24get It...

my rating:

I was intrigued by the storytelling gimmick of 24 the first season, and watched the first 2 or 3 episodes, but the story didn't appeal to me enough to stick it out for the remaining 20-something. But I've heard enough people rave about the past two seasons, and how much they were looking forward to the third - to say nothing of the sheer improbable fact that it has survived this long at all - that I figured I'd give this year's real-time drama a look.

It didn't take me 2 or 3 episodes this time.

The show's main "hook" of real-time storytelling was barely noticeable. Maybe people complained about too much split-screen work in previous years and they've toned it down, but it really just watched like any other drama... just with more cell phones used than in shows where the characters are allowed to drive or walk places (without the camera running) to hold conversations in person. The cell chatter's probably more realistic, but that doesn't make it better drama.

My main problem is that there's just so much tension and angst piled all over the place. And most of it's whiny, pathetic personal shit: "You only got this job because of your Daddy (and the renewal clause in your contract)!" "I have emotional problems that everyone seems to see, but I don't want to talk about it!" "Someone tried to assassinate him the last time he was in town!" "She keeps accessing my data without asking first!" And all of this happening on the same damn day! It was like every character was based on Lloyd Bridges in Airplane! "Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop shooting heroin!" "Looks like I picked the wrong day to tell the boss I'm porking his daughter!" "Looks like I picked the wrong day to start trafficking in coke!" "Looks like I picked the wrong day to interrogate a this bad guy from last season!"

The fact that they seemed to be picking up a bunch of dangling plotlines from last season certainly didn't help. At least the first season they introduced nearly all the players shortly after they appeared on screen, but this time there was obviously a lot that happened last year that nobody was bothering to explain. Hell, characters even kept saying things like, "Oh, you know what I'm talking about..." But no, I didn't. And network execs wonder why it's so rare for a TV show to pick up new viewers. It's excusable for a series like 24 to be very continity-dependent from episode to episode (for which the "previously..." bits each week will help), but someone returning after a year or more away... or even just a summer in which his memory of previous plots and characters got kinda hazy... shouldn't be left wondering if "1:00-2:00pm" is the 1st episode of the season or the 2nd... or maybe even the 14th.

At the end of this first hour, I was still a bit clost about what exactly this year's crisis is. The doctor talking about a 24-hour period from infection through death in this new disease (or should I know about it from last season? everyone else seems to) is a clue, but the dangler featuring the uncoopreative terrorist/drug-dealer informant, the side plot about the president and his loving doctor, and Kiefer Sutherland's array of personal demons, add more confusion than depth to the story. It's not horrible. But it's too melodramatic to be real, and plotted too much like reality to be dramatic.