Notes on Pop Culture: Jack Bauer's Last Hour, More on 'Lost's' 'The End' and Parenting Teens in Primetime

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the series finales of 24 and Lost.*

Jack Bauer's Gone Nuts, Plus He Looked Like a Clone Trooper, Or Maybe Iron Man in That Stupid Mask

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from the recent episode of 24.*

After a strong start, this final season of 24 has been bumpy and has had some dreadful patches -- like the business with Dana Walsh and her ex-con boyfriend, as well as the probation officer storyline, whose body is rotting inside CTU walls -- but in the last few weeks, 24 had seemed as though it had picked up and redeemed itself. Loved the political intrigue, Chloe as the head of CTU and I’ve been a fan of the President Allison Taylor character.

Then came the last two episodes when 24 writers decided to have Jack Bauer completely unravel and go on a brutal killing spree and perform a vicious vivisection, only to be topped by that atrocious scene where he donned a ridiculous mask and stomped on the front windshield of the conniving former President Charles Logan's limo as Logan's eyes bulged in fear. Jack shoved a canister of tear gas into the hole in the windshield, forcing Logan to exit the vehicle so Jack could drag him away and terrorize Logan into revealing the names of those in Russian government who ordered the murder of Renee Walker.

While I understand that the writers may be trying to set up a situation where viewers would accept Jack’s death in the series finale – I am NOT privy to any inside information but I’m convinced Jack’ll die in the final moments – they’ve gone overboard. Jack has always lived in the gray area, committing evil acts if they were a means to an end of protecting people and the nation, of preventing terrorism and war, even if it meant torturing his own brother and facing off against his father in the process of ultimately doing good. But Jack’s never been as patently vicious as he has been in the past two episodes, acting as though his moral compass is as busted as that limo windshield. He’s not saving people right now, he’d exterminating them.

There were plenty of other ways to have Jack evade federal government officials, his CTU colleagues and the goons Logan hired, all in order to do the right thing and expose the presidential cover-up of the Russians’ involvement in President Hassan’s assassination without having the character morph into a grief-stricken, soulless killer bent on revenge, who occasionally dons Iron Man-like masks when he's breaking up a presidential motorcade. They didn't have to have the hero, Jack Bauer, become a terminator.

Anyone else turned off by Jack’s last two horrifically bad hours?

Image credit: Fox via BSC.

Talkin' 'Lost': Jack Shephard vs Jack Bauer, Top 10 'Lost' Love Scenes

Bauer vs Shephard

A writer at the Philadelpia Daily News has made an analogy which some 24 fans – and Jack Shephard haters – might find objectionable: She compares 24’s anti-hero Jack Bauer and Lost’s hero Jack Shephard.

Writer Ellen Gray concluded: “. . . [W]hile at first glance the angst-ridden surgeon and the stoic action figure seem to have little more in common than a nickname, a closer examination reveals two guys who, if anything, might be too much alike.”

While Bauer’s do-anything-it-takes-to-stop-the-bad-guys may seem at odds with Shephard’s let’s-do-what’s-morally-right point of view, Gray listedn some striking similarities between the characters including:

-- They’re “obsessed with saving people.”

-- They had “bad dads.”

-- They’ve both been behind bars. (She equates Bauer’s time in a Chinese prison, where he was tortured, to Shephard’s time being held hostage by Ben in order to convince him to remove his spinal tumor.)

-- They had unhappy marriages and haven’t done fared well in the dating department.

-- Their biggest similarity: Gray said they both “survived things – plane crashes, nuclear bombs – that most people wouldn’t.”

Hmm, she’s got some good points there,  but I'm not entirely convinced. I think Bauer's closer to Sawyer than to Shephard. What do you think?

Top 10 Lost Love Scenes

The web site Jezebel had an entertaining post highlighting what the folks at BuzzSugar consider the top 10 “Lost love” moments.

As you might expect, Sawyer turns up a few times – for his cage sex with Kate and his 70s flower-giving/kissing scene with Juliet. Sun and Jin had two entries on the list. . . *sniffle* But the top love scene went to . . . Penny and Desmond’s reunion. That wouldn’t have been my choice.



P.S. -- Just read New York Magazine's interview with Lost co-creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. It's worth the read, particularly for their explanation for how certain storylines -- like Jacob and the Man in Black -- weren't scripted from the beginning but came up during the creative process.

Cuse said of the 2.5-hour finale: "It will really feel like a feature film."
Image credits: Mario Perez/ABC and Fox.

Notes on Politics & Pop Culture: Bye-Bye Bauer, Ethics on 'House'/'Grey's,' and Are Kids Getting Screwed on Health Care?

Bye-Bye Bauer

This current eighth day will be Jack Bauer’s last very bad day. Fox announced over the weekend that it is ending the 8-year-old series, though there’s talk of a 24 movie, which’d be approximately 22 hours shorter than one of Jack’s bad days.

The New York Times ran an interesting story examining the impact of the terrorism-centric series on TV, on the actions of actual U.S. interrogators in the field and on U.S. policy:

“24 first captured America’s attention in late 2001. The first season, which involved the explosion of a passenger plane and an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate, entered production well before the 9/11 attacks, but had its premiere eight weeks afterward. At the time, a review in the New York Times noted the ‘deadly convergence between real life and Hollywood fantasy.’ . . . The series enlivened the country’s political discourse in a way few others have, partly because it brought to life the ticking time-bomb threat that haunted the Cheney faction of the American government in the years after 9/11.”

