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The Sci Fi channel's reimagining of "Battlestar Galactica" is one of the smartest, most comprehensive takes on post-9/11 America that exists in popular culture. Where many of us have black-or-white, red-or-blue takes on the evolution of our politics since then, "Galactica" deals in shades of gray, wrestling with issues of civil liberties, torture and the rule of law without offering easy answers to the questions it raises.

"Jericho" covers much of the same ground, but in a dumbed-down way. And yet: I still love it. I'm thrilled to see it returning to the air tonight on CBS.

Perhaps an explanation is in order. Given its poor ratings last season, it's extremely likely you know nothing about the show.

The summary: A small Kansas town finds itself isolated after nuclear attacks -- from an unknown source -- destroy much of American civilization. The residents of Jericho are challenged to build their own mini-civilization from scratch, deciding whether they'll be ruthless with each other and outside enemies, or if they'll try to achieve some sort of decency amid the survival.

Oh: And everybody's attractive.

Over at Slate, Troy Patterson offers a great description of the show and its politics. "Jericho" he says, has

a militaristic bent that sits besides skepticism about authority, an inspiring civic-minded cheerfulness that doesn't conceal pessimism about human nature— (and which) give it a Rorschach-blot quality. You can imagine John McCain nationalists, Mike Huckabee fundamentalists, and Ron Paul Libertarians all getting behind the show and its singular imagining an all-American post-apocalypse.

And somehow it does so in a format that's not all that different from the proudly low-middlebrow CBS family dramas that you either love or loathe. Call it "Touched by a Terrorist."

It's weirdly addictive. "Jericho" telegraphs its punches from about three miles away, and its emotions are saccharine, but I can't stop watching. And I have no way of explaining this. Given a choice between "Battlestar" and "Jericho," I'd take the former. But I don't have to choose. It's nuts.