Yes, it's nuts

I saw Scream in the theater three times. Keep in mind that I was not yet 17 and didn't have hip parents who would buy me tickets, so I had to sneak into the theater to see Scream three times. And then I bought the VHS and I watched it a lot. Like A LOT a lot. But that was 10 years ago and my crush on ol' Skeet Ulrich had faded. I remember thinking that the previews for Jericho looked interesting, but I never got around to watching it. Like Heroes, it seemed too complicated to just pick up mid-season.

Then I heard about all those Jericho fans sending nuts to CBS to save their beloved show from cancellation and I thought, "That's the kind of crazy I can get behind." So I watched a few episodes online. They were not stellar, folks. They were kind of stilted and clichéd with compelling little bursts of interesting. I'd heard that the second half of the season was when we got to the good stuff, so I hung on that long, debating with myself about whether or not Eric would be cute without the beard.

I'm currently watching the second part of the season and it's clinging to my brain like Battlestar. It's not brilliant like that other show about prodigal sons and the gruff fathers who love them, but it taps into the same drama about life after the end of the world. In "Black Jack" Jake ventures with his dad, Heather and Dale outside of Jericho to a trading post, where we see exactly how far civilization has fallen. It's like the Old West, and the unpredictable danger of former neighbors is chilling.

The mystery with Hawkins and his former partner and their team and blah blah blah doesn't really do it for me. I'm more interested in the refugees, the highway robbers and the people learning to rise from the rubble of their former selves and stand tall in a savage new world.

CBS.com has all the episodes online. If you want to jump past the foibles of a show getting started and get straight to the awesome, just watch "Return to Jericho" to catch up before starting with "The Day Before."