24 - was doing so well...
- wadE
Have you seen the FOX show 24? I remember last fall seeing promos for it. I thought, what a great idea (even if it
did star Kiefer Sutherland)!
Most shows have 20-25 episodes per season...why not make it 24, and have each episode be 1 hour from a day. Of
course that's gotta be one hell of a day; but 24 delivers!
The premise is that each episode is an hour on the day of the California Presidential Primary... starting at midnight,
and running in real time...which means that events during the show occur on a natural timeline. You don't really get to
appreciate this, but it's a good idea.
Jack Bauer (Kiefer) is a special agent with the government and he's just gotten back together with his wife after a
period of separation. His teenage daughter is a precocious little slut who blames (i.e. hates) her mom for making
daddy move out.
Ok, this plot description could get a little boring/hazy. Hazy because I've missed a few episodes...you know the
holidays came and went, and you get busy going out with friends, etc.
Anyway, basic plot: Kiefer has to go into work, they've just gotten credible information that David Palmer (insert
Twin Peaks joke here), a US Senator who has an excellent chance of becoming the first black president, is going to be
assassinated that day. Kiefer's daughter sneaks out that night to meet one of her friends and go hook up with some cute
boys. Kiefer's day just gets better when he finds out that someone within his agency is working with the assassins.
Meanwhile, mom goes out to find the daughter with the father of the other girl...people get hit by cars, etc. Mom and
daughter are kidnapped by a group working for the assassins. So, Kiefer goes in, saves his wife and daughter, ship them
to a safehouse, and gets back on the case of the assassination plot.
That pretty much brings you up to this weeks' episode. The bad guys find out where his wife and daughter are at,
kill the agents guarding the safe house. Mom and daughter get away in a car...they lose the bad guys in the hills
around LA by parking off on this dirt road along the twisty roads. Then mom decides to get out of the car and see if
they really lost them. She leaves her daughter in the car on the edge of this dirt road on a cliff...the dirt under
the car gives way and the car (w/ daughter) plummets, and explodes... mom promptly faints...
When we get back to mom...she wakes up...wonders back toward the road in a stupor... a car stops... lady chats with
her... turns out mom now has amnesia...
What? You've got to be kidding me. This show was doing so well. It was like a cross between Commando and Enemy Of
The State. You've got kidnapping, lots of shooting, plus government conspiracies. Then suddenly it turned into a soap
opera. What's next? Kiefer gonna get a tumor? Find out his wife is really his sister? I'm just waiting for Susan
Lucci to be a guest star!!!
Now a much better idea would have been: after the car fell down the hill, mom runs to the road to look for help, and
is hit by a car, meanwhile the daughter (who of course was gently thrown from the car and lived) was knocked out; Mom
would be unconscious (maybe in a coma even!) and taken to a hospital, leaving the daughter behind. That is way more
plausible than amnesia...Good God!
At any rate, I'm taking a week or two off from watching the show and hoping that next time I tune in this amnesia
bullshit is over.
But it's on FOX...so I'm not holding my breath.
- 03/21/2002