While I’m on the subject of 24 . . . a few weeks ago I wrote that I’d become irritated by some wildly inane plot lines – particularly the Dana Walsh/Jenny one – on this final season of 24. In the past few weeks, however, things have markedly improved. I think it had to do with the fact that Dana/Jenny’s idiot ex-boyfriend is finally out of the picture, though I haven't warmed to Dana any and I'm still waiting for Brian Hastings to stop walking with a hunch. But I do I like the bomb-at-CTU line.

Ethics on House & Grey’s Anatomy

If you’ve ever watched House or Grey’s Anatomy, I have a question for you: Do you think that the medical professionals portrayed on those dramas behave ethically?

Dr. Greg House routinely dispatches his associates to patients’ homes to search the homes for clues to help him figure out medical mysteries. He employs duplicitous means to administer the treatments he thinks the patients should have, sometimes without their consent or against his boss’ orders. Grey’s Anatomy is rife with intramural bed hopping, bosses regularly sleeping with subordinates, and interns who do things do unsanctioned surgery on one another and cut the L-VAD wire of a heart patients to make him look sicker than he was in order to move him to the top of the transplant list.

So who out there actually expects these characters to be pillars of medical ethics?

Apparently some folks at Johns Hopkins were, at least enough to engage in a year-long study assessing the level of medical professionalism and bioethical issues addressed in one year of each show: “The results indicate that these programs are rife with powerful portrayals of bioethical issues and egregious deviations from the norms of professionalism and contain exemplary depictions of professionalism to a much lesser degree.”

One of the areas which had the most infractions? Sex. “The next most commonly observed departure from professionalism was sexual misconduct, with 58 incidents notched by the second season of Grey’s Anatomy and 11 in House," noted a Baltimore Sun’s TV blogger.

Kids Getting Screwed on Health Care?

I was among those who spent last weekend riveted to, of all things, C-SPAN, watching the “debate” on the health care reform bill (the NCAA tournament was in the picture-in-picture function). I had the TV on all afternoon, during dinner and through the evening, but fell asleep before President Obama’s speech just shy of midnight after the House passed the Senate’s version of the legislation. I watched the televised signing ceremony on Tuesday which, you might have heard, was considered a “big f*&%in’ deal” by the vice president.

An avid follower of the issue, I was frequently disgusted by the dialog and slimy tactics which accompanied the debate/negotiations, and was disheartened when people seem uninterested in engaging in authentic conversations about their genuine concerns without reflexively retreating back into their ideological corners, not even attempting to find a middle ground nor trying to reflect where the American people are on some health care reform issues.

After the health care reform bill became law, all kinds of things were promised. Some things were supposed to change immediately, like the fact that kids with pre-existing conditions were supposed to be able to get health insurance. The New York Times quoted the president saying earlier this month, “Starting this year, insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.” That’s an issue on which I think people of most stripes can agree, making sure sick kids obtain the medical treatment they need.

But that aspect of the new health care reform law is being contested – as is the health care bill itself by several state attorneys general -- by insurance companies, according to the New York Times. “Insurers agree that if they provide insurance for a child, they must cover pre-existing conditions,” the paper reported. “But, they say, the law does not require them to write insurance for the child and it does not guarantee the ‘availability of coverage’ for all until 2014.”

Why am I not surprised that we likely have no idea what’s that law will actually mean to you and me or how it’ll actually going to be implemented? I’ll bet we’re going to find out that a lot of this won’t be what it seems.

Image credit: Fox.

New Jack City: '24' Meets NYC

Fox has released a promo for the eighth season premiere of 24 (Jan. 17), which takes Jack Bauer -- that's Grandpa Jack to you -- to another east coast locale, New York City.

Best line in the promo: "Who's Jack Bauer?"

Jack Bauer Grills St. Nick

First saw this on Entertainment Weekly's blog Pop Watch. It's certain to be a viral success: Jack Bauer gets Jack-tastic with a bloodied Santa Claus.

Merry Christmas, damn it!

'24' Promo Featuring Jack 'Call Me Grandpa' Bauer Coming Out of 'Retirement'

The promo for the eighth season of 24 -- which starts January 17 -- features a nicely recovered Jack Bauer (out of the morphine-induced coma he was in at the end of season seven after the effects of the chemicals in a bioweapon became too much for him to bear) with his cute-as-a-button granddaughter. She calls him "Jack." He asks her to call him "Grandpa."

Later in the trailer, Jack grumbles something about having "retired" from government service, even though we see shots of him racing around shouting at people and, once again, protecting the U.S. president and the entire country from certain doom.

Retirement, "grandpa," what is this, the AARP version of 24?

Trashy Celeb Dirt: Jon . . . Plus Galpals, Jack Bauer is Free, Mouthin' Off May Make Izzie Sick Again & Arnett Channels Judy Blume

Jon . . . Plus Galpals

I tried to give Jon Gosselin the benefit of the doubt. Really I did. I tried to sympathize with him and his soon-to-be ex-wife Kate Gosselin and the terrible predicament they're in. I imagined that, years ago, the money dangled in front of them by the cable network to follow them and their eight children with cameras must've been a lot, must've offered their family with some financial security in an insecure world. I imagined that the Gosselins thought the TLC folks would be kind to them, treat them like family, not exploit them or any difficulties that might crop up in the future. (Jon and Kate likely never imagined when they started this thing that they'd be getting divorced.) Then I further tried to put myself in their places -- marriage falling apart while the world is watching and judging, the paparazzi in ruthless pursuit -- and that Kate realized that if she and Jon divorced, they'd still need an income to support all these kids.

