MovieChat Forums > Jericho (2006) Discussion > The biggest problem with this show...

The biggest problem with this show...

posted 11 years ago by morph85
8 replies | jump to latest

I've just finished watching the series (I know I'm late to the party...) and first of all I want to say that I really enjoyed it. Great flick. Obviously the ending was a downer, but it's understandable why that was. I like the survival theme a lot more than the terrorist/spy plot and I wished they would've insisted on that more. I'm sad the show ended but honestly I didn't like the spy/special agent/dethroning government direction they were heading in the second season, so it's easier to cope with.

That said, the biggest problem that I have with the show, in terms of credibility, is that they were still using money after the bombing. I understand it's not a very big problem in the plot development, but it's just stupidly unrealistic. The writers obviously have no clue about monetary economics or economics for that matter.

Short time after the bombing money would be less valuable than toilet paper because of hyperinflation. Yet that's a national problem, in a small town like Jericho with no connection to the outside world money would not even exist any more. I know they were mostly shown changing goods for goods, and that's a good thing, but there were few instances where they did refer to money, like in the beginning the girl buying the last can of soda for $20 if I remember correctly, and of course the whole plot with Goetz stealing $10.000 through accounting and the old-new dollar currency converting they mentioned. That's just dumb writing.

Also, the store lady giving goods for antics was ridiculously stupid considering the situation they were in at that point, but I'll give this a pass an consider the character could've just been dumb enough to think it was a good investment.

[–] tb-sch 11 years ago

Haha, yes - a currency basically is the state guaranteeing the value which is printed on a piece of paper (or cotton). No state, no money. That ruined it for me. Even the bottlecaps currency of Fallout made more sense than this.

The agent story was indeed lame and the way the information gets gathered by the agent seemed like a rather cheap plot device - just letting drop bits of information drop out of a machine, since getting information into the town would otherwise seem too hard to write.

And what I really disliked is that the people are constantly shooting over the roofs of their cars, as if the windows were made of steel. Everytime there is a gun fight they do that. Kids, in the case of a real apocalypse: Behind the engine is a save place. But the windows - nah, they won't stop a bullet.

All in all the show went downhill very fast - the first half season was interesting then they used up the potential and got stuck in some spy-thriller-wild-west-setup, leading nowhere. When they try to bring it on an even larger scale the show lacks budget and looks even smaller and cheaper.

[–] mentattodd 10 years ago

In all fairness about the downfall and too much spy arc - it was cancelled after season 1. The fans united and got the final seven episodes (season 2) as a consolation and way to answer all the questions. If it had gone its full five or so seasons the spy plot would have been a lot better and we would have seen more of the survival elements.

I agree about the shooting scenes - but then again, they were a bunch of "aw shucks" townsfolk and look how many battles started due to someone getting nervous and shooting too soon. They were not soldiers. There is a reason why soldiers spend a lot of time in training before they ever aim a firearm at another person.

[–] tb-sch 10 years ago

Or maybe they were just badly invented? There is a difference between between just being untrained and not feeling threatened at all.

And four or five seasons would not have helped - the show was all over the place right from the start. They tried too hard to cash in on the hot topics of their time while not being able to create a relevant analogy to the time where the show was created, other than US america's unproportional fear of terror.

[–] mentattodd 10 years ago

I respect your opinions but I disagree. I thought the characters were believable and the acting was solid. I thought the plot devices were fir interpretations of what might happen if the situation was real. The only true weak spot I felt was how powerful Dale got without someone simply overthrowing him.

I spent eight years in the army and I was also specially trained in NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical) and can tell you the show hit the mark much closer than one might imagine. I am also very familiar with the contractors and the lack of oversight they have. This is a real issue: Civilian casualties in Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan were largely due to contractors and hardly a single arrest has been made to date regarding those casualties. Regarding the show, I was drawn in and could not stop watching. I WAS annoyed at how the spy arc was handled, but like I said before, it would have been very smooth if they had five seasons to explore all the topics instead of one season with a bonus seven episodes.

[–] tb-sch 10 years ago

I agree that the acting was indeed okay. There were no roles to shine but they had a solid cast. The characters were well chosen and seemed like an intriguing constellation at first. The show did not manage to keep that up, but then again cancellation is a strong argument for not thinking a season ahead. The potential was there. The production value seemed impressive. Visually the world was pretty plausible, at least before they tried to make the army appear at which point they switched from not always well done moneyshots to the cheap shots like Babylon 5 in the 90ies.

As long as the show was about the people dealing with the catastrophy it worked well for me. I liked how communication broke down and the idea of becoming kind of tribal city states.
But the whole idea of clean water, food and supplies wasn't really addressed accuratly. That would have hung over their heads all the time. A bit the problem Under The Dome has as well. It just was mentioned when some other plot needed it.

In reality, values would change, as one can easily see when looking at the coverage of riots. And they change quickly. The supermarket would not survive the first hours. Suddenly the well-respected investment banker would not be worth anything anymore for the society, while the carpenter or plumber becomes one of the most important guy in town. But as it seems, everybody sticks to some value system made obsolete by the attacks.
While I was interested in that spyarc as a device to explain what happened outside the city, the idea of a working spynetwork with satellite connection while nobody else got any information seemed rather dull in a time when everybody had a satellite dish on his house.

In the end the show does not want to show how civilization breaks down, they want to use the half-broken condition as the background for rather uninspired wild-west subplots, which wouldn't need a nuclear strike at all. At some points it seems like they say "hey it is just a show, don't take that apocalypse so serious".
And Dale was indeed one of those - probably to get a relatable character for teens. That was kind of an indicator what they were heading for instead of the postapocalyptic show.

It was for certain more disappointing than bad.

[–] mentattodd 10 years ago

Thank you for the well stated rebuttal. I wish there were more people on the boards like you.

Is Under the Dome worth watching? I love the book and how (spoiler alert?) it was all just a game being played by extraterrestrials. I have not tried the show yet because the boards for it did not look good.

[–] tb-sch 10 years ago

It is really bad. What made Jericho get sour for me after several episodes happens in Under The Dome after half an episode. It promises to a show about the social conflicts arising from the appearance of the dome, but turns more and more out to be a sloppy constructed mystery show, where anything can happen at any time with the simple reason of "The Dome wants it" given. Maybe the laziest writing currently on screen, and a strong contender of The Followings crown for the worst show of the decade.

[–] mentattodd 10 years ago

Regarding the currency issue. It seemed to me they very quickly moved from using money to using a barter/trade system. I did not even see the issue of money come up until the new government came in and began issuing "their" money. At the point the only way you could buy anything was by using the new money and paying sky high prices from the contractors - which (spoiler alert) we find out was actually the new government.