24: How to Save Jack Bauer
WARNING: 24 spoilers, if you care about that sort of thing.
So after all my hemming and hawing, I gave in and watched the 24 finale. Well, I "watched" it. Skipped the beginning, and the fast-forward button played a significant role, but finally I had to: in for a penny etc. And you know, I've gotta agree with Joanna from yesterday's comments: The ending, the very ending, was surprisingly kinda not bad.
Give it up for Kief: the man can act, and episode after episode, he has, with Bauer-like self-abnegation, rolled whatever giant ball of crap the writers have given him uphill out of sheer duty. I felt like Kiefer himself was addressing the producers in his monologue to William Devane: everything he has done, every dramatic atrocity he has committed in this benighted season, he did because you told me to, you bastards.
No, Jack's decision to leave Audrey behind didn't quite have the stirring sweep of his walking off into the sunset, abandoned by his government, at the end of season 4. But it was shocking in its own way for its lack of typical 24 fireworks. No wailing, no gnashing, no grand gesture, just Jack staring at the unanswering sea as the final seconds ticked down silent for us.
It would have been a stirring gesture to end on had it been earned--say, by having been preceded by 23 hours and 59 minutes of worthwhile television. But it left me sad, because you could see in it, I think, what the producers had wanted to do with this season, had they only been able to pull it off. This should have been a season about the toll that duty and carnage and paranoia take on a operative like Jack. But then so much got in the way--so many nukes and evil vice presidents and zombie presidents and sundry other twists we'd seen too many times before. [Update: Mediaweek, by the way, reports that the ratings were down 23 percent from the season 5 finale. Ouch. That's gonna leave a bruise.]
If the makers of 24 want to save it as a TV show to be proud of (rather than just a cash machine), they need to take a cue from those last few minutes of the finale, when 24 seemed to become something like involving TV drama again. They need to dial it down, way down. No huge WMD threats next season. Give Jack some small-scale, but intricate, MI-5-like case to solve. Give him some awful moral compromises to make, without the distraction of throwing in a cliffhanger at every commercial break, and bore in on the character that they meant to make this season about.
If it can be done, that is. Maybe it's just too late, and 24 was never meant to make it more than a few good years. I remember interviewing Sutherland before season 2, and he told me at the time he wasn't sure how much longer he wanted to do the show. Die Hard was great, he said, and Die Hard 2 was fun, but Die Hard With a Vengeance...? Well, Sutherland made his choices, and he's been richly rewarded for them, so I guess I shouldn't feel too sorry for him--and yet I do, as he finds himself staring down Die Hard 7, 8, 9...
Maybe 24 is beyond saving; maybe Jack Bauer is; maybe Kiefer Sutherland is. But the producers at least owe it to them to try, even at risk of killing their cash cow. They made Bauer who he is; now it's their turn to save him.
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1
Blatant hijack, but: could we get your opinions on the Heroes season finale?
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I'm taking bets on whether or not Ricky Schroeder shows up next season wearing an eye patch.
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Heroes post coming in a bit, after I knock out a little print-mag work.
Random thought: is Ali Larter really a good enough actress to be given THREE roles in the same scene?
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Heh...dunno about Ali Larter being good enough...but she was playing Jessica in 2 of the 3 parts.
My wife watched Legally Blonde on Sunday. Apparently she's in that. I walked in when her part was on. I wasn't terribly impressed with her 2001 acting...she's improved though.
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The Heroes finale was a huge disappointment, in my opinion. Yes, Ali Larter has no business being three characters, but how did NOBODY die? I mean Parkman is alive (apparently), so is D.L., and there is no way Peter is dead. Nathan may be dead, and I suppose that's okay (frankly, he was second only to Ali Larter as the world's most boring hero), but honestly how did all that buildup result in such a boring "final" confrontation? And don't even get me started on the clumsy introduction of next year's supervillain...
As for 24, I completely agree - the secret to this show is not upping the stakes with bigger weapons and more casualties. The secret is tough moral questions, plot twists that substantially advance the story line and increase the tension (without subverting entirely the believability of the plot), and to a certain extent "brains" over "brawn" - the idea that while Jack is indeed a bad-a$$ with a gun, he's also wickedly smart enough to think his way out of situations and trick the bad guys (and sometimes the audience). (see, for example, his "flank 2 position" or whatever it was from the beginning of season 5, where he secretly informed the SWAT teams on the outside through code that they were going into a trap.)
