studioAT You can't blame Robert Lindsay. After 5 years on sitcom 'My Family' he probably wanted to stretch his legs a bit,and this drama about a detective in the 50's would have been just the escape he wanted.And to his credit he's good in his role here and supported by some decent scripts. The problem this show faced was that it was shown on the wrong night. It was too complex in terms of plots for people to grasp on a Sunday night when they want something easy going to just wash over them ahead of going back to work on Monday.On any other night I think this show would have succeeded, but as it was ITV stuck it on at the right time, the ratings didn't hold up and then we were saying goodbye to Jericho as quick as we'd said hello.

ctomvelu-1 Caught an episode involving a serial killer using a garrote, and the killer is likely a woman, for various reasons not worth going into here. Inspector Jericho, an aging detective with no home life, traces the possible killer to a lonely hearts organization, and meets with two of the five women who most recently dated the two murder victims, one of whom was a nuclear scientist and the other a postman. The ending is very tricky, to say the least, especially since Jericho begins to hit it off with the most likely suspect and fights about this constantly with his fellow coppers. Jericho's life is further complicated by the fact that his latest girlfriend is a hooker, and an illegal alien to boot. His adversaries in the department use her and one of Jericho's informants to try to set Jericho up for The Big Fall. Will it happen? Watch and see. The show is very British. so it takes a minimum of two viewings to figure out who's who and what they're saying. And for reasons best known to the show's makers, JERICHO (a really bad choice for a title on this side of the Atlantic) is set in the 1950s or thereabouts. Robert Lindsey stars, and I hope his performance is a hit with the Brits, because he just seems tired and confused all the time, and probably should be retired. MONK, he is not.

ejbleendreeble This series invites a direct comparison with Foyle's War, and Jericho definitely comes off second-best. It's clear that from a production point of view the creators of Jericho threw all they had at their disposal. There is an overdone music soundtrack which verges on the annoying. There are all the props to re-create the 1950's feel, including even two period London double-decker buses, and the costumes are first-rate, but somehow it seems to go wrong so much of the time. There is an attempt to relive film noir, but that's hard when you shoot in color. There are even typewritten subs for each location in the episodes -- a cliché long before this series was made.As DI Michael Jericho, Robert Lindsay seems to be lost, and he's not much helped by the scripts. Is Jericho supposed to be confident media hero, maverick detective, harried cop just doing his job, or neurotic failing to come to terms with the death of his father (which he relives far too often in flashback)? Even his dyed hair looks wrong -- only men of a certain orientation dyed their hair in the 1950's; and he's not enough of an actor to persuade us to forget that he plays a comic dentist in the series "My Family." In short, this is no Foyle's War, and Lindsay is no Michael Kitchen.

ANeary Jericho is a middle-aged over-achieving Scotland Yard detective, tormented by witnessing the death of his father as a child. This may sound somewhat formulaic, but that would be unfair to this tremendous series. The evocation of 1950s London is superb: even down to details like a "blink-and-you-miss-it" sign in a window advertising for tenants stating "no Blacks, no Irish" (A common sight in post-war Britain: I can vouch for this - my parents were Irish and told me about it).The performances are superb, and the cast includes the cream of British acting: Robert Lindsay of course, but also Peter Bowles, James Wilby, Jane Horrocks, among others.Anyonewho has seen "Foyle's War" will appreciate the sense of period and the way the stories intelligently explore contemporary issues. Highly recommended.