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On to episode 13 through 16 of Jericho.
The 13th episode, Black Flag, opens with Jake and Jimmy, one of our intrepid (incompetent) deputies, finding an elderly man frozen to death in front of his own fireplace... given that this guy was apparently living alone, I'm more than a little bit boggled that there is no mention of an effort to get people to share space in the houses that are best suited to wood-fire heating. You'd think that might be a useful thing for the town government to organize, given that there is no power or oil shipments after the apocalypse. Instead of letting people freeze to death one by one in houses designed for modern heating, might trying to get people in houses that can be heated by their fireplaces in groups so that the fire can be tended throughout the night have been a good idea? Just maybe?
Then we get to a town hall meeting and the Blackboard of Doom, with all of the town's critical supplies listed on it. This blackboard makes me wince -- someone put those numbers up, and to make them look dire, they complete skipped researching anything about Kansas.
By the Blackboard of Doom, Jericho has the following resources:
Meat:
203 head of cattle
29 sheep
600 fowl
Corn -- 800 bu
Wheat -- 500 bu
Soy -- 450 bu
Salt -- unlimited
Sugar --
Gas -- 200
Diesel -- 100
Biodiesel -- 8 gal
Heating oil -- 150
Lumber -- unlimited
Coal -- 201 ca(?)
Unlimited lumber... in Kansas? The Great Plains are plains -- big, treeless prairies, mostly converted to farmland. The entire state is only about 4% forested, and that includes river bottoms and city parks. There is not unlimited lumber in Jericho. There is very limited lumber in Jericho, especially if they don't want to ruin their waterways. They should be looking into heating their homes with corn cob fires and maybe dried cow chips instead of firewood.
The wheat and corn are just laughably low. Kansas farms produce about 30 to 50 bushels of wheat per acre, and about 150 bushels of corn per acre. Kansas farms average 700 acres. You do the math. The only way they are that low is if they either didn't harvest the crop due to fears of fallout contamination or didn't harvest the crop due to lack of manpower/machinepower, and are eating their seed corn, or all the farms in town are under 10 acres...
Note, there is no mention of sorghum on that list -- you know, sorghum, the third big agriculture product of Kansas, used as an animal feed, sugar source, and ethanol feedstock. Did everyone forget about it, or what?
As to the animals, there is no mention of hogs -- though I understand a hog farm is important in the second season -- and no mention of horses. Horses are very useful when you don't have enough gasoline to run the generator keeping you medical center going -- you can ride them instead of driving around in gas guzzling cars. In a pinch, during a famine, you can even eat them! So why no mention of the horses? Why two more episodes before a character rides through town carrying info from the border patrol on one? Are these characters to stupid to realize horse=transport without gasoline? ...well, yes...
Also, newly elected Mayor Gray Anderson is complaining about the 53 new people -- in a town of 5000, that's a 1% increase in population. That's negligible, especially with the deaths they're experiencing from the cold weather.
The trading post in Nebraska is interesting, especially with the 'national' news that is accumulating. Six different people are vying for the title of president, apparently -- of course, one is a Cabinet Secretary, and unless one of the Senators trying to claim the title was President Pro Tem of the Senate, that Secretary is the one who is President. The things about everyone else deciding that 'the rules have changed' because of the bombs are .... well, the presidential order of succession is there for just such a disaster as a nuclear bomb hitting Washington.
Dale trying to steal the turbine governor... this after they've seen a hanged thief still dangling over the fairground... well, he is a teenager, but wow, that was stupid. It means that the Jerichoans can't come back to the trading post. At least Jake et al hook up with the New Bern guys who might be able to make a wind turbine for the town, though sadly, we lose Heather as a character for some time because she goes off to help build it.