Then Jon "I'm only 32 and I just want a life so I can screw around and act like I'm not the father of eight," started appearing in public with different, much younger women, including a woman who says she wants to work with him to launch a children's clothing line and who told People Magazine about the cool, fun things she and Jon do together. The New York Daily News has even taken to calling the new Gotham resident, the "octodad playboy."

Jon Gosselin, man, you're freakin' tryin' my patience. Is it too much to ask that you just be discreet for a little while? For a guy who didn't seem to like being in the spotlight, it doesn't appear as though you're doing much to turn off those klieg lights.

Jack Bauer is Free

Assault charges against Kiefer Sutherland for head-butting of a fashion designer in New York were dropped this week. Jack Bauer fans -- who feared the probationing Sutherland could do more jail time following the months he spent incarcerated after his DUI conviction -- breathed a sigh of relief. However fashion designers were left quaking in their boots, forewarned never to commit any wrongdoing in the presence of Jack Bauer.

Mouthin' Off May Make Izzie Sick Again

*Spoiler alert for Grey's Anatomy's new season*

Kathering Heigl will be back as Izzie Stevens on Grey's Anatomy, after a 12-hankie, manipulative season finale that left it unclear whether she and T.R. Knight's character George O'Malley had died. It appears as though Izzie did not die. And Heigl -- whose famous complaining about the lack of juicy, Emmy-worthy material for her character was believed to have led to her character developing a near-fatal case of skin cancer -- was on David Letterman this week complaining about her first day back on the Grey's set. "It was -- I'm going to keep saying this because I hope it embarrasses them -- a 17-hour day, which I think is cruel and mean." She was snarky about the working conditions and joked that they're "very Oliver Twist." Apparently Heigl's angling for Izzie to be massively disfigured in a sudden, brutal car crash. No wait, that was Knight.



Arnett Channels Judy Blume

I don't know how Jimmy Fallon convinces celebs to do these things, but he got comedian Will Arnett -- hubby to the awesome Amy Poehler -- to read aloud a section of Judy Blume's classic, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (Reminded me of when he got Michael Emerson -- aka, Ben Linus -- to recite an ominous rendition of Little Boy Blue.)



Image credit: INF photo via ABC News.

Suburban Mom's Pop Culture Week: Tommy Gavin, Jason Bourne, Harry Potter, Michael Jackson, Sarah Palin & Red Sox

When I haven't been catching up on the latest news stories about Michael Jackson, the unfaithful South Carolina governor who doesn't know when to shut up, U.S. troops leaving Iraq and about Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell being put on the DL (!), I've been coping with sick kids and have been sick myself . . . but that hasn't stopped me from consuming pop culture and watching Sox games. Here's what I've been up to pop culture-wise this week:

TV:

-- Sox, Sox and more Sox. Mercifully, I didn't watch the entire game when the Sox blew a massive lead -- and "imploded" according to Jonathan Papelbon -- against the Orioles. Silly gal that I was, I thought they were going to win because they were up by so much, so I tuned in to other things, like Rescue Me.

-- I said this last week and I'll say it again this week: Rescue Me has been great this season and has drawn viewers into dark, twisty, unpredictable places. This season warrants a full blog post on its own, particularly given the blow torch scene. Damn!

-- Nurse Jackie: Jackie Peyton's kid is creating drawings sans colors, with no sun in the sky? Sounds like the recent weather around New England. Kidding aside, this dark show has me hook, line and obligatory sinker.

Movies:

-- Adored the Bourne Ultimatum which The Spouse and I saw on DVD. It sparked a heated discussion about who would take who in a fight: Jason Bourne or Jack Bauer. (I say Bourne. Bauer would be too busy yelling, "Dammit!" and trying to get patched in to Chloe on the phone.) While Ultimatum's handheld camerawork made me feel a bit nauseous at times (or it could've been the flu from which I was recovering), I was otherwise highly entertained.

-- What didn't I find so entertaining this week? Planning on watching the cerebral Frost/Nixon film by Ron Howard, only to find that I'd instead ordered from Netflix the ACTUAL Frost-Nixon interviews from the 1970s. At 10 p.m. on a Saturday, I could've stayed up to watch Ron Howard's hyped up dramatic version of the interviews, but I feared the real ones would've put me to sleep. It lies, still unwatched, next to the DVD player.

-- In preparation for a column in which I compare my kids' fascination with all things Harry Potter to my generation's fascination with all things Star Wars, I OD'ed on Potter films, specifically The Chamber of Secrets, The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Order of the Phoenix. I still tear up at the end of Phoenix.

-- In preparation for a different column for a different publication, I'm planning on going to the theater to see the Sam Mendes film starring The Office's John Krasinski called Away We Go. It's been a tad challenging to find it playing at a theater near me, seeing as though it doesn't have a massive, nationwide distribution. I can't decide whether to keep my expectations low or not, given that I really did NOT like the last Mendes film, Revolutionary Road.

