As the few TV shows I am currently watching have (mostly) gone into midseason breaks, I decided to try a show I had previously skipped: Jericho.

A nuclear explosion occurs in Denver, visible from the small town of Jericho. Communications are lost and the power is cut off, nobody knows what has happened - is it an accident? Terrorism? War? Gradually (very gradually) we learn more about what has happened as the inhabitants of Jericho struggle to understand what has happened and how they will survive the new, changed, world they are living in.

After watching the first 3 episodes, I was all ready to sit down and write a glowing review. This morning though, I watched 3 more and am having second thoughts. There seems to be a trend in television for something I have just invented called "Reverse drama". Instead of caring about what happens to the characters, we are more interested in learning about what has happened and what is actually going on. Like "Lost", in which we care less about what the character will do on the island than we do about what the island actually is and what everything means.

The drawback of this new "mystery" based drama is that once you realise you are watching 45 minutes of TV for the one or two "meaningful" scenes you realise the emperor has no clothes. The drama is not that cleverly constructed or exciting on an ongoing basis, its an average TV show with some "oooh, what does that mean" moments.

So for now, I will keep watching - but I'm getting more tired of getting into TV shows that start off with an exciting start only to degenerate into tedium...