In ep 14, Jake, Stanley and Mimi stumble across a 'migration highway' of trampled grass 60 yards across. One of the bags they find in the camp detritus is from Wall, South Dakota, and they come to the conclusion that people are leaving the northern plains trying to head south before winter makes the roads impassable. I'm not sure how safe that is an option -- South Dakota is a largely agricultural state, growing feed corn, wheat and soy and raising beef -- it would be a terribly boring diet and probably nutritionally unbalanced, but if you had enough wood to heat your house, or enough oil (which South Dakota produces, along with natural gas!), you'd probably survive the winter. Not to say that desperate or stupid people wouldn't be trying to head south, but since this episode is set *after* Thanksgiving, it seems ridiculously late in the season to be doing so.
Just importantly for me, is why are people even bothering to obey the hunting laws? Especially since there don't seem to be game wardens to enforce them or a judge in town to be brought in front of . I'd be organizing buffalo jumps and other kinds of mass hunting, for maximum efficiency. Not driving (why haven't they 'nationalized' everyone's gasoline yet?) to hunting grounds ten miles outside of town for a day where nothing shows to be shot. At least bait the watering holes or something, people! Also, Jake, Stanley and Mimi wear jeans to go hunting -- cotton kills! -- instead of actual sensible hunting togs, like wool or gore-tex. They do at least get the fact that the ground would suck the heat out of anyone pinned by a wreck, and Stanley does try to get Jake off the ground by shoving straw under him.
I do like Mimi and Stanley together. They're sweet, she's sensible even if she's ignorant of the area and Stanley does well enough if someone is around to refocus his attention on the important things. And Jake's hypothermic confession to his dad that he killed a child in Iraq -- which I believe is also the first time he's told his father that he was even in Iraq -- is handled very well. Johnston Green was an Army Ranger in Vietnam, it makes sense that he'd have experience and understanding of very messy and ambiguous battlefields.
In ep 15, it starts off with people leaving town to try to get to Arizona, and Mayor Gray Anderson asking what would the town's supply situation look like if they kicked out the refugees (who remember, at 53 people are only approximately 1% of the entire population) -- the Blackboard of Doom has changed to show that there are now 189 head of cattle (if they slaughtered 14 head in 2 weeks, that is still about 5,600 lbs of dressed meat -- a half pound of meat for everyone in town per week, not to mention the 66 chickens, which hopefully were roosters instead of hens. Eggs are valuable and renewable sources of protein, if you've got a laying hen).
In ep 16, the long await pregnancy disaster shows up, and Deputy Jimmy convinces me he was kept on in the sheriff's department because he was soothing and comforting and just exactly the sort of guy you want along when you have to break it to a woman that her son wrapped his car around a telephone pole in a drunken stupor.
Just for the record, a nurse, even a nurse who is years out of practice, and doesn't realize that 'placenta previa' is likely a fatal diagnosis without power, medicine or any modern equipment is kind of dim. Gail was also creepily focused on the baby, acting like Emily was a broodmare to give her a grandchild instead of a woman of worth in her own right. I definitely liked the interaction between Mimi and Bonnie -- especially when Bonnie can't help April because she can't hear the baby's heartbeat.
Oh, and Gray Anderson dismissing Dale and Skylar's 'contract dispute' in favor of getting the wind turbine up ... that man is an idiot. Contract disputes, involving food and resources in such a strapped environment, are likely to turn deadly. Get a court system up and running, you idiots!
It's not that isn't an interesting show... but it's also an intensely frustrating show, because the world-building fails often enough that I can't tell what of the drama is deliberate, and what is me noticing that things aren't working because they weren't thought through by the writers
The 13th episode, Black Flag, opens with Jake and Jimmy, one of our intrepid (incompetent) deputies, finding an elderly man frozen to death in front of his own fireplace... given that this guy was apparently living alone, I'm more than a little bit boggled that there is no mention of an effort to get people to share space in the houses that are best suited to wood-fire heating. You'd think that might be a useful thing for the town government to organize, given that there is no power or oil shipments after the apocalypse. Instead of letting people freeze to death one by one in houses designed for modern heating, might trying to get people in houses that can be heated by their fireplaces in groups so that the fire can be tended throughout the night have been a good idea? Just maybe?
Then we get to a town hall meeting and the Blackboard of Doom, with all of the town's critical supplies listed on it. This blackboard makes me wince -- someone put those numbers up, and to make them look dire, they complete skipped researching anything about Kansas.
