(10:00 A.M. - 11:00 A.M.)
Review/Commentary
Reviewer: D
To answer my own question from last hour: no, apparently they can’t keep up the pace. Not to quibble so early in the season but this was the first hour where the spinning of wheels was a little obvious. Still, no show spins its wheels with as high a body count as 24.
Actually, it wasn’t a matter of pace as much as filler. There were a lot of tense moments and gunfire and running about, but not a whole lot advancement of plot. Take the whole interlude with Heller and Audrey escaping, wiping out a few random henchmen and then being recaptured. This was a pretty obvious dead end. Heller wouldn’t escape because Driscoll told us last hour what the ultimate scenario is going to be in her conversation with Keeler (Heller found and no extraction possible, setting the stage for Jack’s come-from-behind slam dunk!). Also, the Heller family running around in dark hallways for too long would be too reminiscent of Michelle’s near-escape from Saunders’ compound last season and we couldn’t have that because this season is all new and different. Really, it is, trust me.
And let me pause here to say that I’m trying to keep the Days 1, 2, and 3 comparisons to a minimum. Really I am. But the only way to scrub away any echoes of the past would be to transform 24 into a musical variety show (“come on, Richard Heller, writhe to the music!”) Or maybe have Jack start wearing funny hats. Wait, they already did that! (Is a robber’s mask a stock item for CTU agents? Just wondering.) [Maybe Jack was planning on heading to Telluride after his meeting with Driscoll? – J]
I’m thinking the Heller non-escape was thrown in as a bone to William Devane (who plays Heller). Devane at the writer’s meeting: “C’mon guys, being a bureaucrat is boring – let me shoot someone!”
This show provides a recurring lesson to any fledgling terrorist: load up on as many disposable henchmen as you can get. Oh right, based on all of those Iraqi suicide bombings, I guess they already got that message. Bastards.
And not to be sick or anything but if you were Omar, king of the meanies, wouldn’t you extract your own pound of flesh for Heller knocking off some of your guys? I mean, if CTU is torturing people just to get information, you’d think a bona fide terrorist would clip a finger or something. It’d be gruesome but it fits better with my idea of terrorist behavior versus Omar essentially saying, “Now, Jimmy you behave now” and moving on. Of course these are a group of weirdly officious (vocabulary word: it means fussy or bureaucratic) terrorists. What difference does it make whether Heller signs the charges against him? If the Turks are following some bizarro legal protocol, does it involve wiping out an entire Secret Service contingent to bring in the “suspect”?
Jack holing up in the convenience store also proves to be a waste of time, albeit an awfully tense waste of time. Mean mom-killing terrorist henchman guy (whose name is Kalil – thank you Fox website) makes all sorts of mean eyes at Jack and even tries to start something with a can of Raid, but Jack barely breaks a sweat keeping the situation under control. Kinda makes you wonder what a great career criminal Jack would have been.
The whole hostage situation proceeds without a hitch, even with the arrival of the cop. This is kind of unfortunate. It would have been interesting to see Jack wrestle with the “do I shoot a civilian to further the mission?” quandary. But I guess it’s too early in the day for the real heavy stuff and besides, they only needed to fill the space of one episode. I would have liked to see Jack grab a snack while he was hanging out at the store – no one eats on this show! Since they just introduced going to the bathroom last season, we may have to wait a couple more “Days” before food is brought into play.
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