I saw a panel on Jericho during the (formerly known as) Museum of Television & Radio’s Paley Fest in 2007.  I’d been a loyal viewer, but I won the tickets.  That pretty much sums up my relationship with the show.  I watched every second of it, but I wouldn’t pause it if I needed to answer the phone.

Initially, Jericho caught my attention because of its post-apocalyptic themes, taking a small Kansas town and watching as it struggles to survive a nuclear attack on the United States.  The beauty of humanity versus the ugly reality of survival.  Largely a successful show, but full of holes and long, drawn out secrets that never paid off, at times it was more afternoon soap opera than riveting prime time drama.

The Green family sat at the center of the story, with the prodigal return of son Jake, who’s whereabouts of recent years were mysterious at best.

 It is Jake, along with his mayor dad (played by the great Gerald McRaney), who help settle the panic of the town and start organizing a plan.  Water, food, defense, electricity…. zzzzzzzzzzz.  I’m sorry I dozed off there.  See, the producers spent way too much time on the little things and failed to use the subterfuge and traitorous goings on of the actual attack as fuel for the plot.  It was interesting to see it through a narrow glass at first, but eventually the device wore thin and I was left in want of more of the bad guys.

Naturally, Jericho got canned.  It was sci-fi on network TV after all, but as is the case with anything skirting the realm of science fiction, a dedicated militia of fans rose up and clamored for more mediocre episodes!  And that is where the cult in “top cult shows” begins.

These spunky nuclear holocaust survivors achieved the cult label by inspiring their fans to save the show with what else, nuts.  Lots and lots of nuts!  CBS was inundated with pallets full of peanuts, a nod to the show’s final line from season one.  This in turn inspired old school Trekkies to laugh as they reminisced about how they saved a show with mere letters and phone calls.  All snickering aside, the nuts did the trick and the network brought back Jericho for another round.

But is Jericho worthy of cult status?  There has certainly been a presence at some of the larger comic book/pop culture conventions of the last year, but the booths are generally bare and uninteresting.  However, the Firefly booth next door is full of visuals and merchandise and always 4 or 5 bodies deep.  So yes, there is a slice of passionate fans out there, but aside from the nuts campaign, I don’t see Jericho maintaining anything but a footnote in the book of cult.

In fact, it’s a rare case of sometimes the network is right.  The ending to season one left many unanswered questions, but when we got season two, the answers were kind of lame.  In retrospect, that “tell ‘em we say nuts” final line from Jake is rather poetic.  It leaves you the viewer with the opportunity to expand the Jericho universe in your mind, like a work of great fiction.

The only good part about the comeback was the Green’s mother’s role was greatly reduced in season two.  Gail Green (Pamela Reed) made me cringe with every line of overly broad and useless dialog she sputtered.  Frankly, it was one of the worst characters I’ve ever seen.

On the flip side, Lennie James as Robert Hawkins is one of the best.  His nefarious portrayal of a “is he or isn’t he” terrorist is golden trophy good.  Ultimately, they did write more for him to do, but maybe the show would’ve had more legs if Hawkins was a bigger focus from the pilot.

While my opinion on its cult status wavers, the rabid Jericho faithful are out there and as a reward for their loyalty exec producer Dan Shotz tells us that a big screen version is in “active development.”  Whether that’s in his head or in a studio’s hands is unclear.  What is tangible is the imminent Thanksgiving release of the Jericho comic book from Devil’s Due Publishing.  It will pick up where season two left off and continue as an illustrated season three; a concept that has paid huge dividends for Buffy The Vampire Slayer and the “Season 8″ books Dark Horse has been putting out.

As for me, hard to believe but I did like the show.  I just never loved it.  Watch for yourself and let me know what you think or perhaps send me some nuts!  I like macadamia!  If you’ve never seen Jericho (as the ratings would suggest), you can still catch up at CBS where full episodes are available to stream.