By the Blackboard of Doom, Jericho has the following resources:
Meat:
203 head of cattle
29 sheep
600 fowl
Corn -- 800 bu
Wheat -- 500 bu
Soy -- 450 bu
Salt -- unlimited
Sugar --
Gas -- 200
Diesel -- 100
Biodiesel -- 8 gal
Heating oil -- 150
Lumber -- unlimited
Coal -- 201 ca(?)
Unlimited lumber... in Kansas? The Great Plains are plains -- big, treeless prairies, mostly converted to farmland. The entire state is only about 4% forested, and that includes river bottoms and city parks. There is not unlimited lumber in Jericho. There is very limited lumber in Jericho, especially if they don't want to ruin their waterways. They should be looking into heating their homes with corn cob fires and maybe dried cow chips instead of firewood.
The wheat and corn are just laughably low. Kansas farms produce about 30 to 50 bushels of wheat per acre, and about 150 bushels of corn per acre. Kansas farms average 700 acres. You do the math. The only way they are that low is if they either didn't harvest the crop due to fears of fallout contamination or didn't harvest the crop due to lack of manpower/machinepower, and are eating their seed corn, or all the farms in town are under 10 acres...
Note, there is no mention of sorghum on that list -- you know, sorghum, the third big agriculture product of Kansas, used as an animal feed, sugar source, and ethanol feedstock. Did everyone forget about it, or what?
As to the animals, there is no mention of hogs -- though I understand a hog farm is important in the second season -- and no mention of horses. Horses are very useful when you don't have enough gasoline to run the generator keeping you medical center going -- you can ride them instead of driving around in gas guzzling cars. In a pinch, during a famine, you can even eat them! So why no mention of the horses? Why two more episodes before a character rides through town carrying info from the border patrol on one? Are these characters to stupid to realize horse=transport without gasoline? ...well, yes...
Also, newly elected Mayor Gray Anderson is complaining about the 53 new people -- in a town of 5000, that's a 1% increase in population. That's negligible, especially with the deaths they're experiencing from the cold weather.
The trading post in Nebraska is interesting, especially with the 'national' news that is accumulating. Six different people are vying for the title of president, apparently -- of course, one is a Cabinet Secretary, and unless one of the Senators trying to claim the title was President Pro Tem of the Senate, that Secretary is the one who is President. The things about everyone else deciding that 'the rules have changed' because of the bombs are .... well, the presidential order of succession is there for just such a disaster as a nuclear bomb hitting Washington.
Dale trying to steal the turbine governor... this after they've seen a hanged thief still dangling over the fairground... well, he is a teenager, but wow, that was stupid. It means that the Jerichoans can't come back to the trading post. At least Jake et al hook up with the New Bern guys who might be able to make a wind turbine for the town, though sadly, we lose Heather as a character for some time because she goes off to help build it.
In ep 14, Jake, Stanley and Mimi stumble across a 'migration highway' of trampled grass 60 yards across. One of the bags they find in the camp detritus is from Wall, South Dakota, and they come to the conclusion that people are leaving the northern plains trying to head south before winter makes the roads impassable. I'm not sure how safe that is an option -- South Dakota is a largely agricultural state, growing feed corn, wheat and soy and raising beef -- it would be a terribly boring diet and probably nutritionally unbalanced, but if you had enough wood to heat your house, or enough oil (which South Dakota produces, along with natural gas!), you'd probably survive the winter. Not to say that desperate or stupid people wouldn't be trying to head south, but since this episode is set *after* Thanksgiving, it seems ridiculously late in the season to be doing so.
Just importantly for me, is why are people even bothering to obey the hunting laws? Especially since there don't seem to be game wardens to enforce them or a judge in town to be brought in front of . I'd be organizing buffalo jumps and other kinds of mass hunting, for maximum efficiency. Not driving (why haven't they 'nationalized' everyone's gasoline yet?) to hunting grounds ten miles outside of town for a day where nothing shows to be shot. At least bait the watering holes or something, people! Also, Jake, Stanley and Mimi wear jeans to go hunting -- cotton kills! -- instead of actual sensible hunting togs, like wool or gore-tex. They do at least get the fact that the ground would suck the heat out of anyone pinned by a wreck, and Stanley does try to get Jake off the ground by shoving straw under him.
