Jericho: The Second Season – DVD Review

DVD Reviews, Reviews

Available at Amazon.com

After season one, Jericho was canceled. There were some complaining fans but at first it looked like it would be just another good show that just didn’t have the ratings. But then the fans got organized and flooded CBS with 40,000 lbs. worth of nuts. Three weeks later, the series was resurrected from the dead as a mid-season replacement. CBS only gave them a seven-episode order for season two though. Would Jericho‘s quality suffer when forced to tell their story in a greatly compressed time frame?

The plan for season two, before the show’s first cancellation, was to depict life in Cheyenne and New York City, in addition to showing what was happening in Jericho. But when season two was truncated to seven episodes, the story had to be greatly compressed. As a result, the New York storyline was dropped and Cheyenne only makes an appearance in the last episode.

Of course, even after cutting out the New York and Cheyenne subplots, there’s more than enough left to ensure season two’s seven episodes are packed with plot. The season is completely devoid of filler; from the opening scene of episode one all the way until the credits roll on episode seven, just about everything is important. There are lots of times where a plot that normally could have easily been the A story is reduced to being the B or even the C story of an episode. It’s just packed.

At the end of season one, things looked pretty grim for the citizens of Jericho. New Bern had more soldiers and more troops and the Jericho forces were pretty much out of tricks (save for Hawkins and a tank). Fortunately, government forces show up in time to stop the conflict before there are any more casualties. It’s not the United States government that shows up to help though, but rather the Allied States of America. The six rival factions established in season one are now down to three factions. The old federal government, stationed in Columbus, Ohio, controls everything east of the Mississippi and retains the “United States” name. The Allied States, stationed in Cheyenne, Wyoming, is made up of all the forces to the west of the Mississippi. The only state that has yet to choose a side is Texas. At the start of the season, Texas is independent and being courted by both governments. War seems inevitable and getting Texas on board will be a huge boon to whichever side can manage it.

It soon becomes clear that the Cheyenne government has framed North Korea and Iran for the nuclear attacks. They know what really happened, and elements of their government may have even been involved in the attacks. This leads to the two main storylines running through season two: The inhabitants of Jericho struggling under military and corporate occupation (from the AS army and Jennings and Rall) and the quest to expose the Cheyenne government before Texas decides to join the Allied States. A lot happens in seven episodes.

There is, however, a downside having so much happen in such a short season. There are times when events don’t feel like they’ve been sufficiently built towards. The events are entirely plausible, but they sometimes happen just a little too quickly (the ledger story arc is filled with such moments).

Another impact resulting from the reduced season is the list of regular cast members. While everyone from season one makes at least one appearance in season two, many are reduced to recurring roles and thus may only show up sporadically. Dale, Skylar, Gray Anderson and Gail Green are probably the characters whose roles are diminished the most. Even though some really great characters have a lot less screen time in season two, there’s just so much going on that their loss is rarely felt.

While many cast members have reduced roles, there are some new characters introduced in season two, most notably a Jennings & Rall employee (Trish Merrick) and an Allied States major (Major Beck). An old “friend” also returns to cause mayhem for the citizens of Jericho. Beck and Trish serve to present a more sympathetic side to the Allied States government. The government may have some questionable elements, but that doesn’t mean all the people in that government are automatically bad. These two will face ethical struggles later on in the season when it becomes apparent that loyalty to the government/company and doing the right thing just may be mutually exclusive.

The biggest concern I had going into season two of Jericho is whether or not we would get closure if the show was cancelled again. Season one ended on the middle of a major conflict, with the fate of the town hanging in the balance. Fortunately, everyone involved knew there was a distinct chance that Jericho would not see season three so they crafted a season finale which could serve as a series finale if necessary. And in that task it succeeds admirably. When the season ends there are still lots of questions still to be answered and struggles to be won, but it still feels like an ending. It would have been a mistake to try and wrap up everything the Jericho world in seven short episodes (and would have left them in a bind if they had been picked up for a third season). By focusing on just ending a chapter rather than the whole story, there’s a good sense of closure and nothing feels forced.

All in all, season two of Jericho is excellent. The plot moves along at a quick pace, Hawkins and Jake continue to be awesome and there are lots of interesting (and sometimes shocking) new developments.

The video is in 2.35:1 and the audio is in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround. Everything looks and sounds great.

Even though the season is only a third of the length of the first season, there are actually more special features to enjoy this time around. Throughout the special features, there’s a sense that everyone is really grateful to the fans for their part in reviving the show. Presumably that gratitude is also why we get a much more robust set of extras.

Deleted scenes – Scenes from all but one episode with optional commentary from Dan Shotz and Jonathan E. Steinburg. Most of the time, it’s just the standard cuts for time or pacing, but there are a few cool ones. There’s also one scene that provides our first brief glimpse at the Columbus government (but a decision was made to hold that back for season 3, so it was cut).

Episode Commentary – Commentary for all seven episodes. Each episode has two or three people doing the commentary and a good mix of people are involved (writers, actors, producers, directors, etc).

Nut Job – A featurrette about how the fan campaign and how it lead to the show’s revival. It’s filmed as kind of a feel good piece but seeing as the ratings actually went down for the second season, executives are likely to decide the moral of the story is that even the most enthusiastic fan campaign can’t improve the ratings. As such, it’s kind of bittersweet to watch.

Rebuilding Jericho – A featurette covering coming back for season 2. While it covers some of the same ground as Nut Job, there is lots of new stuff as well. Of the new stuff, the discussion of how season 2 was going to be handled back before the show’s first cancellation is quite intriguing.

Alternate unaired Ending – Despite being called the alternate ending, this was actually intended to be the ending of season two. However, before they filmed the final episode, CBS asked them to create a less open-ended ending (presumably for fear of another peanut barrage should the show be cancelled). While this ending is about twenty minutes long, there only a handful of scenes that are a bit different and a couple entirely new ones. It actually still would have worked pretty well as the series finale, though it does get the viewer rather pumped up to see season three. You can view just the changed portion or integrate the changes into the finale. From the commentary it is clear everyone clearly viewed this as the “real” ending, and the other as the alternate. Unfortunately things did not work out that way.

Previews – Season 1 of Jericho, CSI: Miami, CSI, CSI:NY, Numbers, NCIS, Medium, The 4400, and Twin Peaks: The Definitive Gold Box Edition are all previewed though some of them are combined into one segment.

An excellent seven-episode arc, a sense of finality and a nice selection of extras make this DVD a no-brainer for fans of series. If you haven’t seen Jericho before though, you probably want to start with season one.

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Paramount presents Jericho: The Second Season. Created by: Stephen Chbosky, Josh Schaer, Jonathan E. Steinburg. Starring: Skeet Ulrich, Lennie James, Ashley Scott, Kenneth Mitchell, Brad Beyer, Alicia Coppola and Esai Morales. Running time: 347 minutes. Rating: NR. Released on DVD: June 17, 2008. Available at Amazon.com