[TV] 24 (3 - 5pm)

3-4pm

I like how, in this season, removing the President’s storyline has resulted in a more focused show.

This was a nice slow building episode that extends the Tony-Jack reluctant buddy movie vibe. Lots of plot progress – by the time Jack’s demonstrating his special skills with interrogation, I’m hooked once again. It helps that the interrogation plays off personal stories for Jack, Tony & Dina – all have had loved ones threatened before.

(Speaking of loved ones, Edgar saved 50 million people today. Surely they can spare the manpower to rescue his mom?)

Anyway, the episode climaxes by finally bringing CTU & the Araz family together, leaving us in a nice hostage situation that will obviously be the A-story for next ep.

4-5pm

Hostage situation? Boring. Resolve it in 15 minutes and move on to the next thing.

A fairly slow episode filled with exposition and people repeating the same bits of information to each other. It seemed like an ep where pieces were getting manoeuvred into position.

I’ve realised that I don’t really know anything about the writing process for 24. How much of this slowness is due to plotting out the season and how much is due to the individual writer? I mean, the show seems to have a very ‘written by committee’ voice to it. It does conflict and tension exceptionally well but outstanding character moments (of dialogue) are notably rarer.

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