I do like Mimi and Stanley together. They're sweet, she's sensible even if she's ignorant of the area and Stanley does well enough if someone is around to refocus his attention on the important things. And Jake's hypothermic confession to his dad that he killed a child in Iraq -- which I believe is also the first time he's told his father that he was even in Iraq -- is handled very well. Johnston Green was an Army Ranger in Vietnam, it makes sense that he'd have experience and understanding of very messy and ambiguous battlefields.
In ep 15, it starts off with people leaving town to try to get to Arizona, and Mayor Gray Anderson asking what would the town's supply situation look like if they kicked out the refugees (who remember, at 53 people are only approximately 1% of the entire population) -- the Blackboard of Doom has changed to show that there are now 189 head of cattle (if they slaughtered 14 head in 2 weeks, that is still about 5,600 lbs of dressed meat -- a half pound of meat for everyone in town per week, not to mention the 66 chickens, which hopefully were roosters instead of hens. Eggs are valuable and renewable sources of protein, if you've got a laying hen).
In ep 16, the long await pregnancy disaster shows up, and Deputy Jimmy convinces me he was kept on in the sheriff's department because he was soothing and comforting and just exactly the sort of guy you want along when you have to break it to a woman that her son wrapped his car around a telephone pole in a drunken stupor.
Just for the record, a nurse, even a nurse who is years out of practice, and doesn't realize that 'placenta previa' is likely a fatal diagnosis without power, medicine or any modern equipment is kind of dim. Gail was also creepily focused on the baby, acting like Emily was a broodmare to give her a grandchild instead of a woman of worth in her own right. I definitely liked the interaction between Mimi and Bonnie -- especially when Bonnie can't help April because she can't hear the baby's heartbeat.
Oh, and Gray Anderson dismissing Dale and Skylar's 'contract dispute' in favor of getting the wind turbine up ... that man is an idiot. Contract disputes, involving food and resources in such a strapped environment, are likely to turn deadly. Get a court system up and running, you idiots!
It's not that isn't an interesting show... but it's also an intensely frustrating show, because the world-building fails often enough that I can't tell what of the drama is deliberate, and what is me noticing that things aren't working because they weren't thought through by the writers
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I did love Stanley and Mimi, and Dale's climbing the social ladder.
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Exactly -- it's got enough slop that there is a place for fanfic to patch the wholes in the world, but still compelling enough to get people involved.
I did cheer a tiny bit when Deputy Bill got punched in the face at the beginning of ep 17. He is an amazingly unlikeable character for a cop, who are usually written sympathetically unless the show is a drama featuring corrupt cops, or a comedy.
Stanley and Mimi are lovely, and deserve to have a much better A-plot to be the B-plot too. Dale, I like that he's climbing the social ladder, but I dislike the incompetence of the adults around him that is opening up so many shady opportunities for him.
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It bugs me that there is such an obvious disconnect between what the characters should know, and what the *writers* having given the actors to work with.
This is probably why I enjoy Mimi and Stanley so much, because they aren't shown to be egregiously dumb, while the mayors (Gray *and* Johnston) have been shown to neglect important executive function and the deputies drive me nuts by being neither comedy relief or deliberately corrupt.
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So, yeah, I actually recommend some of his stuff (with the caveat about his politics being not for all readers and sometimes blatantly on display). Just avoid the Ghost/Keldar series.
A real problem when you have writers who don't know what the characters should know based on their onscreen careers/hobbies/history, and don't do any research on the topic either. Like the thing where people who give up their jobs to focus on their writing tend to produce a lot of stories about writers.
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And I don't know how much I can correct for that. Because what canon wants me to believe about the competencies of the characters, and what canon has *shown* me is nearly irreconsilible...
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