When last we visited Jericho, Kansas, the town was greeting refugees from the bombs — a large number of people, dirty, tired, hungry, bedraggled, and crippled by shock. Jake and the rest of the citizens of Jericho, welcomed them with open arms, prepared to do whatever they could for the visitors.

Meanwhile, the mysterious Hawkins was on his laptop in the basement of his home. He received an ominous message — a photo of him and his children, accompanied by the words "See you soon." That was two months ago. Now CBS is prepared to take us back to the town, and hopefully get deeper into the show's larger mysteries, like what Hawkin's deal is, why Jake came back, and who dropped the bombs?

When Jericho first started, I was drawn into the apocalyptic nature of the series. I was drawn to how it strayed from the front line action that is generally associated with this type of subject matter. It is my belief that the first inclination is to put us right at ground zero, not necessarily at the point of explosion, but with the people who know what is going on and who have the power to react.

Instead, the creators have put us in a small town in the middle of nowhere, close enough to see the blast, and experience some of the fallout, but far enough out of the mainstream that they are cut off and clueless as to what happened. I looked forward to seeing how the people would react, how the town and its fractured psyche would pull through in remaining a functioning town, and their quest for information, and dealing with all of the uncertainties that go with it.

For a while, the show did just that. We saw a town crumble to the brink of anarchy, but have enough strong personalities to maintain some semblance of order. Unfortunately, the show became reminiscent of a lesser Lost. It meandered around with stories and issues that took us further and further away from what I was interested in.

There were a couple of times when I teetered on the brink of abandoning the show. I watch too much television, and need to make cuts, and Jericho came dangerously close to the brink. Just when I was about to excise it, they would do something interesting to keep me coming back. Now, after disappearing for a couple of months, they have come back with an episode that makes me want to know more, to actually anticipate the next new episode.