During times of work avoidance, I decided to catch up on the latest season of Fox’s 24, otherwise known as JBPH. For four seasons, I had watched each episode in sequence with baited breath, but the fifth series really left a foul taste in my mouf. So much so, that I dropped the show altogether in favour of Firefly and BBC’s The Office re-run love. I’ve read about enough raves about season six of 24 that I decided to take in the two-night four hour premier. The following opinion takes place for your viewing.
First off, let’s start with the portions of season five that pissed me right the fuck off. Office drama, sweet Jebediah Ass Cheeks. We get it, the computer tech geeks are neurotic whiny bitches that find organizational conflict to be a way of life. Yes, the upper management including Division are bureaucratic dinosaurs that don’t understand the reality of situations. We’re going to throw a schizo suicide case into the equation for shites and gigglies. This does not good TV make. I can see the writers don’t want the show coming off as some efficient military machine where every character speaks in acronyms and jargon, but stop making these a bunch of emo losers pushing bits and bytes for The Man.
Next, the CTU tech jargon that brings a special joy to my heart. By joy, I mean intense hatred and by heart, I mean the black void of eternal sadness. Open a socket !! I understand you need to suspend your disbelief for fiction when it comes to inventions that do not yet exist in the real world, but the some of the language used to describe existing real world systems is completely unnecessary. I don’t want to sound like Comic Book Guy here, but at least write some simple dialogue that adds credibility, as it won’t alienate a large share of the audience any more than the existing fake tech speak does.
What’s with the deal of everyone owning a time machine? How does one travel 30 miles in 10 minutes, by car? Why doesn’t anyone ever eat? I think it would be awesome to have a pivotal scene where an operation is approved and about to be underway, but Jack exclaims, “argh, wait, I gotta pinch a loaf”. Everybody poops!
Other clichés are the wormy, fascist government officials that act behind the oval office’s back to meet their own political means. Also, the ever popular CTU mole, but sometimes that’s just a red herring and they’re really the Good Guy – we be just clownin’ dawg! The writing also has a fair amount of lines that are sound bites for future episode previews and nothing more. It reminds me of elementary grade five English lessons where we would answer each question as verbose as possible, including the question in the answer. What use do we have for Token Ethnic Terrorist? The use we have for Token Ethnic Terrorist is so he can provide the location of Other Token Ethnic Terrorist that was originally thought to be good, but first we must meet his demand of 10,000 chocolate bars – no more and no less!
The problem is season six is repeating all of these elements. 
Now that I freed my hate, it’s time for the mad props, if you will. That Jack Bauer does go straight for the jugular. 24 really does find creative ways for professional killers to off lackeys like it’s nobody’s bidness. The production values are excellent, with each massive explosion, physical stunt, and computer interface looking completely real and sexy, without the sex. The varied music is also some of the best in television, rivaling high budget HBO and Hollywood. Overall, I think it’s a case where you must toss your thinking cap in the closet and just tolerate the suck for the awesome.
For more fun, read the CNN article on the Muslim protest over the show this season. Ironic gold:
“The overwhelming impression you get is fear and hatred for Muslims,” said Rabiah Ahmed, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. She said Thursday she was distressed by this season’s premiere. “After watching that show, I was afraid to go to the grocery store because I wasn’t sure the person next to me would be able to differentiate between fiction and reality.”
What. How about your own inability to differentiate between fiction and reality? The sky was so beautiful on fire…
