24 2am-3am

That Jack Bauer. Always trying to do it himself. He could have asked for backup. But no.

The Starkwood operative who impersonated Hodges' lawyer: why go to the trouble of murdering Hodges' attorney and impersonating her? She couldn't simply go and say she's representing Jonas Hodges? I didn't understand the subterfuge.

Five hours left.

24 11pm-midnight

24
Fox
Mondays 9pm ET/PT
Teakwood Lane Productions
Twentieth Century Fox Television

A pretty cool episode with a terrifying cliffhanger ending.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/65203/24-1100-pm---1200-am

24 10pm-11pm

24
Fox
Mondays 9pm ET/PT
Imagine Entertainment
Teakwood Lane Productions
Twentieth Century Fox Television

Apologies for not updating my 24 commentary. It has been intense over the last several weeks. Aside from Special Agent in Charge Moss not believing Special Agent Walker, and the politics beneath the president in the White House, to me what stands out is this: a sitting U.S. Senator of considerable tenure, Jonas Hodges, played with precision by Jon Voight, is orchestrating the import of a biological weapon into the U.S. for his own nefarious plans. What an appalling act of treason. I'm hopeful Jack and Tony will be able to head off the planned detonation of this weapon somewhere along the East Coast.

24 5-6pm

24
Fox Mondays 9pm ET/PT
Imagine Entertainment
Real Time Productions
Twentieth Century Fox Television
Seventh Season
Feb. 23 episode: 5-6pm
Director: Milan Cheylov

After just a few hours, the plot line that began this season draws to a close. Viewers worried about Col. Ike Dubaku's nefarious plans can rest easy. He is in a hospital and under arrest.

I must give proper credit to my friend Keith, who correctly predicted that Shawn's girlfriend Erica was in on the conspiracy with him. I certainly didn't expect Shawn to shoot her. Yick. Now the FBI has two counts on him: aiding and abetting a terrorist conspiracy; and murder one. In Illinois, the latter could be construed as "murder in the course of a felony," which is a capital crime.

It's not mentioned in the show, but I wonder what the payoff amount was for cooperating with Dubaku and betraying one's country.

Marika was not wearing her seat belt, right? In a simple rollover accident with marginal collision impact, it probably would have saved her life. Especially in an SUV. Obviously, I'm speculating on a fictional event, which is a bit silly. But I think 24 tries to be as faithful to real-world events, as much as it can.

Is there going to be a separate story line about the First Daughter?

24 rarely revisits characters or events from previous episodes, so we probably won't see this resolved. I wonder if Dubaku's goons who interrogated and murdered Samantha Roth's boyfriend's techie friend will be discovered and arrested. Were they on Dubaku's list? (From the 2-hr. tv movie that preceded this season.)

24 5pm-6pm

Great episode. Ends one plot line.

24: Now it's getting interesting

24
Fox Mondays 9pm ET/PT
Imagine Entertainment
Real Time Productions
Twentieth Century Fox Television
Seventh Season
Feb. 16 episode: 4-5pm
Director: Milan Cheylov

Moles should understand that when they compromise security and loyalty, people end up getting killed. So the adulterer is a disloyal creep after all! A little surprising because typically in 24 the man we think is the spy is actually one of the most loyal guys. How many inside guys does Col. Dubaku have working for him? We're up to at least three, including the dead Secret Service agent. I couldn't figure out the official position of the guy he met at the hotel.

Would the mole have been able to figure out what Bauer and Walker were up to if Janeane Garafolo hadn't asked him for the digital key?

Euclid Street, Northwest is actually in Columbia Heights, not Mt. Pleasant. Addresses there have four digits, not five. Tracking Bauer as he followed Marika's car on Google Maps was fun. South on 14th; right (west) on R Street; left (southwest) on New Hampshire; around Dupont Circle to right (southeast) on Massachusetts. I think Bauer and Walker were apprehended at 18th and Mass.

Amusing that the pharmaceutical rep just assumed the First Daughter had White House access.

24 3-4pm (spoilers)

24
Fox Mondays
Imagine Entertainment
Real Time Productions
Twentieth Century Fox Television
Seventh Season
Feb. 9 episode: 3-4pm

The switch to Washington has really enlivened this season, in my opinion. I never really got tired of all the L.A.-based locations. The difference between 24 and most other shows shot in or near L.A. is that except for the scenes at CTU, 24 is mostly shot outdoors. Now the FBI takes the place of CTU, but there have been plenty of scenes in or near the District. It's a fresh change of location. I've been trying to track Bauer all over the Beltway on Google Maps! I wish Fox had a link like www.fox.com/24/followbauer.

Is that affair the FBI couple is having going to affect the plot one way or the other? If not, do we care?

I don't know if SWAT would have saved Mr. Taylor from being shot. Impressive takedown without a team.

