2006-02-15

Top Five Hellish Days

5. 24: Season Four
4. 24: Season One
3. 24: Season Five
2. 24: Season Two
1. 24: Season Three

Just my way of saying the fifth series of 24 has started in Britain. We got a double-dose opener and we get two more episodes next Sunday. In the space of just seven days I'll be a sixth of the way through the series and 99% certain to watch it until the end because (on some dumb level) I'll feel like I've invested four weeks into it already. Now that's what I call marketing!

Season Four was problematic in that Three was kinda final for many of the characters we loved (and loved to hate). It was difficult to care about inexperienced new C.T.U. staff members and a new Nixon-esque P.O.T.U.S. when they had no redeeming personality traits. Eventually Tony, Michelle and Palmer were crowbarred back into the action but it was too little too late for this veteran viewer.

Rather than repeat this mistake, several familiar faces were onboard at the start of Season Five... for about ten minutes. It was brutal. Michelle in the car with a bomb and Palmer in the neck with a sniper rifle. He was a Lead That Should Never Leave The Show, like Mulder in The X-Files and John Cleese in Monty Python's Flying Circus, but I have faith that they know what they're doing. (Prediction: Mandy will be back by lunchtime.)

Best of all, I'll be able to read Heimlich Manouvers again in twenty weeks!

posted by thisismarcus @ 22:09 

6 Comments:

Blogger DrHeimlich said...

Just avoid my posts on Monday nights. :-)

As for Palmer leaving the show permanently, Dennis Haysbert got a regular gig on a different TV show. He was no longer going to be available to them. That, and the writers apparently really wanted to personalize the stakes this year.

My opinion of the four completed seasons so far, from best to worst:

Season Two
Season One
Season Three
Season Four

00:46  
Blogger C said...

Why's it called 24? Sounds like it's about a Stop-N-Rob (convenience store) but I get the feeling from your description that it's not, LOL!

00:55  
Blogger thisismarcus said...

Candace: are you living in Canada? Or on the moon? It's called 24 because each season is a day in the life of Kiefer Sutherland. If you like thrillers and don't suffer from a nervous disposition then check out your local Fox affiliate Mondays at 9.

Dr: Can't do Fridays either because of BSG! Anyway, I love both Seasons 2 & 3 best for having villains with more complex motivation than "I don't like your country because I'm from somewhere else".

What's Haysbert's new show? I can't imagine not wanting to be the coolest president on TV any more unless the scripts arrived and they gave him almost nothing to do for the second year running. Apologies if you covered this all already on your site!

20:51  
Blogger C said...

I may as well be, LOL! I haven't watched programmed TV in a few yrs now. I recently swung a fabbo deal with dh to finally drop our DirecTV, too, since it only got used for football and racing. What a deal - heh heh!! I may need to incorporate blue lights. . .

OK how in the HELL do they make a whole season out of a 24 hour day??!?!? Does he at least have some sort of sleeping disroder so you get the full 24?? I mean, if he sleeps, you're down to, what, 16 maybe? And I assume that when you say "a day in the life of Kiefer Sutherland" you don't really mean the actor, but, perhaps, a character he plays? Or is he really that interesting?? I can't imagine. ;o) Nope, sorry, I'm happy with my Coupling DVDs full of Jeffisms and Steve Tirades, LOL!

Thinking about this, I AM a bit miffed that no one has ever offered me money to make a whole season out of one of MY days. . . (See Candace. See Candace Blog. Blog Candace, Blog. See Candace Kick. Kick, Candace, Kick. . .) ;o)

04:30  
Blogger DrHeimlich said...

Dennis Haysbert's new show is called "The Unit." It starts in March. I believe he leads a team of super-secret spies or something... not really sure, because it hasn't aired.

I think him leaving 24 has more to do with the fact that his role had been reduced already. He wasn't brought back for Season 4 except as a "guest star," near the end of the year, so as an actor desiring to eat, he was obliged to seek other more permanent work. Which he found. Assuming his new show takes off.

I take your point about the more complex baddies of year 2 and 3. What made me really dislike year 3 were a few other issues:

The season felt very disjointed. Year one and two largely dealt with one major issue, and the immediately related things that came with it. Year 3 seemed to be divided in three separate chunks (as was year 4). First it was about a virus scare, except then that turned out to be an orchestrated hoax. Then it was about buying weapons with the Salazars. Only at the end did the truly interesting and compelling plot come up about the attack in the hotel and capture of Michelle.

And that whole hoax thing in the first third of the season. Yuck. I remember watching those episodes, parsed out one week apart, and being very frustrated as, the further we got along, nothing was making sense at all. Only when the revelation came that Jack was just trying to get back under cover did all the weirdness reconcile. But that didn't happen until about 6 episodes in... and by that point, I'd been stewing for a month and a half going, "but this doesn't make any sense!!" Probably it all plays better on DVD, when you can just watch several at once.

21:12  
Blogger thisismarcus said...

24 hours in the life of K.S. the actor could be fun too. Each episode is set in a different bar, etc :).

Dr. H: IMO Two is the superlative archetypal season but I prefer Three because it strays from that formula. It's dark and it's got all the characters I ever cared about (except Edgar and Mason) in one season. If Palmer's really gone they need to introduce a new sympathetic character in government soon because I find myself *wanting* Tall Nixon to die.

10:31  

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