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24: Season 4 (SPOILERS)

I don't think her character is dead, just knocked out cold. Which is perfect because you know they want whatever info she has and who she knows...but now theres no way to get it from her (at least right away) while she is knocked out.

Yea, I am sensing Tony dying this season too. Its too bad because I think hes been my favorite character through the last 3 seasons. While I would like to see him be heroic and re-instated for his duties, maybe by Michelle who is apparently at Division...24 isn't known for its "happy endings" as you all know. Either way going out heroically saving Jack and the country again would be appropiate I suppose given that he has hit bottom as "The Inquisitor Sebastian" would say.

I liked Edgar's quick thinking in seeing Sarah was innocent. Yea, shes a hottie too. I liked her in Boomtown and am glad I get to see her in something else as well.

One observation about this season...to dove-tail on what I said above. By now I am *convinced* they have changed the format of this show from previous seasons. Granted, there is still a long arc that will span the whole season (for the most part) but it doesnt seem as long or as epic as previous seasons. They have also REALLY made a change in the pace of each episode. They are really trying to make it so you can tune in each week and see something happen and something resolved in the same episode, instead of taking 2-3 episodes to resolve mini arcs. For example...

The resolved the kidnapping very quickly early on.
2 episodes ago the episode started where 120+ nuclear plants were under control.
By the end of that same episode it was down to 6.
At the end of last episode Jack escapes a trap and realizes there is a mole.
Begining of this episode, Sarah framed by mole. End of episode, real mole found.

In past seasons of 24 they would have kept things going just a bit longer. They seem to be quickly bringing up problems, then solving them quickly, sometimes in the same episode. This is definitely a different format, and a sign that Fox execs dont seem to think the audience can keep up, or that they will lose viewer interest if something isn't resolved immediately.

So far it hasnt dramatically changed my opinion of the show, or its feel, but it does seem a bit odd right now. I will be better able to judge at the end of this season to see if I had watched 1 well planned out arc, or a number of smaller ones. I hope its the former, like the prior seasons...but it might be the latter, which would be a letdown IMO.
 
Yes, there are shorter conflicts this season. I certainly wouldn't expect or even suggest anyone jumping into the middle of a season of 24, so maybe this is their way of rectifying that. So far it's been OK. Of course the danger is that it becomes harder to not repeat stories or make them silly.
 
Time for a 24 Update:

Watched last night's episode. As I was watching it, I was thinking of posting about how utterly TIRED I was of Driscoll's daughter being at CTU --- what a stupid plotline. Well. PROBLEM SOLVED! And frankly, who really cares? If you thought Kim being chased by mountain lions was silly, sorry, but her daughter was even more annoying. I'm glad she is dead and we can leave that behind.

On a realism note, how does one committ suicide like that in a freakin medical room? If she was acting the way she was, they wouldnt let her out of their freakin sight, let alone into a bathroom alone. Not to mention the time factor here. She was gone maybe a 3-5 minutes, which looking at how she was cut, one wouldn't think thats enough time to actually bleed to death (and the fact there was very little blood on the floor). Sloppy storytelling, sloppy. But for a shitty backplot, I return to the who cares comment.

My only other gripe was Edgars guessing of all the secret keys to hit to get the thing to respond. "OK, F5 worked, now try ESCAPE. That didn't work? OK, try ESCAPE and SHIFT" What do all h4x0rs use the same handbook or something? Thought that was kinda weak too.

Other than those 2 things, the episode was great. I'm REALLY curious to see where things are going (no I didnt watch the previews...I never do for this show). But seeing as all the plants are stopped and the head guy is on the run...what else is there to take up the remaining 12+ hours? Really gotta wonder where its going. Especially considering pretty much all the plot threads thus far are more or less cared for.
 
I was wondering the same thing.. now what? :D But then, didn't it at one point in the middle of season 3 seem pretty much the same way, that the issue had been dealt with? So I suppose (well, hope at least) that there'll be some nice little twist again. Perhaps the terrorists do have backup plans for something else, or who knows. Marwan got away after all and seems it might not be too easy to catch him immediately. And I wonder what happens with Paul Raines - if that's it with him, he was innocent and will have no more dealings with the whole case, or if there's still something else.

