A Nameless Blog

Okay, so Freddie Prinze Jr. and Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica are in some hot water.  Without going into too many details, they killed a couple guys and had to dispose of their bodies.  Now Stephen Root (AKA Milton from Office Space, Jimmy James from Newsradio, Bill Dauterive, and many others) is asking questions.  You see, he’s the parole officer for one of the dead guys.  Meanwhile, the host from Slumdog Millionaire is worried that his power in a fictional Islamic republic is slipping away, and Mare Winningham is begging her terrorist son not to blow himself up in a hospital.  Clearly, stunt-casting on 24 has reached fever pitch.

That’s right, readers, you’re getting my annual Kiefer update.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot to say about this season.  That’s because it’s pretty much a synthesis of the first seven.  It sort of feels like the writers went with a safe, familiar story thin on subplots, thinking that setting it in New York would make it feel different.  Well, it doesn’t.  No matter the city, everywhere in 24 has the same drab lighting and modern furniture.  In a way, this is the most rote, predictable season yet.  In another way, though, it’s totally comforting to see that the writers are checking off every box that makes a good season.  Let’s go through the list:

FRIGHTENING TERRORIST PLOT: Islamic terrorists want to get ahold of nuclear materials so they can set off a bomb in a major American city.  Sound like nearly every other season yet?  At first, they tried to make it look like the terrorists wanted to get the materials to ship back to their homeland and use in their civil war… eventually.  Was anyone surprised when the big twist was that the terrorists changed their plans to target the U.S.?

TERRIBLE SUBPLOT REQUIREMENT: Previously held by an annoying blonde, a whiny teenager, and a bobcat, this year the Terrible Subplot Requirement is fulfilled by Starbuck and Freddie Prinze.  The only good to come out of it is whenever Prinze is annoyed at Starbuck for distracting him.  “We can’t talk about our relationship now; there’s a nuclear crisis!”

OBJECT OF DOOM: We’ve seen nuclear bombs, canisters of nerve gas, and vials of super-virus.  You can forgive them for going back to nukes, especially since they have a new term: nuclear rods.  Who has the rods?  Capture the rods!  Don’t let him get away with the rods!

JACK’S QUESTIONABLE METHODS: People still think Jack Bauer “goes too far” with his tactics sometimes, but they always go back to reluctantly admitting that he “gets the job done”.  Jack still likes torturing people and indiscriminately killing henchmen.  The good thing is that some of Jack’s kills this year have been pretty bad-ass.  While his arms were tied to a pipe, Jack used his legs to snap a henchman’s neck.  He killed a guy with a fireman’s axe to the chest in one episode.  A few weeks later he pulled a knife out from his own stomach, then threw it into somebody’s neck.  That was exciting.

TRAITOR TURNAROUNDS: Someone unjustly accused of betrayal earns an apology, only to turn out to be a traitor after all.  Season one it was Nina, last year it was Tony, this year it’s Tarim, the IRK President’s chief of security.  The writers really love making viewers yell, “Aw SHIT he was evil this whole time!”

TERRORIST PATHOS: Every reluctant terrorist or gutless toadie gets a chance to redeem himself.  In season five, Rudy sacrificed himself for CTU Los Angeles after stupidly giving terrorists his keycard.  This year, we’ve had two already: Betraying brother Farhad tried to stop the plans when he learned that the US was the actual target, and Marcos the Teenage Terrorist gave Jack a lead before his suicide vest was remotely detonated.  These little redemptions are getting less powerful by the episode.

GEOGRAPHICAL IMPROBABILITY: You know how Jack could travel across rush-hour Los Angeles during a single commercial break?  Or how last year, terrorists infiltrated the White House through an underwater tunnel?  This year, New York City has more abandoned warehouses and swampland than I ever knew.

OVERALL RATING: B+.  It’s okay so far, but not great.  I still like the President, and the politics aren’t too insulting.  I have nothing specific to complain about, except the stupid Starbuck subplot, so I’m not too annoyed.  It isn’t grabbing me as much as previous seasons, but it still feels like an old friend that delivers good, old fashioned ultra-violence on a weekly basis.  I’m still glad to be a die-hard.

-Darrell

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 2:06 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.