Books:

-- I'm continuing to re-read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince as we're now at T-minus two+ weeks and counting before the film version is released.

Magazines/Newspapers:

-- I've not yet read the Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin -- "It Came From Wasilla" -- but from what I've read on the internet, it sounds like it may well be a polarizing piece about a woman who's controversial herself. It's on my "must read" list.

-- I read a thought-provoking column in the New York Times over the weekend which mused about whether Michael Jackson is truly the last, worldwide mega-star who spans the generations. His music, the article suggests, was popular in the pre-internet days/pre-iTunes/pre-fractured pop culture world, when everyone watched MTV when it still played music videos. I tried to think of another cultural figure who is vastly popular with a wide swath of people, whose accomplishments affect people of varying backgrounds and nationalities, and who would cause people to spontaneously gather to celebrate and the only name that popped into my mind was Oprah. Do you think Times writer David Segal is right when he speculates that there will be no more mega-, multi-generational celebrities like Jackson?

Image credit: Vanity Fair/Risko.

Kiefer Says He Knows He's Not REALLY Jack Bauer

So we all know that Kiefer Sutherland was busted for literally headbutting a fashion designer earlier this month in New York -- supposedly while defending Brooke Shields, according to news reports -- and has a court date set for June. But leave it to Jimmy Fallon to ask Sutherland if he thinks he's actually super agent Jack Bauer.

Season Finales Aren't What They're Cracked Up to Be

*Warning: Spoilers ahead from a variety of recent season finales*

I've come to the conclusion that, for the most part, season finales are serious let-downs. They almost never live up to the hype. And how can they, really? We viewers want drama, humor, the occasional sweet moment and cliffhangers . . . but not emotionally brutal cliffhangers that can sometimes appear out of left field. The networks just want one thing: Monster ratings, and they don't care how they happen. This means there's tremendous pressure to amp up the drama and conflict, even if they don't make sense as far as where the show has been throughout the season because without ratings there will be no show. This annually leaves us viewers with TV season finales that largely leave us disappointed and, sometimes irritated particularly if a naked, ratings-chasing maneuver is employed.

Take Lost's shocking season three cliffhanger finale. Now that was one hell of a finale. A beloved character, Charlie Pace sacrificed his own life in order to save his friends and, after three seasons of character flash-backs, Lost engaged in several flash-forwards, depicting Jack Shepherd in a future point in time longing to return to the island while, in the current time period, Jack was singularly determined to get everyone off of it. It was the gold standard of finales. A major character died in it -- doing something he thought would save the woman he loved -- but his death was beautifully and touching done. It was tough to watch Charlie drown, but it made sense for the larger story at the same time that it made viewers sad.

Compare that to Grey's Anatomy recent, fifth season finale, where it was left uncertain as to whether two of the show's original characters will live or die when season six begins. One character, Izzie Stevens, had been battling cancer, so if she had died it would've been understandable and, given the previous three-hankie episode where she was married, poetic and tragic. But instead, the show had Izzie AND George O'Malley facing death, as O'Malley was hit by a bus and potentially fatally injured. Tacky. Grey's fourth season finale ended on a much better, more uplifting note, with Meredith Grey committing to Derek Shepherd by making a "house" of candles on the plot of land Derek had picked out for their future home, even as O'Malley learned he'd failed his intern exam.

Grey's season finale notwithstanding, the rest of this year's season enders were all over the map as far as quality goes.

Lost's season ender was good, but I thought it opened up too many different and confusing themes. Whereas the season three flash-forward finale blew my mind, this season's ending frustrated me because I was (and still am) having trouble reconciling the religious imagery and overtones with the sci-fi time travel angle, plus I feel deceived about the whole John Locke-is-really-dead twist.

The 24 finale -- which had many gripping moments this season, loved President Taylor, Renee Walker and even by-the-books Larry Moss, liked the debate over the use of torture, adored the new Washington locale -- was a classic case of too much build up. The show seemed to sputter to a lackluster conclusion, particularly when there's not much drama in the Jack Bauer's-gonna-die question because we already know that Bauer lives because Kiefer Sutherland has signed on to take his 24-hour odyssey to New York City next season, provided his parole officer lets him out of LA. Kim Bauer sitting next to her father's hospital bed, coupled with the ambiguity of the resolution with the sinister Alan Wilson -- who apparently was behind all manner of badness for several seasons, including the plot against President David Palmer -- didn't hold a candle to previously powerful season finales like the death of Teri Bauer in season one, the apparent poisoning of President David Palmer in season two and Bauer being shipped off to China in the fabulous season five.

The finale for House, however, was a nice departure from the pressure to be overly, out-of-one's-depth dramatic with the last show of the season. The tone of the final 2008-09 episode was well balanced all the way through to its "what the?" ending where we learned that Greg House didn't actually have relations with Lisa Cuddy and that his hallucinations had become so severe that he checked himself into a psychiatric facility.

Friday Night Lights capped a poignant season with an episode that jumped a few months into the future and unceremoniously had Eric Taylor dumped as the Dillon Panthers' coach and instead, assigned to run the football program for a new high school whose most talented players had already been poached by Dillon. There were way too many holes and unexplained questions as to how or why the town that had been behind Taylor -- who led his team to the State Championship that season -- would so easily fire him. I'm sure next season will be just as good as previous ones, but the finale felt abrupt.

