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March 21, 2005
Not quite keeping it together on 24
I've been getting worried about this season of 24 lately, which I recently called the best season yet. Overall, it's still doing much better than any other season, mostly due to non-stop action, multiple extended shoot-outs between Kiefer and swarming hordes of bad guys, and a number of outstanding early episodes featuring our beloved husky-voiced Dragon Lady of Persia. The past couple of weeks have been slow though, and ADM thinks the season has crossed over onto the other side of the proverbial shark. Even Dave Barry notes the season's downward turn on his blog. Let me enumerate some problems:
- Too much talking all around.
- I'm sorry to say it, but the return of Michelle. She's not as good looking as she was in the past two seasons, she makes bad decision after bad decision, and her scenes of tentative reconciliation with Soul Patch have been agonizingly talky. Plus she is a non-stop bitch.
- Fox went way overboard in hyping the Middle Eastern brothers who own the gun store, site of last week's shoot-out, as patriotic Americans who will do anything to kill those evil terrorists. We got it after the Kiefer pro-Muslim-Americans PSA.
- The filler is starting to show. All those scenes of William Devane talking to his weepy daughter about how Kiefer may be a torture-mad sadist but is still a wonderful and loving man? The many long scenes we sat through waiting for the evil mercenary squad of corproate soldiers to start shooting at Kiefer as he squinted and muttered in the gun store? CUT CUT CUT. Too much talking, not enough action.
- And excuse me, but where is our Dragon Lady?
Luckily, it looks like there are a few developments coming down the pipeline that might get this season back on track. The preview for tonight's episode involve a lot of velvety huskiness between Kiefer and Dragon Lady, whose combined sexual energy could match the shock Sarah got from that taser (note to producers: shocking people with tasers, in the neck, is one of your better and most jaw-dropping ideas of this season. [Sarah: "Please! I swear I don't know anything!" Taser: BZZZZZZZZZT.] Thank you! We heart torture!)
Also, tonight's episode reportedly includes the return of Chloe, the controversial and irritating character who was my personal favorite part of last season. Driscoll, this year's moronic head of CTU, dismissed Chloe as a part of her 100% Wrong Decisions strategy, but now that Driscoll is gone, we get some more of Chloe's spastic dorky attitude.
We'd also better start seeing some action from the Phase 2 Terror Sequence that usually kicks in around mid-season. This year it looks like Air Force One is going to be hijacked by a terrorist in an Air Force uniform, who Television Without Pity has appropriately dubbed Poor Man's Eric Stoltz. Could this story line lead to the expected return of Dennis Haysbert as former President Palmer, as news sources reported earlier? Yup. Hopefully the trend from previous seasons of all of Palmer's scenes being plodding momentum-killers won't continue this year.
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