Television

Until not very long ago this set was being billed as Jericho: The Complete Series. The show was originally cancelled and later revived through a fan campaign to save the show. It was never a ratings monster, and I must admit that I was never interested enough to watch it even once. Now the DVDs of that first season have arrived, and I’m given my first look at Jericho. My very first impression was that this show was very ambitious from the gate. Perhaps the show’s fatal flaw is that it attempts to tackle far too many serious issues, complete with complex undertones, with the largest ensemble cast I’ve seen yet. Add this to the fact that the world is still a little sensitive to terrorist attacks, and you have a recipe for keeping your audience relatively small. None of these things are bad elements in and among themselves, and I’m certainly not suggesting that these issues need to be abandoned. I’ve been a high school teacher, and one thing any of us can tell you is that there’s only so much a person can absorb in a given amount of time. What little enjoyment I did get out of these DVDs I likely would have lost if I also were contending with 20 minutes of mindless commercials to further distract my concentration. The series offers a lot of fear and panic with precious few moments of hope.

Do you believe that a numbers wizard can predict the most random of human actions with mathematical equations so accurately as to know where and when such a person will be? If so, then I suggest you put down that letter you are writing to Santa, finish eating that egg a bunny left for you, go to your pillow and pull together all of the loot you got from the tooth fairy, and plunk it down on season three of Numb3ers. No, that’s not a typo, apparently they believe that letters aren’t good enough to stand on their own so they inserted a 3 where the e should be. Aren’t they so clever? Not. In the fairy tale world of Numb3ers, all you need is an almost obsessive knowledge of math and the crooks don’t stand a chance. It’s almost unfair, isn’t it. Those poor criminals go about their carefully plotted crimes, unaware that everything they do is controlled by math. They live their lives oblivious to the fact they are at the mercy of a diabolical equation which forces their every move. In fact, I suspect some clever attorney somewhere is already preparing the “math made me do it” defense at this very moment. Soon our justice system will be forced to account for this undeniable force on our very destinies. I would go on but I can’t… must… fight… numbers…