The Office ended quietly with an insane Dunder Mifflin company picnic -- and the delightfully awful Michael Scott/Holly skit where they inadvertently informed an entire branch that it was being shuttered -- where the closest thing to a cliffhanger was Pam's visit to the ER. Viewers were led to jump to the conclusion that Pam is pregnant, but that's just an inference without overt confirmation.

Contrast the low-keyed Office finale with the over-the-top Private Practice finale, where there was an accidental embryo switch leaving two women pregnant with the other's baby, the ob/gyn for a patient with a high risk pregnancy was caught making eyes at the patient's husband in front of said patient, and a pregnant shrink (who refused to figure out which of her two lovers is the father of her baby) was rendered paralyzed by a shot administered by a patient who plans to cut the therapist's baby out of her belly. This wasn't a series of episodes. These events didn't unfold over a period of weeks. It was in one finale. And it was all too much.

I'm convinced that the ratings pressure is the biggest culprit for the zany finales and the reason why viewers inevitably feel disappointed by the aggressively-promoted season finales, many of which fail to justify the hype because either they're artificially crammed with manufactured drama or because the writers have things happen that they normally wouldn't.

What recent season finales did you like? Which ones let you down?

Image credit: Fox.

'24's' Making Me Feel Deja Vu-ish

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the previous episode of 24*

Public service announcement: There will be no head-butting/violating of probation jokes, inferences, etc. in this blog post. Personally I'm afraid Jack Bauer will come after me if I do. Now, onto 24 . . .

Next week, Fox will air the two-hour finale of 24. And I just have a tiny grievance to lodge in advance of the finale. While I've largely enjoyed this particular bad day in Jack Bauer's life -- it was heads and shoulders above the previous day -- it pains me to see that it appears to be veering toward a premise we've seen before, specifically, in the very first season. The recent episode concluded with Kim Bauer's life in jeopardy courtesy of some sinister bad guys who're going to make Jack do their dirty work on their behalf or else Kimmie's time being hunted by a cougar in the woods several years ago will seem like a walk in the park.

Is it too much to ask that the writers go with a different twist?

Do YOU Think '24's' Becoming a 'Pathetic Parody of Itself?'

*Warning, spoilers from the recent episode of 24 ahead*

There's a rumbling among some TV critics when it comes to this season's 24: While it's not as bad as its previous Bauer-family centric season, the twists it has taken recently are making it a "pathetic parody of itself." That "pathetic parody" line comes from the Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik who doesn't understand why anyone with any degree of intelligence is still watching this season, whose exploits have included:

-- An attack on the White House by a group of terrorist thugs abetted by a security guard.

-- The murder of a U.S. senator whose chief of staff was a traitor, who also wound up dead.

-- The violent seizing of the president who was forced at gunpoint by African terrorists to read a statement on a live internet feed denouncing the United States' military intervention in a fictitious African nation overrun by warlords and whose democratically elected president was saved from terrorist clutches by Jack Bauer, after Bauer pretended to be working with his captors.

-- The shooting and burying alive of an FBI agent by terrorists who later was saved and was running around the nation's capital because her wound was apparently only of the flesh wound variety.

-- The downing of two American commercial airliners by the African terrorists, abetted by other home-grown terrorists, including one over the D.C. Mall near the Washington Monument.

-- The torture of a couple of evil terrorists.

-- A near meltdown of a chemical plant, saved by the plant manager who died from exposure to the chemicals but saved his employees.

-- A Blackwater-esque company got its hands on bio-weapons, after masterminding the actions of the African terrorists.

-- Jack Bauer was exposed to the contents of one container of said toxic material, and he's been told there is no cure to his condition, except for some experimental technique which requires the DNA of a close relative. Now Jack's having debilitating seizures and won't let his daughter offer DNA to possibly save him.

-- A former U.S. agent turned bad/turned good/turned bad and killed a top FBI official, plus orchestrated the detonation of a bomb that killed other FBI agents. That and he helped a fellow baddie get away with a canister of the weaponized bio-chemicals.

-- The attempted (?) suicide of the head of the Blackwater-esque private army company at the demand of an unnamed cabal of "others" who are trying to exact bad things on the American government and, by extension, the American public.

"I have to ask sincerely," critic Zurawik wrote after seeing the latest episode, "Why are you still watching this show? Isn't your intelligence insulted by what it has become and the way it tries to exploit your feelings?"

Zurawik added:

"The Jack-is-dying-and-only-his-daughter-can-save-him storyline is debasing. Watching [Kiefer] Sutherland mimic the sudden waves of pain, the need for an injection, the loss of memory and tendency to repeat himself Monday gave me new respect for the actors on daytime soap operas. Their performances in many ways are far more honest than Sutherland's . . . All I see is a great series gone bad."

Over at New York Magazine's Vulture blog, which regularly rates the "absurd" factor of events on 24, joked about the fact that Jack's daughter Kim has a daughter named Teri (after his late wife) -- making Jack a granddaddy -- as well as the fact that it's painfully obvious that Kim's DNA will save Jack. Equally as implausible was the supposed suicide via the red pill from Jonas Jolie Hodges' attorney's doppelganger which we know didn't succeed because he was shown in previews for next week. (Way to spoil your own surprise Fox!)