Kiefer Sutherland is 5'9" or 5'10". He frequently is on screen with men over six feet. I just noticed.

I felt bad for Mrs. Vossier, the rogue agent's wife. As my friend Hank pointed out: what did Vossier really have to gain by attempting to fight Bauer? He knew Bauer and Walker had his family. He had already given up Dubaku's position. So let's say he was able to subdue or kill Bauer. And then what? He would still risk Walker killing his family. So warning Dubaku probably wouldn't be such a good idea.

I think/hope Mr. Taylor will be all right. As Hank noted, he's already had a hell of a day: drank a paralytic, fell over a balcony, rode in a car trunk, had a finger crudely amputated with a serrated knife, and then shot. Ouch!

Did you notice that "Dennis Haysbert" (former President David Palmer) sounds a lot like former Speaker of the House "Dennis Hastert"? Before he played the president, Haysbert played a Secret Service agent in the movie Absolute Power. Assigned to protect the president, he went after Clint Eastwood in an attempt to cover up the president's murder of his lover. In the book, the conspiracy murdered numerous people loosely connected to the conspiracy, including the Clint Eastwood character, before being ultimately exposed and brought down. The Haysbert character committed suicide. Suicide is always a copout, author David Baldacci! That book was so good I was caught reading it at work. I still remember that--very embarrassing.

Is the rest of the season going to be this interesting?

24 1-2pm (spoilers)

24
Mondays 9pm ET/PT
Fox
Imagine Television
Real Time Productions
Twentieth Century Fox Television
Jan. 26 episode: 1-2pm

I'm still trying to keep all the characters straight. I just can't get over the serious breach of protocol of a Secret Service assignee having just one Secret Service agent. Agents always work at least in pairs, probably to prevent a situation just like this one, in which one agent decides to do the exact opposite of his mission. Agent Gedge is working for the Conspiracy and is to murder Henry Taylor, the First Man--the president's husband. The Conspiracy already succeeded in killing off Roger Taylor, the First Son, and Samantha Roth (played by the lovely Carly Pope, last seen in the WB's show Popular), Roger's girlfriend. Is that paralytic Gedge slipped Henry intended to cause permanent damage? Will he live to explain everything? What a gripping cliffhanger! I'm really excited.

The CIP module reminds me of that movie Sneakers (Phil Alden Robinson, 1992 - I knew it was long ago because River Phoenix was in it). The movie featured a guy who invented a universal decoder, and that's what the CIP module sounds like. It's already been used to cause a runway incursion and now, a midair collision of a very full flight and a private jet. Just for added effect, this was within clear view of the Oval Office. More wanton destruction of human life. I can certainly understand the president's reluctance to give into the terrorist Dubaku's demands. Would a president really knowingly take a cellphone call from a terrorist, even with the situation she was in? I didn't understand that; it seemed more like a tv effect. I mean, no one gets through to the president.

So Chloe O'Bryan, Bill Buchanan, Tony Almeida, and now Jack Bauer are running this rogue CTU operation with a laptop, a few cellphones and a GMC van? Oh come on! That makes almost no sense at all. Back in Los Angeles, CTU was a serious operation employing dozens of people. And now we're down to a pair of field agents and two behind the scenes? (Sadly, computer geek Edgar Stiles is dead. They need him.) I find that very hard to believe.

Dubaku planned on double-crossing Almeida! That's just not going to happen!

I did not see the trailer for next week; it does not follow the online presentation of the episode. I am sure it will be very exciting.

The presentation at fox.com is excellent. Some commercial breaks didn't even have the single commercial to which I've become accustomed while watching episodes online. The clock flashed on the screen and came right back.

24 4th season - 2005

24
Imagine Television
Reveille
Fox Television Studios

This post is not for children.
This post includes many spoilers and assumes either the reader watched "Day 4" of 24 or doesn't care about the end being ruined. If this is not true, please move on to the next post. This post also includes a spoiler from the Fox broadcast of 24 earlier this week.