I agree it was a good episode, except for the bits with the daughter (who really did become more and more annoying - I wonder if we were meant to feel sympathy for her). And instead of feeling sorry for Driscoll, my first thought was "hmm, I wonder if she can now behave the same way she told Edgar to behave when his mother died, i.e. shut up and go back to work". :rolleyes:

I wonder actually if that was part of the point of the subplot, to have the fairly cold, harsh Driscoll suffer a similar fate as Edgar. At least bringing Edgar's mother into the plot, rather far-fetched as the coincidence of her living right near the reactor that actually had the meltdown seems, had some kind of point and was integrated into the story/what was happening.
 
That could be. Thats a good way to look at it anyway, we will see if they do anything with that.
 
After Driscoll's first visit to her daughter in this ep, I knew she was going to die and I thought of the same criticisms you had (amount of time, she was being watched, etc) before it even happened. This, and Edgar's keyboard drama are typical 24 plot shortcuts, like getting everywhere in 2 minutes and such. I was laughing my ass off at the F5 SHIFT stuff. Ooh, the drama... of Microsoft hotkeys! :LOL:

I also expect Audrey to dump Jack in favor of her husband. After seeing how monstrous he can be, she won't want to be with him.
Unless, of course, something wacky happens, like it turns out he really is a terrorist. But I have a feeling this will end up as another kick in the teeth for Jack's personal life- his devotion to his job/country and his violent vicious nature will scare off his last chance at love, like it did that chick from season 2.

And get we give Curtis some props? Yeah. Bad-ass.
If they ever decide to retire Jack Bauer, he can be the new lead.


POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR NEXT WEEK GLEEMED FROM PREVIEWS:

The death of Driscoll's daughter will cause her resignation and Tony will become acting head of CTU.
 
On a realism note, how does one committ suicide like that in a freakin medical room?
As long as we are apllying realism to the Mia routine: How does that character not get put in bed restraints for her own protection? There is no way that CTU wouldn't have them, for use on injured prisoners if nothing else.


My only other gripe was Edgars guessing of all the secret keys to hit to get the thing to respond. "OK, F5 worked, now try ESCAPE. That didn't work? OK, try ESCAPE and SHIFT" What do all h4x0rs use the same handbook or something? Thought that was kinda weak too.
That bugged me less. Curtis was right, if it was anything even vaguely complex then they had no hope. So Edgar was just hoping that it was something simple and consistent. Hence trying each of the function keys by themselves, then when one of them yielded a response trying the first couple combinations that came to mind with that same function key.

He got lucky. And he knew he got lucky, but he just didn't have enough time to do anything more analytical or with a higher percentage chance of success ..... So he tried the one thing that could possibly try in the time alotted.



Especially considering pretty much all the plot threads thus far are more or less cared for.

Yes ...... but .....
Audrey is walking back into the middle of a danger zone too soon (why would she walk away from the staging area and into that building while there are any terrorist still unaccounted for?).

We still haven't tracked down who Heller's son told what (at least not when I was wtching; I've had the bad habit of coming inot episodes 10 minutes or so in because of when I was arriving home).

I still have a feeling that there is more to be revealed about Paul.

We don't really know where the terrorists' initial information about the override came from. Now that the short term disaster has been averted, finding out about that leak will become a huge priority. It's not likely that they came across it by chance on their own, without an American pointing them at it. That fictional development work has all the earmarks of a project that would be staffed by US citizens only. It could be one that could conceivably take them to very rich and powerful places in "ye olde military industrial complex". And quite possibly within the government.
 
And get we give Curtis some props? Yeah. Bad-ass.
If they ever decide to retire Jack Bauer, he can be the new lead.

Agreed. Curtis was definitely the high-point of this episode. Nice to see another bad-ass besides Jack and Tony.
 
I've had the bad habit of coming inot episodes 10 minutes or so in because of when I was arriving home)

Dude... you need to seriously invest in some sort of recording device.
 
I'm in agreement with just about everyone's opinion on the last episode. I hated Driscoll's daughter. I kept thinking about what a pointless subplot it was, but she's gone now...yippee!

Curtis is the best new character to come along in a while. I hope he sticks around for a while.

I'm anxious to see where the storyline's going now.
 
I've had the bad habit of coming inot episodes 10 minutes or so in because of when I was arriving home)

Dude... you need to seriously invest in some sort of recording device.

Yeah, I have a VCR. I just kept having things scheduled that ended at 8:00 (or whatever) and I didn't think to program the thing for them because that plenty of time to get home. Of course, things would run late, or whatever, and I would actually get home around 9:10. Happend a few / several times this season.