But I won't go as far as Zurawik or New York Magazine. While it's true that you have to suspend a whole heck of a lot to try and enjoy 24, I don't think it has quite jumped the shark or that Sutherland's acting belongs on a daytime soap. I think the first half of this season was really strong, then it slacked off a bit in the middle, as a 24-episode show tends to do.

The killing of Larry Moss last week by Tony Almeida was shocking, an OMG moment, even though I hate the vacillating loyalty factor that is Tony. Additionally, I'm not a fan of the nakedly obvious Kim-saves-Jack storyline, because we already know Sutherland has signed on for an eighth season to be set in New York City, or of the Jonas-Jolie-Hodges-isn't-dead-yet because the previews blew that fact.

All that being said, I'm not ready to kiss of 24 yet. It's been fun this season and redeemed itself from Jack Bauer's previous bad day, which was very, very bad. I'm just hoping the conclusion of this seventh day isn't a huge let-down.

Do you think 24 has become a "pathetic parody of itself" or do you find that it's still fun?

Image credit: Fox/AP Kelsey McNeal via this web site.

Pondering '24:' The Seventh Day Thus Far

What are we, a little more than halfway through one of Jack Bauer's very bad days on 24? Thus far in Jack's day we've seen:

Two commercial airlines were downed by terrorists. Hundreds are dead.

A chemical plant almost leaked deadly chemical into the air in the Midwest, however area residents and employees were saved by the quick thinking actions of the plant manager, who died from his exposure.

The First Gentleman was shot, kidnapped, rescued and then operated on. Now he's recovering in the hospital and has just spoken with his president wife on the phone.

A U.S. invasion targeting African warlords, who overthrew a democratically elected leader and brutally savaged their fictional country, commenced.

The democratically elected leader of that fictional country and his wife were abducted by the terrorists, then freed by Jack Bauer & Co.

The White House was infiltrated by terrorists who apprehended the U.S. president, whose face the head terrorist slapped. The president was forced at gunpoint to read a statement condemning the U.S. invasion over a live internet stream.

At least one White House aide was executed in front of the president, after many Secret Service members were killed.

Jack Bauer's good friend and former head of the disbanded Los Angeles Counter Terrorism Unit, sacrificed himself in order to provide cover for Jack so Jack could save the president. (How many presidents' lives has Jack saved? Anyone got a count?)

A key U.S. senator's chief of staff (a secret badie) was tortured, survived, was brought to the hospital then killed shortly before the senator for whom he was working was killed, both of 'em executed by an associate of the bigger cadre of bad guys who were funding the African warlords.

The president's chief of staff resigned because he thinks Jack Bauer killed a bunch of people he didn't kill AFTER the chief of staff let him out of custody.

A bio-weapon is now loose in Washington, D.C. in the hands of Angelina Jolie's dad, the head of a sinister company which runs a private, for-profit army, clearly meant to harken comparisons to the likes of Blackwater.

And now Jack Bauer -- who, during this one day has appeared before a Senate committee that was grilling him about his previous actions, has been put into the field by the FBI, was detained, then let go, then arrested, then let go, then fled and is now in custody again -- has been accidentally exposed to chemicals from the bio-weapon that he stole from the bad guys, but they got it back.

Phew! Just an ordinary day in the life of Bauer.

Some outstanding questions/observations:

-- Why, why is there another bad family member in the persona of the president's daughter Olivia running around? I had plenty of bad seed family member drama last season with Jack's father and brother.

-- Why does Larry Moss, head FBI dude, persist in leaping to wild assumptions that Jack has done wrong, gone mad and wantonly killed, when all day long he's proven his allegiance? Yet when the vice president ordered Moss NOT to enter the White House after Moss & Co. believed the terrorists had seized the president, he blew off the VP?

-- Do the characters of 24 experience some kind of special, miracle healing after they've been wounded, a la Lost's island? Otherwise, how do people like FBI agent Renee Walker, who was shot in the neck and buried alive, run around mere hours after sustaining serious wounds?

-- How many lives has Tony Almeida used up already? Is he on his last one yet? If you go by the promo, it seems as though he'll need it because Angelina's daddy seems quite agitated in the promo for next week.

Now we wait 'til Monday to see if Jack "survives" his exposure. But given the news this week that Kiefer Sutherland has signed on for an eighth season, I guess it's no big leap to guess that Jack'll be okay.

'24's' Two Hours Tonight, Plus Jack-Renee Future Hook-Up Possibility?

24 -- which has been getting some critical praise this season -- is airing a two-hour Jack-stravaganza tonight. (Guess Greg House & Co. are taking a break.) My DVR's in ready mode, lest I get delayed by any small people in my house who try to thwart my Bauer fix.

I was extremely surprised that the 24 writers wrapped up the Dubaku storyline so quickly and have already moved on to a different chapter of the seventh day, involving the possible targeting of the White House by angry terrorists and the president being held hostage. (Washington, and possibly the White House, are also potential targets in Heroes, which also airs on Monday nights. Interesting. Wonder what to make of that?)

The pacing, thus far, has been good, the tension deftly amped up. I've been impressed, considering the mess that was the previous season, however I thought it inane to see Dubaku hit the pause button on his bad ass activities in order to deal with his gal pal and discuss lasagna . . . but what do I know about the mind of the 24 bad guys?

