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Jericho made it’s triumphant return to the airwaves last night. Thanks to budget cuts and the shortened season, it was a more bare-bones and fast paced version of the show, but I think it was still very effective.

The writers had said that they were taking the same story that they were planning on telling in a full 22 episode season, and compressing it into 7… and it showed at times.

2 new main characters were introduced and very little time was spent getting to know them at all. I hope this was because of the need to resolve the cliffhanger from last season. But you never know. One other thing I noticed was the lack of some characters. Not only was Gail Green away “at the ranch” mourning the loss of her husband last season, but we didn’t see much of the kids either. Bonnie Richmond, Dale Turner, Skylar Stevens, and both Hawkins kids were all missing in the season premiere. Judging by the cast bio page, it looks like we’ll see Bonnie and Dale again though.

Over all though, I thought the season premiere was very effective, and it certainly has me excited for next week.

But will it be back for another season? The first look at the ratings from last night is not encouraging at all:

Though the Jericho season two premiere was one of the most anticipated mid-season events, you wouldn’t know it by the overnight ratings. Despite a lot of promotion, Jericho was third in its timeslot with 7.15 million viewers, trailing to a repeat of Law & Order: SVU (8.3 million) and an original episode of Boston Legal (7.23 million).

To put this in perspective, Jericho’s debut in September 2006 11.7 million viewers. The big difference is that Jericho used to air the show at 8pm and has now put it into a 10pm timeslot. Are they trying to kill it or just letting it sink or swim based on the numbers that the diehard fans can bring?

They’re right, aside from The Sarah Connor Chronicles, this was one of the most anticipated debuts of mid-season… if for no other reason than the fact that with the strike it was one of very few mid-season debuts.

Assuming that these ratings are accurate, it means that Jericho didn’t add any viewers, which is certainly bad news in the quest for a third season. It does prove how loyal Jericho’s fanbase is though, because the ratings are almost identical to what they drew for the second half of the first season… which means that they didn’t lose any viewers in the long break.

Executive producer Carol Barbee said that CBS would probably make a decision about whether or not to bring them back for a third season after about 3-4 episodes. If that’s true, then it’s gotta be critical that the ratings be higher next week.

It’s not looking good, but there’s always hope.