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As the Los Angeles Times reports, a series of five-minute pieces called "Countdown" has been running over at CBS.com. The pieces, which are tied to the television drama "Jericho," "contain interviews with real experts about disaster readiness, radiation poisoning and similar topics, woven into a prequel about one of the show's characters."

I've watched a couple of episodes, and it's an interesting little project. Presumably for reasons having to do with money and/or the Screen Actors Guild, none of the actors from "Jehrico" are shown here – which presents something of a challenge considering that "Countdown" is supposed to be a prequel series. Instead, we have a character in a face-obscuring hoodie who spends a whole lot of time looking at, and sending text messages on, his cell phone.

One typical episode I watched went like this: "Hawkins," having just been robbed, sends some text messages to "Tango," who advises him to go to a "poss. nuke worksite." There, Hawkins gets out the phone again. "looks like a trap!" he writes. His next move? To watch a video on "leadership in crisis," featuring Dr. Maki Haberfeld, the chair of the law department at John Jay College. There is some scary music and images of chaos. Then Hawkins is knocked out by gas.

If I thought I'd walked into a trap, I probably wouldn't take the time to watch a leadership video. But let's put that aside for now. Instead, it's worth thinking about the implications of this news/fiction hybrid.

Television has gotten increasingly sophisticated over the years, and increasingly timely. Programs like "Jericho" and "24" dramatize events that could occur in the real world, and, at least in the latter case, tie them to real-world grievances. And that has led to questions about what our fiction is teaching us.

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