Apocalypse revisited

"Jericho" returns tonight. Sort of.

CBS devotes an hour (7 p.m., Ch. 2) to recapping the first 11 episodes of its post-apocalyptic serial drama this week; the first of 11 new episodes begins airing Wednesday, Feb. 21, at 7 p.m.

For those of you who missed it, "Jericho" started with a bang. Literally. A nuclear bomb, to be exact, which exploded in Denver and left the inhabitants of the small Kansas town of Jericho isolated, uncertain and endangered.

For a show with such a dark premise, "Jericho" has done surprisingly well. Why is hard to put your finger on.

"What I get back from people I talk to is there are sort of three things," creator/executive producer Jon Turteltaub told TV critics recently. "The premise is easy to understand and intriguing, so there's something appealing inherently in that notion somehow."

Plus, the characters and the actors who play them have "clicked with the audience." Fans want to know if Robert Hawkins (Lennie James) is good or bad and how he was involved in the bombings; where Jake (Skeet Ulrich) was in the years leading up to the present day, and which girl he's going to end up with.

"I think there's something very identifiable to these people and the conditions. And usually, something works when there's something either resonating emotionally or physically with the show. Something didn't seem fake. Something felt honest and real.

"The other answer is maybe there was just a good show. Maybe it was well-written. Maybe the actors and the directors did a really good job for a show that clicked."

Yeah, well, maybe.

Halfway through the first season, I'm still somewhat on the fence about "Jericho." I'm intrigued by the premise and I'm curious about some of those unanswered questions. (How extensive was the attack? Who is Robert Hawkins? Where was Jake? We're promised answers by the end of the season.)

But the execution has been, well, somewhat iffy. There have been episodes that dragged. It's like TiVo was invented for this show so you could fast-forward through the dull parts.

Or maybe it's just that this isn't a show for everyone. "My brother doesn't really want to watch the show because he has kids, and it just gets him thinking about too many things that bug him and make him uncomfortable," Turteltaub said. "His wife really enjoys the show, yet she happens to have the exact same two kids he does.

"So you bring a lot to the show, and the show does ask you to become engaged. That might be the reason we are successful, and it may be the reason we are not off-the-charts successful."

And the last question is — how many of those viewers were engaged enough to return three months after "Jericho" was last on the air?

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com