There are only three hours left in the worst season of 24. Yes, the worst. With more and more banter popping up around the media outlets about how bad it truly is, the Executive Prodcuer on the show has promised the viewers that the finale will be something that will revitalize 24 and reinvent it. They're trying to hook us on Season Seven already since they gave up on this season about 20 episodes ago.
So they have three hours to close up all the gaps and STILL "hook us" for next season. What are those gaps, you say?
- Brother Palmer's injury
- Sister Palmer and her wanna-be terrorist boyfriend
- Karen and Bill's marriage
- The Nadia/Silver Spoon love angle (since Milo is dead)
- The Chloe/Morris love angle
- The Jack/Marilyn love angle
- Audrey becoming sane
- Heller giving in to Jack's desire to be with his psycho daughter
- Daddy Bauer's ultra-patriotism
- What the hell ever happened in Denver?
- Poor Man Rob Lowe's testimony
- Invasion Chick's Hornball boyfriend
- Evil Veep's nasty sexual story line
- Fish's allegance to who?
- Chang and the component
- CTU being held hostage
- The Russians starting WWIII
- What ever happend to Logan?
- Jack's acid-washed hands
- Jack's propensity to eat flesh rather than real food over the past 21 hours
As you can see, there's a lot of ground to cover in three hours. What do YOU think will happen this week? And if you watch the show in "real-time," feel free to leave comments here and I'll incorporate them into my write-up.
9 comments:
You forgot to list Morris being tranfered, his bottle of booze in the bathroom trash can, and why the hell do Chinese people speak English to each other.
What I think will happen is this: Doyle and his team will come and rescue CTU with big help from Jack of course. Then they will somehow locate Phillip Bauer with satelites and whatever else, and Phillip will escape in the end, but josh will be saved. I think Invasion Chick will die. At some point, Doyle might get shot. Or Nadia. Or maybe even Jack, but he won't even notice and will go on saving the States.
I'm glad the executive producer is planning something new for next season, but I don't know if it's such a good idea to "hook" us at the end of this season.
Seasons 1, 2, 3 all had clean, discreet endings. That was much more satisfying viewing, and also a little daring for a serialized TV show. Subsequent seasons have all built on the preceding ones, but it's only in seasons 5 and 6 where its "important" to know what happened last season.
I think just having a (let's hope) fresh start for season 7 is hook enough. They should end this wretched season and not look back. We don't need some kind of season 6 legacy hanging around.
Ooo, ivan, I sure did forget about those points. Thanks for the reminder. Good predictions, too.
Bryan, I agree with you. 24 was initially set up to be a 24-hour serial. You have 24 single hour episodes that are one giant story. We don't need 24 to become 48, or 72. That's way too much to happen in a 2-3 day span. Open up one day and then close it. Yes, there can be residual crap lingering, but not back-to-back.
Something that they focused the first season around is something that I think is greatly missing in 24's as of late. The first season eas centered around the notion that it was the California Presidential Primary -- something that a lot of people cared about. We knew the primary was going to happen at some point, so we had those hours ahead of it to anticipate everything. But now, it's just another abnormal day. It seemed like last year was KINDA back in the same vein, but they didn't call it out a lot.
My guess for the finale is that Jack will end up siding with his father and become the hunted next year. He'll be pissed at Heller. He'll be against Evil Veep. That COULD actually be a fun spin, IF done correctly. That's a whole lotta could and if when talking about how this season went.
Hey Seth,
That's a great point about the first season. It really makes the real-time concept more exciting (and even kind of sinister, to the extent that time is against Jack) when there's some significance to the day. I remember being totally shocked and really on edge around 8am during the first season, when I realized the assassination attempt was going to come so early. On top of that, you had David Palmer's storyline making use of the opening and closing of polls, and all these other aspects of a primary day that provided built-in complications.
The other thing they've gotten away from over the years is story telling. I still like season 2 the most, but I got hooked on season 1 because each week (for the first 6 or 7 hours, anyway) they slowly revealed the scope of the assassination plot. As the big picture began to emerge (that Kim's was missing, then that she was abducted and that it was all related to Jack's assignment) it had kind of an X-Files feel to it: dark and mysterious. And when Jack finally gets his big break, finding the guy who will take him to find his family, it was really surprising. Also, the villains were actual characters, not sneering cartoons.
I'll stop, or else I'll go on for hours about what's wrong with 24 now versus then.
I think you're wrong, Bryan. You NEED to go on about what's wrong with 24. The writers must understand why ratings are continuing to plummet. They've been going down for three seasons now. Three! That includes last year's Emmy-winning season.
So ratings started to decline in season four, which is about the time I realized the show was beginning to lose its edge. If FOX wants to get 24 back where it was, I think we need to point out why the first seasons were great and why the more recent ones aren't.
Like you said, there needs to be more mystery surrounding things. We need less enemies. We need a source for the urgency of time. We need less White House and even less CTU. We need to hate characters because of the character, not because of the writing/acting.
Keep on keeping on!
There is one issue that I hope gets resolved more than any other: What was traded in order to get Jack back from the Chinese? You've already pointed out how silly it is that Jack could be back on the job without skipping a beat after what he's been through. They hinted in the beginning of the season that something big must have been given up, but this development seems to have fallen off the writers' radar along with the ones you've listed.
The "hook" will probably be nothing. It's just a pathetic attempt to boost ratings for the finale.
The general plot for this season wasn't awful, but the details and its execution was. The most recent example I can think of is the whole Karen Hayes/Bill Buchanan, someone has to take the fall for this. That was kind of a believable point, but having it resolved in 15 minutes was not. No human being would come to grips with that situation so quickly to just be like "ok, well i guess i'll quit." - After all, I'm sure Bill and Karen ran through all of their possible options in 15 mins. I wish i was that decisive.
It's been a whole season of that. Instead of expanding on a few good ideas, they just try to hit you with 5 new plots per episode. I know so many hardcore fans (including myself) that wouldn't miss an episode even if their entire family was in the hospital. This season, I skip it if my bathroom is due for a scrubbing.
I'll be the first to admit, writing for this show does have to be extremely difficult. 24 hours is tough to develop characters and backstories and such, but they can do better than this. I think it IS possible to make this show better, i just don't think it will happen. I'm at least happy they are acknowledging it sucks (kind of), but anyone who is expecting anything of season 1 quality shouldn't hold their breath. Those days are over. The best we can hope for is how season 5 was an improvement upon season 4. It still was ridiculous and unbelievable, but at least a little more entertaining.
Hi Seth ...you like this show even I am a big fan of this show. I have a huge collection of my favorite Episodes of 24 tv show into my PC.
Hello all...enjoy your favorite sitcom online. Just go to the link and Watch TV Shows Online.
Post a Comment