Cable for One – 24 – Day 6 – 3:00 AM

Shows

Before starting this column I suggest we all take a moment to celebrate the death of Jerry Falwell.

All of the sudden the world feels slightly brighter. Granted there’s still far too many Falwell types in the world, but a happy moment is a happy moment.

This week’s 24 was definitely a step up from the last couple of weeks. There was still some silliness involved, but there was also some attempts to rationalize some of the more recent plot twists. Granted, those attempts didn’t always work, but the effort is appreciated.

The opening action sequence was pretty effective. Everything from Morris and Nadia getting in on the guard jumping action to Doyle and his men showing up to assist worked pretty well.

The follow up part with Cheng escaping after Josh managed to nearly fall to his death wasn’t so great. Josh has always been a pretty annoying character (I suspect a lot of that has to do with the horrible acting on the part of the kid playing him), and his stupidity this week certainly isn’t going to endear him to the audience.

I don’t really see how Division can think that Nadia is somehow responsible for the assault on CTU (good on Morris for pointing that out to Nadia, even if he was somewhat indirect in his reasoning). Kram was talking about how there was a breach in security because Nadia is inexperienced. But presumably the security procedures and defenses that were in place were the exact same ones in place when Bill Buchanan was in charge. It’s not like Bill turned all the security systems off as he was leaving. The only thing that Nadia can be faulted for is not identifying herself quickly enough when Cheng’s men asked who was in charge. And she was in the process of standing when Milo took the initiative so even that’s kind of iffy.

Admittedly I’m working with a somewhat reduced knowledge of the show given that I’ve not seen seasons two or three, but has there ever been an authority figure that was introduced partway through a season that hasn’t come off as a jack-ass in at least their first few episodes? Kram from division is looking to be the next in a long line of those jack-ass authority figures.

I’m glad they made at least a token effort to explain why Suvarov is so gung-ho with his attack America plan. It seems to me that if you’re worried about being more vulnerable to the Chinese, getting drawn into a major conflict with the United States is about the exact opposite of what you want to do. So the speculative existence of Russian generals who are pressuring Suvarov into responding makes sense.

I thought the ethical dilemma over Phillip’s demands, while not exactly new, was handled pretty well. On one hand it’s pretty despicable to trade a small child, no matter how annoying, for a piece of circuitry. But if Suvarov is really willing to go to war with the United States over this then a hell of a lot of people could end up dead.

Of course, the dilemma facing Vice-President Daniels is the exact opposite of the one Jack faced in over trading Audrey for the component. Even so the choices are basically the same. A) Sacrifice an innocent or B) possibly risk the lives of (many) others later. When a hero is faced with that choice (in fiction anyway), the hero always chooses B (usually with no resulting consequences). But Daniels is no hero so you knew he’d be picking anything but A.

Any possible dramatic tension over Josh being taken from Jack was spoiled by the acting in that scene (though I guess the writers should share some of the blame). Once and Jack started yelling back and forth (Josh! Uncle Jack! Jooosh! Uncle Jaaack!), there was much laughter to be had. As you probably are well aware laughter isn’t all that good for building suspense.

But even without a whole lot of suspense built up, I do hold out hope for an exciting couple hours of 24 next week. Presumably all this talk of shaking up the series is leading to an eventful conclusion to our current arc. Of course, with the way the season has been going so far the shake-up will end up being Kram just firing everyone. Then next season they can start their own detective agency!

Sir Linksalot: 24