The new season of 24 started yesterday, and while Josh is giving us a full on recap (missed those, did you?), I’m just gonna break down what I thought of the show, whether it was good, bad, or ugly and snark it up. You’ve been warned.
– The new season/day is 20 months after the previous season/day. Apparently the producers didn’t get the memo about time lapses needing to be “one year later”.
– Meanwhile, the new president is Wayne Palmer. Yeah, the guy who had a perpetual look of fear on his face in “Day 3” is YOUR duly elected president. But hey, at least he was elected. The 24-verse hasn’t had one of those since DAVID Palmer.
– Our first ‘six degrees’ connection of this show is Assad, played by Alexander Siddig a.k.a. Dr. Bashir from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. If you’ve never watched DS9, you’re probably one of three people that remember him from Syriana instead. Thankfully, he’s a good Bad Guy, because it’s hard to imagine Julian fricking Bashir as a bad Bad Guy, even during those Mirror Universe eps.
– Seriously, Julian Bashir, terrorist. That’s gonna take some time to digest.
– To track down Assad, an informant named Fayed will give up his location for a list of demands, one of which is Jack Bauer. Why? Well, apparently his brother was killed by Jack, and he wants revenge… wasn’t this a subplot to Die Hard With a Vengeance?
– So Jack is back, and when he finds out that he’s to be sacrificed, I like to think that he thinks back to when he had to kill Ryan Chappelle when he decides to take this news like a man. He does request that Audrey and Kim not find out that he’s back.
– Speaking of Kim, I was channel surfing recently and Popular Mechanics For Kids was on one either BBC Kids or BBC Canada can’t remember which. All I can say is don’t watch it. You’ll get the same uncomfortable feeling watching Elisha Cuthbert here that you get when you watch Alyssa Milano in Commando.
– Back to Jack, he doesn’t ask about Chloe, but since he’s her only friend left (that’s alive, anyway) she worries about him. I don’t think Jack particularly cares, but that’s sweet.
– In that subtle-but-not-really way that 24 does, we discover that Karen Hayes and Bill Buchanan are married. I don’t remember them having any feelings towards each other last season, but 20 months is a long time in the national security biz, I guess.
– Why isn’t Roger Cross a regular cast member yet?
– What’s up with Jack’s shirt? Buttoning it all the way up to the top looks more Forrest Gump than Jack Bauer.
– We find out the real reason that Larry Fleinhardt went into space in Numbers. Peter MacNicol is working for extra cash by playing Thomas Lennox, Wayne Palmer’s Chief of Staff.
– Nadia’s pretty hot.
– We find out that Kumar is a terrorist. Shaun Majumder from This Hour Has 22 Minutes is apparently also playing a terrorist. Apparently Naveen Andrews was busy or something in Hawaii…
– I think the guy trying to beat the snot out of Kumar was in Major League II, which of course has connections with Dennis Haysbert, who played Pedro Cerrano.
– Jack naturally escapes his imprisonment by Fayed. I thought that they had exhausted the ways that Jack could kill a person, but I was wrong, as Jack kills a man with a BITE TO THE JUGULAR. He later has the audacity to say that he doesn’t know “how to do this” anymore, but that’s why he’s got Assad as his sidekick for now.
– Just to reiterate, Jack Bauer bit someone to death.
– Naturally, Jack tells it like it is, and the Powers That Be don’t believe him. I think things would’ve went a lot smoother had he just said “I’m Jack Bauer, and I just killed someone by biting them to get you this information, dammit!” But that’s just me.
– Sandra Palmer apparently has no problem mixing business with pleasure, as she defends the Islamic-American Association (or Alliance… I didn’t quite catch the name) as their legal counsel yet is involved with the head of the organization.
– The FBI then decides to take all the computers from the IAA offices after Sandra wipes their databases, despite the fact that a hard copy of the database is probably RIGHT BEHIND THEM.
– Why was the suicide bomber on the last car on the subway? Dude, you suck.
– Raj Binder gets air time TONIGHT. I can’t wait.
That’s all I got for the first two episodes. More tomorrow!