I was unhappy to read the trial balloon floated in Newsday that creators are considering having Jack and FBI agent Renee Walker have some kind of romantic somethin', somethin'. Verne Gay quoted 24 producer Howard Gordon as saying that there may be something brewing between those two in the future. Maybe the recent face-slapping Renee gave Jack -- "Do you feel this?" -- turned him on. I just don't want to see Renee Walker turned into Audrey Raines. I'd rather watch Dubaku eating lasagna.

Image credit: Fox via Newsday.

USA Today Critic: 'Lost' and '24' are Best Shows on TV

While praising the much-improved seasons of two popular, primetime dramas that have unfolded since January, USA Today's Robert Bianco says that Lost and 24 are "remarkably good," and "the two best shows on TV."

About 24, Bianco wrote:

"Because it fell further from grace, the course corrections at 24 are probably more noticeable. In place of the hysterics and overdone family histrionics of the last go-round, we have a stripped-down plot that frees Jack (the reliably terrific Kiefer Sutherland) from back-story build-up and returns the show to its roots."

On Lost, he said:

"If people seem less happy with Lost, it may be because the show rejected more-readily grasped answers to its mystery (dream, purgatory, alien abduction) in favor of a smarter but more complicated solution . . . And you can think of Lost now as the network equivalent of The Wire, a challenging show telling its story in its own way, and brilliantly."

Are Lost and 24 the best shows on TV? That would leave out 30 Rock, and doesn't include, I'd think, Mad Men, which isn't currently airing new episodes.

Image credit: Fox via Access Hollywood.

An Entire Day of Best Picture Nominees, Could You Handle It?

Now I love movies as much as any movie fan. And, as a sucker for major creative awards shows (Golden Globes, Oscars, Emmys), I'm usually anxious to see for myself the films and TV programs the critics and those who bestow awards think were outstanding in a given year.

So when I read about AMC Theaters' Best Picture Showcase event on Saturday, February 21 -- where all five of the films nominated for Best Picture will be shown consecutively, starting in the morning and running until late into the evening -- you would think I'd be all over that. For $30 you get a ticket to all five movies -- Milk, The Reader (See still photo above), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon -- and a free large popcorn with unlimited refills, but come on, how much popcorn can you eat in one day?

The first film starts at 10:30 in the morning, the last film starts at 9:45 p.m. That's a long haul, particularly if all you've eaten is popcorn all day, or those overpriced, microwaved pizzas. Maybe I'm showing my age here, but I don't know that I could stay awake for approximately 10 hours of movies. That's a lot of movie.

If you had the free time to devote an entire Saturday to Best Picture nominees, do you think you could make it through a marathon like this one? I've heard of people doing a marathon watching of 24 -- staying awake for nearly 24 hours to watch an entire season of the Jack Bauer drama -- but at least those folks watch the program in private homes. This movie marathon would be 10+ hours in a movie theater.

Image credit: Universal Studios via New York Observer.

For Sarcastic '24' Fans: Dave Barry's '24' Live-Blogging

Want to watch Jack Bauer & Co. each week with fans who view 24 through a sarcastic lens? You might want to visit columnist Dave Barry's blog, where each week, Barry and his own merry band of followers live-blog each episode by making pithy, smart alecky remarks.

After a snarky recap, ("During the shootout Renee the highly competent FBI agent rescued the Matobos, who are going to meet with President Woman President for a scene that will no doubt feature riveting White House dialogue. Meanwhile Dubaku went to his apartment, where his girlfriend, who apparently does not watch the show and thus is not aware that he is evil, dropped by to say she was going to make his lasagna."), Barry blogs via a series of updates.

What does he say? "Stepping over the line? Jack was BORN over the line." A minute later, Barry quoted an FBI agent, "'Rules are what make us better.' Who writes this stuff?" When Bauer and the other rogue agents were in the Oval Office with the president, Barry wrote, "Right. They would of course leave suspected enemy agents alone with the President!"

The folks who post comments add their thoughts, no holes barred. One wrote, "Trust me . . . help me . . . seems like I've heard that before. Oh, yeah! My last bad date." Another, mocked the FBI guy, "Why do I feel Pepe Le Pew would be more effective than Agent Larry will be?" Commenting on agent Renee Walker, nicknamed "Freckles," using rough interrogation methods like Jack, another wrote, "This is like Luke and Leia. That girl is Jack's secret twin sister."

It's a fun way to watch 24, particularly in moments when it strains credulity.

Image credit: Dave Barry's blog.

TV Week: 'Heroes,' '24,' 'Lost,' '30 Rock' & 'Grey's'

So many good shows were aired this week that I thought I'd weigh in on some of them:

*Warning, big spoilers from recently aired episodes*

Heroes

Back after a rather lackluster first half of the season, Heroes seems as though it might be able to successfully reboot itself. Here's to hoping.

The pre-Christmas episodes seemed too crowded, too erratic, too . . . I don't know, too not like the first stellar season. But Heroes is beginning a new chapter -- where those with powers are being rounded up at the order of the senator-hypocrite who himself has powers and, in earlier episodes, wanted to manufacture an army of superheroes to serve him --and many of the original characters are banding together. And that's a good thing.

I found it ironic that in the last episode, the heroes had to be saved by the cheerleader. Maybe the cheerleader can save Heroes.

