24S6: I quit

24, Day 6: 17:00 – 18:00
[Episode 12]

I quit.

When I realized Jack was going to storm another consulate it was only sheer willpower that kept me watching episode 12. There was definitely no interest and I definitely had a plethora of choices as to how I would my evening. By the time Jack was torturing the consulate general (and subsequently captured) I had made-up my mind to stop watching the series.

But then it looked as if we were about to meet Aaron Pierce’s Russian counterpart. Agent Pierce is the secret service agent who had always stood for “truth, justice, and the American way” throughout the series by defying some Presidential orders. And likewise we suddenly had a Russian agent who believed Jack that the consul was involved with the nuclear attack earlier in the morning. My interest was immediately renewed with the appearance of this character.

But just as he called CTU to pass a message from Jack, he was shot.

And with his death, so did my interest in 24 finally died.

I don’t know if I really have the power to quit–but man, this series sure sucks big time.

My theory is that 24 follows a cycle which repeats itself every 3 seasons: First season is great (S1, S4), followed by a mediocre season (S2, S5) and then really going downhill in the third season (S3, S6). Of course, there’s no way to tell how true this is until we see next season. -sigh-

In the meantime, I quit.

24S6: E01-E04

24 Day 6, 06:00 – 10:00
[Episodes 1-4]

I admit it. I’m a 24 whore. Addict. Whatever you call it. No matter how laughable it got, I still found myself watching the latest season.

As always, the first four episodes are very good. After all, if I understand it right, the first four episodes are sent to entertainment writers all over the country as a preview and they can then gush over it, prompting unsuspecting viewers into watching it.

Having lived through the crap that was Season 3 and less of a crap Season 5 I came back to watch Season 6 fully knowing the routine and having a low expectation. For example: the entertainment press may talk about how Jack is severely weakened and seemed to have lost his bearing during his time with the Chinese and how different this is from the Jack we knew.

Am I the only one who didn’t miss how after two years in captivity the man is surprisingly agile and capable?

Bauer? Weak? Okay, so he cried and it’s barely four hours into the day. Big whoop.

And how about Curtis’ death? Dude deserved a much better exit than that.

I swear I don’t know who got shafted worse, Tony in Season 5 or Curtis just now. I’ll concede that Curtis was nowhere near Tony but both these guys deserved a much much much better exit from the show.

Shame on all the writers!

As for the nuke?

You know, like many others, I found Karen’s reaction to be an exact echo of my own (“Oh my god … “) but then I remembered how they dealt with Tony’s gunshot wound at the beginning of Season 3. Which then led me to remembering how they dealt with the whole virus outbreak plot near the end of Season 3. In both cases, LAMELY.

Now that they’ve exploded the first “visitor” and produced all the gushing from the press I fully expect 24 to return to its ways of dropping side-plots and characters like before. Expect a few deformed and ugly zombies in the next two episodes as we face the shocking aftermath of a suitcase nuke explosion, but also fully expect that things will return to normal afterward. Remember last season’s chemical agent? They tantalized us all with gruesome photographs of the victims and elaborated on how awful and dangerous of a chemical agent it was. But by the time our favorite donut boy (Edgar) died, for all we know someone slipped-in rat poison into his donut and he choked on it.

Ah well. Still, I’m gonna keep watching.