SHTF TV? -Jericho

[AJ Dual]

6. OF COURSE the only guy with a ham radio is the art bell looney with a shotgun, rather than some old retired fart from the FCC.

I'll take demonization of ham's over gun owners any day of the week. Especialy on network telivision.

And yes, there should be some analog radio traffic, or someone with a shortwave, however, that would go against the theme of "we're on our own". Being in the dark just like the townspeople is part of the experiance. How many cities, two, five, ten, twenty, fifty?

I think a good middle ground would have been hearing some forgein SW stations screaming bloody murder, obviously about the nukes, and you hear "United-ah Statesu" or something similar a few times, but no one in town speaks Japanese or whatnot.

That way there's no unrealistic "last people on earth" factor in the plot, but in practical terms, they might as well be. You could even make the Japanese shortwave news be a dark-humor running gag. People listen so they know there's an outside world, but it does them no good. Perhaps someone has a Berlitz Japanese book, and after exhaustive study, the town's "expert" just comes up with worthless translations.

"Uh, he's saying 'The Americans are pickeling thier bananas in winter this year?'"

 

[MikeS.]

I liked the show, think it has potential. Think the sheriff was totally stupid in the way he handled the bus. I don't they showed the ham radio being used and I too was suprised by the lack of CBs. Although the EMP probably would have had the ionosphere so active that radio comm in the 11 meter range would be trash.

MikeS.

 

[GW]

I love Tivo
I recorded and watched sans commercials and I enjoyed the show
I liked the way they slowly revealed the news of other attacks and developed characters and a sense of "How deep are we in it?"
I will definitely watch next week

 

[Can'thavenuthingood]

I'm thinking its an attack from the Alliance. In a few episodes we'll see Serenity swooping in to the rescue with news and a plan.

But Mal needs dilithium crystals or a new battery and a few pounds of black powder for the ships accelermagnetohydrodrive transmission compressor. Thats where the ex cop from St.Louis shows himself as one of the MIB and gives chase.

Or maybe not.

Vick

 

[Dave R]

Guy who doesn't watch much TV here...

What channel? What time? I think I need to see this...

 

[Bogart]

Its on CBS Wed night @ 20:00 Hrs

 

[Father Knows Best]

The pilot is being shown again Saturday night. I've got the TiVo set for it.

 

[sjones63]

not the kansas I know

My wife is from wichita,kansas and I lived there for many years.They said they were 47 miles from wichita,not the one I lived in.It does kanda look like the flint hills area to the north east toward kc though.Also there are no mines anywhere around there that I know of,no kinds of mines.I also never heard of a town called jerico either.There are no mountains of any size from wichita to denver,but I will watch it again to see if it gets any better.When hollywood makes a movie they should get their facts straight and do a little investigating first. sj

 

[USMC - Retired]

Since I have not seen the "mine" yet I will reserve judgement on that one. Kansas does have some strip mine operations throught the state but, I don't know of any subsurface type mines.... Didn't catch where they said they were 47 miles from Wichita, definately not close enough to Denver to have seen the cloud in my mind...

 

[DRZinn]

10. Skeet's car should be destroyed... nope it miraculously survived a head on collision with a dent in the left rear. The car will be back. Mark my words.

He swerved, and the hit the fender. It still woulda taken a lot more damage than that, though.

I liked the show. Stupidity is realistic.

Edited for clarity.

 

[berettaman]

Hasn't anyone gotten the feeling that the so called "helpfull ex fire fighter" is probably one of the folks that was on the prison bus? Of course he's either truley repentent for his crime or he's been falsely accused.

 

[GW]

No
He's one of "Them"...

 

[The_Shootist]

Guns for SHTF?

Be interesting to see how the types of guns shake out. I know that when I had to evacuate I took two firearms with me - Glock 19 and SP 101 with a couple of boxes of ammo.

Yeah, I didn't figure on "end-of-the-world" scneario. But after being treated to Katrina the month before, I wanted concealable weapons packing a decent punch - AND chambered for readily available ammo! Heck, pretty much anywhere in SE Texas you could pick up 9mm/.357/.38spl.\

Then in January I picked up my WASR10. It (along with 7 30rd mags stuffed with Wolf MC) would join the above two guns on any proposed bug-out or urban confrontation nastiness. When I'm not shooting it, its parked neatly next to my Hurricane "supplies" (those green sardine ammo tins make great carryalls for tinned food etc ).