24

The previous season of 24 was so disappointing. I was the designated 24 blogger for a TV web site during season six and was running out of ways to say that Jack Bauer & Co., as well as the second Palmer president, were completely unbelievable, almost laughable.

When this season started, my expectations were very low. I wasn't even sure if I'd be sticking around, given what happened during season six. During the past season, a nuclear bomb was detonated in hour four, and after that, nothing could really match that moment's intensity and it all seemed downhill, dramatically speaking, as the Bauer family of thugs storyline landed with an unimpressive thud. But I think the writers may have learned from that mistake and have made a strategically good move thus far in having the tension and major "wow" moments unfold gradually, as they ratchet up the intensity. Plus this season's president isn't a wimp, a weasel or succumbing to weird medical conditions. She just has a wacky spouse. But then again, we've been down that the wacky presidential spouse road before.

One completely unrelated observation: As an admirerer of the canceled Once & Again, I found it amusing to see the actors who played Jake and Tiffany reunited on this show, with both of them working for the FBI.

Lost

Finally! Ben Linus has returned to his evil manipulative form in trying to engineer the circumstances that would inevitable lead to the reunion of the Oceanic 6 and, he's planning, a return to the island. (That return part remains to be seen.) The most recent episode was much more to my liking than the last one as it focused more on the original Lost castaways, plus Ben & Juliet. There was emotionally poignancy (Sawyer seeing Kate and Claire when the island time traveled to Aaron's birth) and we learned that Jin did indeed survive.

While reading up on the last episode, I found this funny, sarcastic video , featuring the Lost crew in the form of action figures and cardboard cut-outs, plus a box of chocolates, which attempts to "untangle" some of the confusing aspects of the show:



30 Rock

Are you a Generalissimo? If you are, then you too stand of chance of dating Jon Hamm, that is if you're Liz Lemon's brand of Generalissimo. While I'm a huge Tina Fey and Hamm fan (that phrase just sounds funny doesn't it, "Hamm fan?"), Alec Baldwin absolutely stole this 30 Rock episode with his obsession with a Telemundo soap. Played to perfection. Made Hamm almost an afterthought. ALMOST.

Grey's Anatomy

Attention Grey's writers: I, a fan from day one, am sick of seeing dead and deathly ill children and their parents in nearly every episode recently. (This applies to Private Practice as well.) I want to be dazzled by characters' wordplay, sarcasm, crazy antics and Meredith's introspective darkness (I'm one of the approximately three Grey's fans who find her tendency to overanalyze charming). No mas with the dead or nearly dead kids. Okay? Or do I have to sick the Generalissimo on Seattle Grace?

By the way, anyone notice that Hamm's longtime girlfriend, Jennifer Westfeldt, was also featured on a guest spot on a show airing Thursday night at the same time as 30 Rock? She was the pregnant woman on Grey's, which was also ironic because she was the lead for the sitcom Notes from the Underbelly, about a woman pregnant for the first time, and, as far as I know, Westfeldt doesn't have kids. Nothing like a little friendly competition between guest stars.

Jack Bauer: Humanitarian?

When the sixth season of 24 wrapped up in May 2007, I was distinctly unimpressed. A fan of the show since the beginning -- notably adored its fifth season -- I'd been blogging at TV Squad about 24 through its entire, mediocre sixth season.

I haven't thought much about 24 since the last tick of that 24 clock. Due to the writers' strike, 24 has been on hiatus. (The seventh season isn't slated to begin until January 11. 2009.) So when I watched last night's 24: Redemption TV movie, my expectations were low, although I was still watching. And those low expectations were exceeded. Dramatically.

I thoroughly enjoyed the off-campus (as in not in LA for a change), two-hour movie that did a stellar job of setting up the seventh season and trying to literally redeem itself from the sadness that was season six. The movie had Jack Bauer in Africa, volunteering with a humanitarian mission spearheaded by a former colleague of his who ran a school for boys. Jack spent much of the two hours of the movie guiding a group of boys to safety all the while putting his own freedom at risk.

It was quite stark, seeing Jack as a humanitarian, surrendering himself to U.S. authorities -- who, for a year, had been unsuccessfully trying to serve him with a subpoena to appear at a hearing regarding his torturing of a terrorist suspect way back in season six -- so that a group of orphaned boys could be evacuated from their country that was about to collapse due to an impending coup. It was Jack, totally on the defense.

And, in typical 24 style, we saw other storylines unfold, alas, no Chloe O'Brian though. A new president, Allison Taylor, was inaugurated. Taylor has a distinctly different position on the use of force and foreign policy than did her predecessor, the sinister President Noah Daniels, who was the commander in chief during the previous season of 24. Taylor seems no-nonsense and has a cute adult son who, in the new season, will be in danger because a friend tried to leak him info about government ties to terrorists.

When Redemption ended, Jack was being flown back to the United States in handcuffs, the boys he'd helped were being evacuated and the first woman president had been inaugurated.

How well will Jack Bauer, rouge and violent anti-terrorism agent, play with the viewing public after the election of Barack Obama? I think he'll play well, particularly given that Jack, for the first time, will have to answer to U.S. officials in Washington for his methods. It promises to be an exciting season and we'll have to see if the show can maintain its quality throughout an entire 24 episode span. After all, the first four hours of season six were great, then it was downhill from there.

Image credit: Fox.