TV: Jericho

Premieres this coming Wednesday; first episode is currently available at Yahoo Video.

Jake Green (Skeet Ulrich) has come home to Jericho, Kansas, to take care of some family business. It's been at least five years since he's been home, and everyone asks what he's been up to. "In the Army," he tells one friend. "Playing minor league baseball," he says to the town grocer; "in the Navy," to his high school sweetheart. Wherever he's been, his disappearance is clearly at the root of the discomfort between Jake and his father, Jericho's mayor, Johnston Green (a perfectly cast Gerald McRaney).

Jake is on his way out of town when he loses radio reception. The power goes out in Jericho, and a boy standing on a rooftop sees a mushroom cloud rising in the distance. You've seen that image in all the show's TV ads, and it's an even more striking and powerful shot in context. The best guess is that it's Denver, but what's happened -- accident? attack? invasion? -- is a mystery, and Jericho is unable to communicate with the outside world.

The first episode focuses on the immediate impact in Jericho. The mayor tries to keep people from panicking; parents worry because the school bus hasn't returned from its field trip; the police and fire department try to maintain order among an increasingly frightened and paranoid citizenry. It's all done with great suspense and tension, and Ulrich is particularly good in the role of the reluctant hero.

There's a large cast, most of whom zip by too fast to make much impression in the pilot. Those who do register include Pamela Reed as Jake's mom, Gail, who tries to keep the peace between Jake and Johnston (it's always nice to see Reed, a marvelous actress who never got the big break she deserved); Sprague Grayden as grade-school teacher Heather, who seems likely to be Jake's romantic interest; and Lennie James as Robert, the newcomer to town who happens to be a preternaturally competent jack-of-all-trades and just might know more than he lets on. (It is a bit worrisome that the "can he be trusted or is he a creep" role goes to the only black guy on the show; let's hope the writers manage to deepen that character very quickly.)

If the show stays as taut and dramatic as the pilot, it could be terrific stuff, sort of a Lost variation with Jericho filling in for the island. There's one big speech late in the pilot, though, suggesting that we might be in for a mushy feel-good family show about the inherent decency of small towns, with everyone cooperating and no conflict, a post-apocalyptic Waltons, and that would not be a good thing. At this point, I'm hopeful.