What, They Couldn't Just Let Bauer Get Some Damn Sleep for Seven Hours?

Without Imus's Cardinal Egan shtick we would not be reminded of the fact that the Catholic church traditionally (before Vatican II) was racist, anti-semitic and anti-Protestant. The Cardinal bit by McGurk is precious.

Let the blacks clean up their own act before going after Imus.

LET IMUS BE IMUS.

With all the gymnastics the writing staff have performed this season, I believe that for their next trick we will soon discover that Jack's dad [they have to find some way to weave him back in] dated Audrey in the early 90's.

I think the problem with 24 is the misconception that everything needs to get bigger - the threats, the conspiracies, the weapons, the level of power of the "mole" - in order to keep the audience interested.

For 24 to return from this subpar season, they need to go back to a smaller scale storyline: Jack confronting a hostage situation (for example), Chloe and CTU working around the clock to get info on the terrorists that Jack can exploit, and maybe some small connection between the hostage situation and international relations to get the White House involved. Make the show more believable and on a smaller scale, give the characters we love interesting things to do and tense situations, and the tension works in favor of the show. This season, though, the drama has been gone, replaced by gratuitous violence and ridiculous leaps of conspiracies...

I agree with Chaddogg; Fox does seem determined to 'outdo' themselves and that seems to mean bigger and badder. Simplicity is the key and returning to that would hopefully salvage the show from the ruin it has fallen into.

When it was clear that the nukes would be secured ('Cause honestly, Jack is not going to be stopped by one man) I remember wondering, "What crappy cliffhanger are they going to do now?" Ideas of Audrey and Philip Bauer certainly surfaced. But hey, why not resurrect an even older loose end...for instance whatever happened to Behrooz Araz in Season 4? He just...disappeared. And I would not be surprised if Mandy made a reappearance. *sigh*

RE: Norman Ravitch

Which Blacks and what act? Following your assumed logic, all Blacks have an act that needs to be cleaned up. Since we've never met I wonder if that applies to me too. I find it amusing that some White people always find excuses to pardon or minimize bad behavior by members of their race. Yet when that same behavior is exhibited by a select few of another race, that boorish activity is applied to all members of that race. I guess it must be something in the water.

I agree with Chadddogg in that the 24 producers trying to outdo the previous season with bigger and "scarier" threats. The other thing I've noticed is that 24 used to have strong continuum between each episode as far as storyline goes, whereas in the 5th and 6th season, each episode has its own mini-story. By this I mean, at the beginning of your typical 5th & 6th season episode something happens, like a file is discovered, or a bomb is going to go off, within the time period of the current episode. As such, each episode kind of becomes its own storyline with the "problem" being solved by the end of the episode and another "problem" being discovered to setup the next episode. Then finally somewhere toward the last episode, everything is "suddenly" wrapped up and the season is over(as far as this season goes, I guess the producers figured it would boost the show by adding a second story).
Also, 24 used to have a lot of action, whereas now it has turned into Milo and Chloe rerouting ports at CTU, Milo completely missing some minor technical detail which Chloe instantly corrects(via rerouting ports), and a whole lot of political jargon which requires someone to authorize an action(thus leading to episodes with long scenes of seemingly unending dialog). To counter this, the 24 producers throw the audience a bone in the form of pointless torture, and as mentioned by Chaddogg, scenes that only manage to gross-out the audience.

Any truth to the rumor that Sanjaya will be replacing Sutherland next year?

So, does the VP resign, Palmer makes Logan VP, Palmer dies and Logan becomes President? In the bizarro 24 world, it could happen.