So I saw Jack tell CTU that he was going into the bunker after Audrey and Heller at the end of one episode, then came back to see everybody milling about with EMS people in the parking lot outside after the raid.

Same thing last week: I had seen Jack start to head in the direction of Barooz and Dad the preivious week; and arrived to see Barooz and Mom being taken to CTU. It wasn't until this week's "Previously on 24" recap that I realized that Barooz had actually capped Daddy (to borrow a phrase from Ackroyd in Grosse Point Blank).

Actually I saw *all* of this week's episode because I knew in advance that I had a confilct. So I had taped it and watched it on Tuesday.
 
I agree on all points. Every time the phone rang about Driscoll's daughter, I was literally yelling at the clininc staff

JESUS!, JUST HANDLE IT!

We're in the middle of a friggin nuclear disaster, and these people are as useful as the school nurse.

Put her in restaints or you're fired asshole!!!!!!!

Cowboy Curtis is cool. Glad to see another useful CTU agent.
 
Just got done watching tonight's episode. It started off kind of slow, but it picked up. Tony was in charge just temporarily, but I knew that Michelle would be the one to replace him once Heller said the command would only be temporary.

I'm actually starting to like the Paul character. At first, I really didn't like him, but now I do for some reason. Maybe it's just because he's helping Jack, I really don't know.

The whole EMP thing seemed a little farfetched, but it adds to the story. I think most people wouldn't hesitate to help out in this kind of situation, even knowing the consequences of not doing complete background checks or whatever they were supposed to have done.
 
The whole EMP thing seemed a little farfetched

Not even as closely far-fetched as the whole thing about the override device in the first place.

I love how Edgar pointed out how absurd it is that Driscoll's daughter slit her wrists when she was being watched.
:LOL:

Marwan is up to some more bad stuff. Uh-oh.
 
The whole EMP thing seemed a little farfetched, but it adds to the story. I think most people wouldn't hesitate to help out in this kind of situation, even knowing the consequences of not doing complete background checks or whatever they were supposed to have done.

*EVERYTHING* about what went on at that contractor site was horrifically non-sensical .... to the point where I wass actually getting angry while watching it.

If it were something that I was watching for just the one night, I would have turned it off. If it doesn't turn to something less hideously illogical soon I may stop watching this season.
 
But Michelle is back! Gotta watch that.

Yeah, it was nice to see Michelle again. The thing is, it was such a foregone conclusion in my mind that Michelle would be the person sent from division that her appearance did not strike me as a cool new event.

And by then I was so irriatated at the show for everything that had been going on their A story, that it didn't do much to correct my mood.

The only way that they could possibly recover that stuff to any noticable degree is if:

A) The two execs (other than the CEO) had been knowingly, actively involved in Marwan's activities and that is what they are really trying to cover up.

and

B) The CEO *is* a complete idiot, incapable of independent thought.

*Both* of those things have to be true for anything in that episode to make any sense at all. The lines of reasoning that the execs were giving during their discussions among the 3 of them were absolutely idiotic.


Look, I know that 24 has always relied on somewhat shaky logic and that the speed of the story and the momentum of events would keep the audiance from really thinking things through too carefully. And I'm OK with that. That's not what this episode was. This was tons of stuff where my instant first reaction was "That's stupid. Nobody in that position would do that. The reasons they're giving are completely nonsensical."

I forgive technical inaccuracies put in for the sake of cool visuals in a visual entertainment medium (and which aren't major plot points). For example, the image of the way the lights went out in the surrounding blocks at the end. It was a nice image. It requires that the "pulse' of the EMP move several orders of magnitude more slowly through space than it should (among other issues), but it was a nice visual.
 
A) The two execs (other than the CEO) had been knowingly, actively involved in Marwan's activities and that is what they are really trying to cover up.

Considering we saw Marwan getting help from white Americans, that wouldn't be surprising at this point.
 
Possibly correct. However, like I said, both of my previous postulates have to be true.

The CEO can't be in on it or they wouldn't have been talking about the idiotic reasons that were used in the dialog.

If the CEO had even half a brain, he would never have gone along with what they were talking about. It simply made absolutely no sense. The man would have to be a complete blithering idiot. And since we were hearing about how he had theoretically built that (extremely techie) company up from nothing, that doesn't seem to be where they are taking us.

Edit:
Allow me to re-phrase / clarify slightly:

Given the experiance with such things that he couldn'y possibly not have, even as an employee of one of those contractors much less the CEO ..... the man would have to be a complete blithering idiot etc.
 

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