Terrorists' wanton lack of respect for human life really struck me in this particular season. It's interesting how the death of a handful of characters I see on a tv screen--especially if those characters are innocent women and children--can have as strong an effect as, say, "271 die in airborne collision" from this week's episode. In one sequence, the terrorists, led by the madman Habib Marwan, planned to shoot down Air Force One in hopes of recovering the nuclear football. This, in turn, would give them the launch codes to launch a nuclear attack against an American city. The plot began with a fighter pilot assigned to a B-117A Stealth fighter sortie that evening. Finishing an encounter with his girlfriend, he receives a call on her cellphone (which he found odd) from his wife. His wife and children are being held hostage. His assignment is to smuggle an impostor, Mitch Anderson, into the Air Force base where he was to report for duty. If he does not, the terrorists would wipe out his family. He does as he was told. Then they kill his family (off-screen, obviously since there were children), and the impostor shoots him. Just awful. I wish he had thought this through. For one thing, he knew that the on-base security included biometrics. For the two of them to walk up to the door while he put his finger on the pass panel for the impostor to walk in just didn't make sense. After killing the pilot, the impostor amputated his finger and used it to enter the secure area. Someone tells Anderson the flight was to be postponed 12 hours due to a mechanical problem, so he shoots that guy, too. Anderson does succeed in shooting down Air Force One, severely wounding the president. The vice president takes over in his place. The terrorists are able to recover one page of the nuclear football and launch one missile, which the Counter Terrorist Unit and the Air Force manage to blow up midair in the show's final hour. Unfortunately CTU was too late in discovering the plot to prevent the loss of Air Force One. The Air Force did shoot down Mitch Anderson's bomber.

Another example was an extended sequence in the final episodes of the season. After the terrorists launch the missile armed with the nuclear warhead, CTU discovers a possible lead on Habib Marwan's location. They hope to reach him before the missile reached its target. The lead--a couple working for Marwan--just finished an amorous encounter and were about to leave their apartment complex for the rendezvous with Marwan when Mandy (the stunning Jewish actress Mia Kirshner) notices a helicopter landing a block away. Realizing she needs to make a clean getaway, she shoots her boyfriend. She then shoots and kills a CTU field agent before taking Tony Almeida, another CTU agent, hostage. While she has Almeida, she walks into her next-door neighbors' apartment and shoots two of them. Then somehow she forces another pair of them to leave, hoping CTU will think the pair is actually herself and Almeida.* They go to their car, which blows up as soon as they enter it. So she killed six people in the space of a couple of hours. Her attempted escape, with Almeida in tow, ultimately fails. In exchange for a full pardon, including the attempted murder of President David Palmer in an earlier season, she reveals Marwan's escape location--the helipad atop Global Center. (I cannot find that building or company in Los Angeles.) Marwan hurls himself off the side of the building rather than be captured, but CTU is able to recover data from his cellphone that reveals the missile's flight path. If the missile had hit its intended target, Los Angeles, the loss of life could have been in the millions. But I was more shocked by the pilot's family being wiped out and Mandy's shooting spree.


*Can anyone explain how she forced these innocent people to leave and enter their vehicle without going to police?

"24" 12pm-1pm

24
Fox
Mondays 9pm ET/PT
Real Time Productions
Imagine Entertainment
Fox Television Studios

This was a tough episode. Don't you hate it when innocent people are too trusting? When they don't take the appropriate and necessary precautions? When the president's husband (!) trusts Gedge, a corrupt Secret Service agent who is willing to murder his assigned protectee to cover up the conspiracy? And now the conspiracy is after Samantha Roth, played by the lovely Carly Pope, who starred in Popular about 10 years ago. I'm trying to figure out when this conspiracy that killed the president's son, father and now would-be daughter-in-law is going to meet up with the Bauer-Almeida-Emerson operation.

So Sean at FBI is sleeping with Erika at FBI, and Janis Gold (Janeane Garofolo, in a surprise dramatic role) probably knows about it. And Larry Moss likes Agent Renee Walker, whom Bauer pretended to shoot dead. Trying to figure out what will happen when the van with Bauer, Almeida, Emerson and Matobo reaches Dubaku. Also what's next for the CIP device? I'm afraid to ask!

24 8am-12n

24
Imagine Entertainment
Real Time Productions
20th Century Fox
Fox
Mondays 9pm ET/PT
Episodes 1-4: 8am-12n
Running time: approx 1:24

Carlos Bernard gained some weight.

A good friend of mine never doubted Carlos Bernard's loyalty to CTU because of his Cubs coffee mug. He turned out to be right this time, too, I think. He's Deep Cover? A film with Laurence Fishburne from the previous Bush Administration--around 1991 or so. We've seen this sort of thing before--I distinctly remember someone submitting to pretty serious torture in a previous 24 season to avoid giving up who he was working for. (Can't remember that part.)

Anyone else catch Popular alumna Carly Pope as deceased First Son's ex-girlfriend Samantha Roth? And Janeane Garofalo as an FBI agent--seriously?

I'm trying to figure out the connection between Roger Taylor's murder, his friend's murder, and the vast governmental conspiracy.

The runway incursion and near-crash of two aircraft reminds me of Die Hard II, in which terrorists guided a landing aircraft to a crash by giving inaccurate landing information. Also the clandestine meeting of First Husband Henry Taylor and Samantha at the Tidal Basin reminded me of the murder of the congressman by Jon Voight & Co. that started the surveillance classic Enemy of the State.

This was a gripping opening. I hope the next 20 hours play out just as well.