It's inevitable in every season of
24 that there's a bit of lull in the action of the day. Last year, we had the infamous trip to Mexico and this year, it seems as if the past three or so episodes have been a bit of a holding pattern. I'm going to have to agree with Barry that the last couple of weeks
24 has lost a bit of the focus that held the early hours of this season together so well. It's seemed as if CTU and Jack were chasing their tails, pursuing whatever wild goose chase cropped up this week for the team to go after. Meanwhile, we only get hints of Marwan's plan--which apparently involves infilitrating an Air Force base and stealing a stealth bomber. In a lot of ways, the whole plotline of the Air Force base infilitration reminds a lot of what's going on over at
Alias with Jack and Sloane hinting that some evil plan is in place but not really bothering to give us any solid hints or clues as to what it might be. But, by golly, it sure is evil!
During the latest hour of 24, I found myself second-guessing a lot of what was going on. I had to laugh out loud when Marwan told his lackies to get CTU on the phone and two minutes later, he's talking to Michelle Dessler. First of all, is CTU listed in the phone book? If so, do they go under "Spies" or "Anti-Terrorism" in the yellow pages? And apparently, CTU doesn't have a night answering service, since the calls is routed right into the main headquarters of CTU. Yeah, how many prank calls a day do they get that way? No wonder Edgar is so short with everyone. I'd be pretty upset if I spent all day chasing down Mr. I.P. Freely.
Then, we have the whole getting on the Air Force base agenda. Now, I am probably coming at this as my father was career Air Force so I can quiz him on things that could NEVER happen. Such as the traitor guy being on the flight line with a cell phone. Not allowed and since it's clear the phone wasn't on vibrate, then surely somoene else heard it. Also, what'd he do with the body of the technician he killed? Finally, you'd think with a top secret plane being out there that maybe someone would notice--hey the tech guy and the guy claiming to be a captain of the plane look a lot alike. And do stealth bombers only need only pilot to fly them? Surely the Air Force wouldn't let a stealth bomber go up with just ONE pilot, would they?
I know, I know--willing suspension of disbelief. But you've got to make it at least slightly plausible, you know.
Now that I've got the nitpicking out of the way, I found it interesting that Marwan worked so hard to distract CTU from his real plan when the inefficienty and pissing contest of Chloe and Edgar did it for him. I liked the tension around should we exchange Behrooz for Jack and seeing how Marwan pulls everyone's strings to get them to do what he wants. But here's another point. Marwan isn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. I realize that for the sake of drama, we have to keep things moving, but his exchanging Jack for Behroozz within thirty minutes of his bad-guy hang-out doesnt' make much sense. Why? Because now CTU can say--hey, he's within a half-hour radius of here. Heck, I think CTU missed a huge opportunity here...if you know he's with that radius, you cordon it off so that when he does try to move after making the trade for Jack, he can't get out of a contained area. Why is is that no one came up with this idea?
And Jack was exactly right when he stated that he was not worth trading. Of course, since he's the hero and the hero of the show can't die, we all knew they'd go through with this. For a few minutes, I fully expected CTU to say, "No, not doing it" and Audrey to pull rank or call Heller to order CTU to get Jack back.
Speaking of Audrey--so, last week she was concerned beyond concern about Paul. Yet this week, all she can think about is--will Jack be OK? This after wondering if she really could love Jack or be with him based on what she knows about him now. You know, this woman's loyalty to the man in her life changes more often than most of us change pants. I am beginning to go back to my original suspicion that Audrey is somehow connected to the terrorist plot. It seems to make some sense--she knew where her father would be to start the day. I'm not sure if this is how it should go because in a lot of ways this makes Audrey too much of a pale retread of Nina. But, we've got to give her something more interesting to do than sit around ,wringing her hands at the fate of the two men she's romantically linked to.
Every day of
24 has lulls in the action. At least this week, the lull was used to maybe try and kick-start some plot.
24 is generally broken up into eight hour blocks. So, I just hope that the last block of stories get things back on track to how intriguing the events were in the first few hours of the day. I'm not losing patience with the show--I'm addicted as ever. But there needs to be some edge-of-your-seat, thrill moments to come in the next few hours.
Either that or we need to bring Kim back and have her threatened by a cougar...
posted by Michael Hickerson at 3/29/2005 08:33:00 AM |
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