If Pitchfork reviewed television, they'd surely hate Jericho. It's pretty obvious why. Jericho isn't terribly clever, isn't terribly well-acted, written, or even paced for that matter! But it's for a lot of these reasons that I've taken quite a shine to this popular little serial. Sometimes I like what I call the cultural feeling of a show. It often occurs in overtly commercial products because there's really no creative focus. I imagine the show's creators have had to water down what they've wanted to write about and the team of writers is likely handcuffed to a painful degree. And yet an earnestness survives which I can't get enough of. There are three other reasons I'm enjoying Jericho. First, there's no irony. Second, there's absolutely no self-referentiality (which I adore). And third, and this is the real appeal of the show, there's an implicit surreality that colours every scene. This is because the premise is quite solid (most critics grant this). Jake Green (Skeet Ulrich) comes home to Jericho to makes amends with his father before he starts his new life back in California. As he drives out of town several U.S. cities are destroyed by nuclear bombs forcing Jake to stay put and make eyes with his old flame, save people from desperate situations and basically save the day. This is a mainstream show and that means there are no anti-heroes. But that's what I love about it! You get to create all sorts of small crimes that might be in this character's past that will NEVER make it on air. You get to fill in the human blanks. I find Ulrich unaccountably engaging because he's just so NORMAL. I went to junior high school with guys like him. They weren't jocks but excelled at sports. They weren't mean but they weren't doormats. They weren't in the cool crowd, but they were ultimately cool. They didn't read books but they understood the themes in literature. They were just guys who were easy to get along with because the world was easy for them. Jericho is a very uncool show because it's earnest and not ironic. It has a solid foundation because it doesn't rely on effects or gimmicks or wink-wink-cleverness and puts the show entirely on Jake Green's shoulders. And somehow Skeet Ulrich pulls it off! It could be a much better show if CBS would let the writers do flex their surreal muscles but with commercial success comes length and with length comes experimentation and with experimentation comes surreality. ¶ Today was the single hardest day I've had drawing portraits. It took me all day to finish Ulrich, and I still didn't get the likeness to the point I'd wanted to. But I do think works alone as a portrait so I'm proud to publish it I worked on this week's Siteway feature after dinner and now it's exactly what I wanted. Here's to dinner tonight and relaxzone. ¶ Jay-Z in tomorrow's Post: AL2.

Labels: NationalPost, TV

¶ 6:49 PM
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