Jericho: Fallout

(S01E02) Can I first say that, even before I saw the title of tonight's episode, that I totally guessed it just from looking at the previews CBS has been showing? It was either very predictable or I had a Dionne Warwick Psychic Friends Network moment.
This second episode was good. This isn't groundbreaking television. It's really more like just an old-fashioned suspense drama, but so far it's working.
But again with the stupid characters! Hey, hot blonde lady walking down the empty road with the gas container: if a police car from the town of JERICHO comes along side you and asks you where the latest gas station in JERICHO is, maybe you should think, "hmmm, maybe these guys aren't really cops." And why would the lady storeowner say to the kid "don't you remember what happened last night? Your momma's gone"? How the hell does she know what happened to his mom, except an "oh my God" on the phone message.
But they're building up the tension fairly well. I liked the deputy mayor's (the guy who looks like Edward Norton with a beard) speech to the bar patrons about how they'll die from radiation poisoning. Though I probably would have just walked out and said, "see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya."
The strongest parts of the show are the different types of characters (especially Hawkins, played by Lennie James, who might be one of the most intriguing characters on TV this season) in Jericho and the small-town feel they're building. I mentioned last week that it's sort of a 50s sci-fi movie throwback, and it is, and that's a good thing. It makes you wonder what exactly your town would do if the same thing happened.
The weakest part of the show? I guess it would be the whole question of where exactly they're going with this show. Can it sustain a whole season, and if it does, can it sustain a second season? This seems like more of a really long mini-series than a multi-season show. (Oh, and the whole fake cops subplot I could do without - what, a mushroom cloud and panic isn't enough? Glad they ended that standoff tonight.)
A lot of people are comparing this show to Lost, because it's about a group of people trapped in one area and they don't know what's going on. But it's a little more like Katrina: The Series, where a town is about to be hit by a force (in this case a radiation cloud from Denver) and they're panicking, grabbing stuff from stores, trying to find shelter, etc. It's a solid little show so far.
(By the way, I found out that one of the executive producers of this show is Stephen Chbosky, author of The Perks of Being A Wallflower.)

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