In retrospect, I'll probably get an AK with a folding stock to make things more concealable NEXT Hurricane season - although, yeah, this season isn't over yet.

But I figure all of the above (with more food) would stand me in good stead in a terrorist / foreign SHTF scenario, like Jericho.

 

[Father Knows Best]

Last night's episode

Anyone else watch it? I loved the part where the girl got the old Colt out of the display case and used it to plug the bad guy. She shoulda plugged him earlier, of course, instead of waiting for the ex-boyfriend, but better late than never!

The ex also used a double action revolver of some sort, probably a Smith, to take out the other BG.

Any ideas what the real story is behind the "former St. Louis cop"? At the end, it looked like he put pins on the map in Denver, Atlanta, Philadelphia, San Diego and Chicago, and perhaps one or two other cities I didn't catch. Presumably, those pins indicate cities where nukes went off, and he presumably got that info from the morse code message he picked up on the radio.

 

[Checkman]

Anybody remember the 1983 TV movie "The Day After?" It was set in a small Nebraska community outside of Omaha. Perhaps this is the long overdue response to that show?

I predict that it will either become a predictable show with a crisis of the week/ soap storyline or it might go the "Lost" route with all the attending strangeness.

I'll give it a couple more weeks, but I'm not a big fan of the continuious storyline series.

All you civil defense experts get ready for major "poetic liberties".

 

[Rupestris]

I watched.

The St. Louis cop is obviously not an Ex-Cop. A secret room in the basement? keeping secrets from his wife? Morse code (not too far fetched but somewhat)?

I liked the short shot of the front of the courthouse when the man was walking down the street with a shotgun and no one wet themselves.

My predictions are:

Ex-cop is CIA, Ex-special forces, or from some other agency higher than St.Louis PD.

The blondes fiance is dead.

Ventilation system in the mine will fail and it'll be a last second rescue of the people inside.

 

[Father Knows Best]

I'm with you, Rupestris. I agree that the "ex-cop" is from some sort of covert agency. I think it's got to be CIA or NSA.

The main character (Skeet Ulrich's) also has a shady past, of course. I'm guessing he is ex-special forces. He clearly knows how to handle firearms and use explosives, and he did a dandy little emergency tracheotomy on the girl in the bus.

 

[Andras]

re: location of Jericho

at the beginning of the pilot, Jake drove past a highway sign that said
47 miles to Jericho,
196 to Wichita.

Also, he was driving from Denver, so the town is to the west of Wichita.

 

[AJ Dual]

I think he's some sort of Ex-CIA, DOD, or DHS guy too. The map and the pins and what little we've seen of his basement makes me think that he's prepared for this. Possibly picking Jericho on purpose. My guess is that he was some sort of analyst or official who predicted the attack, and wasn't believed by higher-ups so he quit to take care of himself and his family. The little exchange where he told his wife that she should be used to him not telling her info gives that away.

Hmm. So now the ex-boyfriend/mayor's wayward son/drifter is able to do field expedient tracheotomies and is also a demolitions expert. I'd also have to guess he's AWOL military from the middle east. What else would explain that? If he had an honorable or medical discharge, he'd be a hero, no need to hide his past.

My main beefs were with how they treated fallout. The duct-tape and plastic on the windows was inconsistent with the advice to get into shelters. It's true that keeping the fallout dust at bay is helpful, however, ultimately you need MASS between you and the fallout.

Many of the isotopes are gamma and neutron emitters. It doesn't matter if you've got plastic on the windows. You need several feet of dirt and some concrete. Even basements are marginal protection because of the thin angle of exposure at the top of the foundation and the first floor. The most plastic would accomplish is to possibly reduce contamination of the first floor and make the basment a bit better.

And nobody was carrying supplies in quantity for the minimum two-week stay for the worst of the fallout to decay. And after the two week window, that's just minimal exposure permitted for seeking new shelter, essential tasks. It's more like a month before you can stay outside indefinitely.

And "blowing the mine" was over-dramatic. With that kind of shelter, you can just move further inside.

How about bathroom needs? The mine isn't an issue. They could just designate a tunnel and probably not fill it for a year. But the town hall?

