I have to say, it was a breath of fresh air, especially given the networks' current fixation on forensic sciences. CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, Crossing Jordan, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Bones, Cold Case, The Closer, Criminal Minds and NCIS are all prime-time shows of the genre and it just gets annoying, not to mention macarbe. One or two, I can handle (Criminal Minds isn't too bad because it's about behavioural analysis which we're touching on in my degree), but ten? They're just boring, the characters are as sterile as their workplaces and they're poorly written.
There's three things that make a show decent: crisp plotting, tight dialogue and big emotion. Jericho is the first new show I've seen with anything close to nailing it since 2002.