24

7. 24

Now that time has passed and my anger his subsided, I have decided to soften my position on the 6th day of 24. Don’t get me wrong; it is still easily the worst season they have aired. But really what does that mean? Seasons 2, 4, and 5 were all damn near perfect, 3 hovered somewhere around the B+ range, and the original day was groundbreaking, so someone had to finish last. Prior to the last 7 or so hours of the day, the fate of the sixth season was still up in the air. It is amazing how much a bad ending can affect my opinion of the day as a whole.

The damn thing is still 24, so I do have praise to spread around. The now standard 4-hour premier was just the right amount of crazy to start the day. The day began with bearded tortured Jack, vampire Jack, Dr. Bashir is a terrorist, President Palmer 2, Jack killing Curtis, and a fricking nuclear bomb going off all kicking a decent amount of ass. Skipping the negative aspects for later, Jack gunning down Curtis was one of those all-time 24 moments. The show has always excelled at setting up situations where Jack has to make not a tough decision but an impossible life-altering choice. You could see that Curtis’ arc was heading nowhere good but not that. To actually have Jack shoot Curtis and then have him slowing die in front of Jack’s eyes was one of those high adrenaline/high emotion moments that other shows just can’t create.

The next 12ish hours were dedicated to the Fayed chase. This may not have been the strongest storyline in 24 history but I wouldn’t call it weak. There were just too many nonsensical plot choices that overshadow the numerous good parts. I can’t complain when I get bearded lumberjack Logan, crazy Logan-stabbing Martha, Tom Lennox’s arc, zombie Wayne Almeidaing from the dead, action Milo, physically broken down Jack, shockingly untrustworthy Powers Booth, and the entire hour where Jack single-handedly tracks down and kills Fayed. I would be happy with these developments in any season but it gets clouded when at the same time there was some absolute trash clogging up each hour. It is tough to remember the good times when you are seeing Gredenko cut his own arm off then turn on Fayed thus causing himself to bleed to death with no possible chance for help, every other Bauer family member is evil, tune in to see who gets tortured this week, Morris’ after-school special on working with guilt, the disappearance of seasons 3, 4, and 5 Chloe, another palace coup, and other assorted nonsense that I have already blacked out. Still on a whole I believe the middle of the day worked.

Well this could only be put off for so long, I was going to have to address the final hours of the day eventually. The early dismissal of Fayed was one of those shocking moments 24 delivers every year. At that point in the day, you expected Jack to get close and maybe retrieve the bombs but Fayed would somehow slip away in the confusion. Instead, Jack catches and brutally kills Fayed catching you completely off-guard. But a key aspect in order to make this work was that once the main story is finished something worthwhile needed to follow for the conclusion to the season. 24 skipped this part. They seemed to throw what was left in their bag of tricks against the wall hoping enough of it stuck to please the audience. There were the old standbys of arresting Jack, freeing Jack, the government threatening Jack, spies in the government, and of course people taking advantage of the CTU make-out room. And free of charge they threw in catatonic Audrey, the return of the truly evil Chinese, United States vs. Mother Russia in a game brinksmanship, and goddamn pregnant Chloe. Maybe some of these ideas could have worked under better circumstances, but those circumstances were nowhere to be found. This was a poorly executed final month of the season. On top of wasting 30 minutes of the finale with Ricky Schroeder sitting on a bench, 24 literally threw their hands up in frustration and pressed the reset button to end the day. Well, thank god for that.

So that was the 6th day but I am not finished, I need to get some 24 rambling off my chest. This wonderful show would have to do a lot worse than this for me to abandon my favorite television program of all-time. I still have the build-up of anticipation on Mondays followed by the rush of adrenaline during the better episodes. Jack Bauer is still Jack Bauer. I cannot find any faults with Keifer’s work. Still the 6th day exposed holes in 24’s format. The wholesale slaughter of the cast over the years has turned the supporting cast into a revolving door. You only hit so many home runs with characters like David Palmer, Nina Myers, George Mason, Tony Almeida, Ryan Chappelle, Michelle Dessler, Sherry Palmer, Edgar Stiles, Curtis Manning, and those are just the most obvious names. You can fill 2 all-star casts with 24’s dead. Then toss in the characters that were just written off like Chase Edmunds, Charles Logan, Wayne Palmer, Mike Novick, etc. Each time one of these players is replaced the new names either feel like a replica or feel like the writers are trying too hard to distinguish the new guy. So after six years we are stuck with a so-so supporting cast trying to carry the B and C stories which just weakens the whole product.

I know this review feels negative but believe me I have not jumped off the 24 bandwagon. I trust that the changes made for next season will right the ship. I trust that when Chloe returns it won’t be a complete waste of time. I trust that the best character on television will continue to be Jack Bauer for years to come. This was just a minor setback and only seems awful in comparison to what this show has been over the last 5 years.