Has 24 just totally gone off the rails? My buddy Curtis McCrary says it’s jumped a whole school of two dozen sharks, lined up end-to-end.
Sure, the show always played fast and loose with the whole real-time gimmick, but now the writers have abandoned any pretense. This season’s big “unthinkable” moment–a nuke going off in L.A. way back in the fourth episode–has been totally ignored since the first 10 minutes of Episode 5. In fact, ever since then, people seem to just be going about their day as if nothing happened. If you’re going to have a nuke go off, there ought to be consequences. Otherwise, it’s just like a Looney Toon cartoon where Daffy gets blown up in one scene and is just fine in the next.
Then again, they’ve abandoned plenty of storylines this season: Jack’s evil dad, Ex-Prez Logan getting stabbed in the neck by his crazy ex-wife, the internment camps for Middle-Eastern immigrants. Not that any of those stories were going anywhere, so maybe they were better off jettisoning them.
It’s not really worth the time to run down all the stupid moments of this season (my faves: When a terrorist escaping on foot left behind a nuclear bomb with a five-minute countdown; and when CTU analyst Morris gets right back to work after said terrorist has driven an electric drill into his back), but it sure seems like the writers need to spend a little more time thinking their storyline through next year.
In the meantime, I’ll be watching Heroes.
This article appears in Apr 26 – May 2, 2007.
Jim, you are watching the wrong shows. If you didn’t learn your lesson after “24”‘s fifth crap-ass season, you deserve season six! I think the “24” writers have spent too much time in their special “cigar-smoking” room at their Burbank studio, if you know what I mean. (Read the New Yorker article about how the “24” writers and producers hang out with Rush Limbaugh, which unfortunately does not discuss their trips to Puerto Rico with extra bottles of Viagra.)
A more important question is — if a nuke went off in Los Angeles, would anybody really notice?
I recommend you get with the program and catch up with “Lost” season 3. You can watch all the episodes for free on the ABC-TV website if you need to catch up. “Lost” has regained its mojo and is actually answering some plot questions now. Give real sci-fi/mystery a chance and leave the “24” cliffhanger tricks to the right-wing torture fetishists.
People still watch “24”?
I suspect Jack’s dad will return soon, probably to get killed. The actor probably had to go back Down Under to feed Babe before he could get it on with Kiefer again. The solution for “24” is to turn it over to Joss Whedon. On “Buffy” and “Angel,” every decision a character made had consequences. No way Joss would “forget” about a nuke in Valencia. His vampire-and-demon shows are starting to look a lot more realistic than “24.”
Actually now that I think about it, the “24” writers’ Viagra trips were to the Dominican Republic. I obviously don’t get out much.
I just want to add that I think Chloe is the bomb. That woman can do things with her face that most people can only do with their armpits.
James, I had some hope that with “Angel” alum David Fury joining the 24 team this season, we’d see some improvement in the story-telling. As Buffy would say: Not so much. ITA with your point that having Jack Bauer team up with Wes and Gunn to battle demons in Los Angeles would actually make more sense than what we’re seeing these days.
As far as “Lost” goes, though, Beef Baloney, I gave up on that a long time ago. I’ll be following that with the recaps at Televisionwithoutpity.com, though I might tune in for the final episode.
dude, you totally bollixed up the shark-jumping joke.
’24’ is the evel knievel of shark-jumping. EVEL KNIEVEL was the joke, see — taking shark-jumping up to grand canyon-jumping levels.
i’d like to see an episode animated in spy vs. spy style, so the visuals could match the absurdity of the plot. that would be cool.
If you jumped a bunch of sharks in the Grand Canyon, how would that be impressive? The sharks would all be dead.
What if the sharks were alive in the Colorado River ? (Is that possible with the rapids though?)