I hope they leave L.A. (really, Los Angeles as the center of terrorist threats? Not entirely believable), come up with some believable non-Arab terrorists, and make the show a believable adventure (i.e. small scale) again.
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Perhaps it is time to scrap the 24 hour format. That is part of what makes the show so unbelievable. Sometimes I have to remind myself that it is one single day that all of the injuries, explosions, traveling, getting arrested, getting released, etc. happens in. How do you go from being busted up to doing amazing feats? If they want to stay BIG action, they need to spread it out over a period of time.
What do you bet that one-eyed Doyle starts the show next season and Jack shows up in the last half of the season?
Question, does CTU only exist in LA or do they have offices elsewhere. Someone from "division" is always coming over to take control or ask questions. Perhaps a whole new city, office and cast is in order.
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Perhaps CTU only exists in LA to create the illusion that there is an organization that can save us from terrorists. Afterall, Hollywood believes it can digitally cure all sorts of pestilence and disease, make the world more homo-centric etc. In next years opener, Kanine Garofolo, Michael Moore, Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins-Sarandon take over CTU, throw Wayne Palmer out of office and infect the water supply with pink lemonade. They appoint Osama Bin Laden head of CTU and raise a memorial to Saddam Hussein. Jane Fonda becomes Defense Minister and surrenders....to everyone. Angelina Jolie adopts Brittany Spears. Just as all this chaos is going on...Jack Bauer reappears and.................................................................................................Sorry....bad acid flashback.
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Personally, I hated the very end of the show. I don't think that Keifer is more an overactor than an actor, and the crap he is given to say certainly doesn't help matters any....
I think a far better ending would have been for Audrey to wake up, look at Jack and say some stuff that seemed incoherent but then started repeating the same line she did in her earlier appearances with increasing hysteria until she is screaming and flailing while Jack looks on helpless then....
CUT to the clock screen and DINK,dink, DINK, dink, DINK dink for the final three seconds. (the fact that Audrey never woke up totally sucked.)As for next season .... it should start out with Chloe visiting an abortion clinic when it gets bombed, and work its way toward a plot involving right-wing militias who are plotting a massacre of Mexican immigrants at a huge wedding. (Put Karen Hayes and Bill Buchanan at the wedding as guests -- both of them are compellingly watchable and credible, and the show desperately needs them.)
In other words, bring the show back to the kind of REAL threat of terrorism that America is facing here at home.
IMHO, this season's biggest flaw was the very IDEA that Russia would attack a US base in Europe because the Chinese might get ahold of a chip. (I mean, maybe have Russia planning to pre-emptively attack China with the threat of a large scale nuclear exchange that would bring on nuclear winter or something....but RUSSIA attacking ONE US military base? puhleez...)
The simple fact is that the season would have been much better with a single plot line, rather that the use of two essentially separate plots (the "loose suitcase nukes in the US" plot and the "Chinese want the microchip" plot were two entirely separate plots that didn't even fit together.)
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I also think that next season should feature Agent Doyle wearing an eye patch. I believe that Ricky Schroder would be a more than adequate replacement for Mr. Sutherland, should he decide to leave. As far as plots go, don't expect any right wing terrorists on the Fox Network. After all, it's owned by one.
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The entire season, and the finale, had a different pace ... which I found refreshing ... http://paullevinson.blogspot.com/2007/05/24-season-6-hrs-23-24-finale-life.html
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RUPERT MURDOCH IS A TERRORIST!!! What is this, The View?
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So why does Jack whisper all his lines? I can't take it anymore!
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What if Chloe decides to be a stay at home mom? Jack is screwed. And like BeeBee said "why does Jack whisper...for that matter why does everyone on the show whisper?
The next Terrorists will be Rosie O'Donnell, Donald Trump, Britney Spears, EVERYONE on American Idol, The Bachelor, The Cavemen from Geico and all the entire cast of Grey's Anatomy. Hopefully Jack can eliminate them all and save us from future foolishness.
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