[Marxism] The demise of the TV series "Jericho"

[dave.walters@xxxxxxxxxxx]

In the history of US Network television, Jericho will
simply not be missed. For it's small legion of fans, 
however, it is altogether different story.

The demise of the TV series "Jericho" came as no
surprise, although much sadness, to the show's 
fans. Set in the fictional south west Kansas town
of Jericho, the show was based on showing how 
this town survives in a post-nuclear holocaust 
America. Part of this holocaust is the demise of 
26 of the America's largest cities with the exception 
of New York City. Towns like Toledo, San 
Antonio, Austin, Indianapolis, Cheyenne, Sacramento 
are spared the worst of the bombings.
 
During it's short two seasons (the "final" episode 
is to be aired this Tuesday on CBS) the plot of 
Jericho focused on simply surviving and?the 
true culprits of the war: who started it. During 
the first season we learn the US "retaliates" 
against N. Korea and Iran, two current real bogeymen 
in the US imperialist propaganda onslaught. This 
part of the plot was very clever by the writers, 
who threw this in as a "believable" misdirection 
for the audience to latch onto.
 
As the plot unravels, we learn that in fact the 
bombings were the work of US homegrown 
"patriots", in the CIA or other gov't agency, 
who wanted to "rebuild" the devastated 
US in their own narrow right-wing image. 
Reconstruction contracts are handed over to a 
company called "Jennings & Rall" and special 
military assignments and "acquisition" to a 
private mercenary company called "Ravenswood". 
As many fans have noted, these companies
are stand-ins for  Halliburton and Blackwater. 
The secret conspirator behind the whole deal 
is a Dick Chaney-like character who supposedly 
organized counter-nuclear terrorism for 
Homeland Security and a consultant with Jennings 
&  Rall.
 
The clear stand-out actor in the show is the Afro-
British actor Lennie James who played Sol in 
Guy Ritchi's marvelously cast "Snatch". James 
plays an "honest spy", who is sent in, he believes, 
to infiltrate the US terrorist group as it was 
organizing to deploy the A-bombs in trucks to 
the designated cities. James loses all contact 
with his bosses?played in fact by the Chaney 
character, and is assigned to truck one of these 
bombs to Cincinnati, but instead, takes off with 
the bomb and hides it, and his family, in Jericho, 
Kansas. His skills in the military and whatever
 CIA-like group he worked for comes in handy 
in defending the town against the pilfering 
Ravenswood mercenaries and other issues of law 
and order. James became the most intriguing, 
sinister, interesting, reliable and hero-like 
character  in the whole series according to most 
of the  shows fans who commented on it.
 
For commercial sponsored television, it had a
nicely visible 'subversive' element to what would
otherwise be considered a kind of grade-B sci-
Fi melodrama of an America down on it's luck.
 
The first, and only, two seasons are available on
various websites and on DVD.
 
David Walters ________________________________________________
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