I know it's just a TV show, they can't cover everything without it becoming a boring documentary with minutia only of interest to people who already know it. But they alternately over-emphasized and underemphasized the dangers of fallout and the difficulty of shelter in the same scenes.

 

[Kharn]

I caught both episodes, I think its pretty well done and shows the appropriate attitude for a small mid-western town (guns as tools, nothing special and seems like a fair number have a sporting weapon or handgun, but I havent seen any military-style weapons yet).

I think the ex-STL cop was trying to get some privacy from his wife so that the number of locations he heard had been attacked would not alarm her. He's the only person in the town that knows, it'll be interesting to see how much he reveals or chooses to keep to himself. And given the age of his kids, maybe he had powertools or something in there that he didnt want them playing with, thus the lock on the door?

The cop went through a lot of push-pins marking all of the cities, I think it was an attack from Russia or China, but maybe we'll never know what happened? That would be an interesting dynamic.

Kharn

 

[thegriz]

I'm interested in their treatment of the fallout

1) I've never heard much discussion about the rain making things much worse. I heard that particles will fall on their own and you need to cover stuff up.

2) I've also heard that radioactive areas will cycle around with the weather systems and it will be sort of like the UV or allergen watch on the news - "Today we'll see minimal levels of fallout but tomorrow may be a doosey"...

3) I've also heard that the biggest risk is the iodine in your system becoming radioactive. Then you're toast. If you take potasioum iodide or something it will keep the iodine in your system from attaching with radioactive isotopes - something like that. I actually have some pills like that and they come sealed in heavy duty aluminum foil blister packs.

4) Is it really necessary to get in a big shelter or cave? Won't your roof stop the fallout?

I'm very pleased to see a show on this topic that is not openly pushing some rediculous agenda. I thought their treatment of firearms was pretty good. It does bother me that folks who have guns appear to have no extra ammo on them. If I was the one to toss the revolver to the hero I would also be tossing some speed loaders at a minimum.

 

[AJ Dual]

I think it was an attack from Russia or China, but maybe we'll never know what happened? That would be an interesting dynamic.

That will probably be the dynamic. One reason is to maintain tension in the show. The other is it's realistic for the towns perspective. They don't know, so why should we?

However, someone mentioned Denver was an H-Bomb. How would they know? Honestly it's almost out of the question. Even if it were terrorisim with the backing of a nuclear state we didn't expect, H-bombs just aren't in the inventory anymore.

Aside from political one-upmanship, the H-bomb was a product of the poor targeting technology of the 50's and 60's, and from the bomber paradigm of nuclear war, where you needed the massive overkill from a multi-megaton fusion weapon to ensure target destrucion because you didn't know how many bombers would get shot down, or how closely you cold hit what you were aming at.

H-bombs also have short-lived isotopes such as tritium which needed constant upkeep and maintenance. The physical mass of the lithium and deuterium and the conventioal fission trigger bomb also made them rather large and heavy bombs. And because there was no Civil Defense warning given, we can also assume it was a smuggling attack, and not a missile or military aircraft.

From the 70's on, the vast majority of weapons in most arsenals were 1-10 kilotons, actualy smaller than the Hrioshima and Nagasaki weapons. Improved targeting ability and the need to put smaller, lighter weapons in ballistic and cruise missiles became dominant, as did the development of multi-warhead missiles with MIRV's.

IIRC, the largest warhead maintained in the American military recently is 100kt. I don't know, but I'd assume that Russian stockpiles are similar. We don't field anything in the megaton range anymore. And I'd guess that even those 100kt's were probably for taking out hardened enemy missile fields.

So as nuclear doctrine pendulum moved back from overkill to more "tactical", it actualy became more survivable.

 

[1911user]

There is a street map of the town with the important locations marked on the CBS website for Jericho. The road numbers are blurred a bit, but it looks like the town is at the intersection of I-70 and highway 40. There is a NW Kansas town named Oakley that fits the location pretty well.

The revolver that was tossed late in the show sure looked like a nice blued python; there was a short sideview of the sight rib. Effective concealed carry in KS

The danger of the rain was it would cause whatever fallout to come down much faster than it would naturally settle. It would be concentrated exposure for a short time, but the rain runoff should carry the fallout away. That'll save needing to decontaminate everything next week. However, fishing could be a bad idea for a few weeks at least.

 

[Justin]

This discussion is better suited to APS.

http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/