho website no longer has a link to Beyond Jericho, and links to the site now point to a CBS page that says the desired page is missing because of recent upgrades to the CBS.com website.

Trivia

The pilot episode was filmed on location in Fillmore, California, while the sets for the town of Jericho were built at Calvert Studios in Van Nuys, California. There is a significant architectural difference between the "City Hall" seen in the pilot episode and the building seen in later shows.
The inscription above City Hall reads "MCMXXII," indicating that the town of Jericho (or City Hall) was founded in 1922.
According to dialogue from the second episode, Jericho was a town of 1,000 people in 1957, and today has a population of "almost 5,000."
There is presently no town named Jericho in Kansas, but a real Jericho once existed in Gove County, Kansas at the turn of the 20th century. Its post office closed in 1923.
According to an "official" map of Jericho shown on the CBS website, Interstate 70, State Route 83, and State Route 40 converge in Jericho; but in the real world, Interstate 70, U.S. Route 83, and U.S. Route 40 converge in Oakley, Kansas, which is 70 miles from the border with Colorado. Although the people of Jericho witness a nuclear explosion "from the west" which is believed to have occurred at Denver, Colorado and is clearly visible over a nearby mountain range, in the real world the Rocky Mountains are not visible from Kansas.
Jericho has been established in the series as being on Interstate 70 and northeast of Goodland, Kansas. This would place it near Colby, Kansas (the only location on I-70 northeast of Goodland), but this has not yet been definitively established. Despite the similarities in numbered routes, the map shown by CBS does not exactly conform to any known actual road configuration. Jericho Map
The Biblical city of Jericho mentioned in Joshua 6:1 was surrounded by walls. Jericho, Kansas is isolated in a similar way by the nuclear attacks on the United States.

External links

v t e Jericho
Major articles	Characters Season 3: Civil War Beyond Jericho
Episodes	Season 1 "Pilot: The First Seventeen Hours" "Crossroads" "Vox Populi" Season 2 "Termination for Cause" "Patriots and Tyrants"