Friday, January 12, 2007

Jack Bauer Eats Chumps Like You For Breakfast

- Well, I realize I've kind of been bombarding the blog here with new posts this week. Chalk it up to getting back to work and into a regular routine after taking time off and mostly removed from these here internets. Somehow, I didn't even realize until yesterday that I am headed for a three day weekend, which almost seems excessive at this point but hey, I won't turn it down.

- So basically all I want to say right now is:

I cannot wait for 24 on Sunday. And if you're not watching, I have to ask why have you not yet gotten with the program? For five years now, 24 has, even in its lesser seasons, been the best show on TV. It's not so much that each and every episode in and of itself is genious, more so that 24 has revolutionized serial TV storytelling so that the very core of the show is so intense, so dramtic, so big, that each episode is practically an event all its own.

I'm proud to say that I am no 24 bandwagoner either. I began watching on Day 1, episode 1, because I was psyched for the show - the follow up actioner from the producers of the underrated La Femme Nikita series. And man, I still remember how blown away I was by that initial pilot episode, sophomore year of college, as some friends and I sat huddled around our dorm room TV. 24 was THE show to watch for the rest of college, and me and my fellow unofficial CTU agents (Chris mostly, but Aksel, Erica, and a few others became bigtime fans as well) never missed an episode. Just to give you an idea of my hardcore 24 love, I downloaded every episode from the net while spending a semester in England as soon as I could following the American air dates. I remember Chris visiting in London from Oxford, as we caught up on a bunch of episodes on my laptop.

So many thrilling moments have helped make 24 the show that it is. I won't mention them here for the sake of not spoiling those who have yet to catch up. Because if you're not yet a devout 24 viewer, well, what are you waiting for?

It's going to be real, real interesting to see how the head to head battle between 24 and Heroes plays out at 9 pm on Mondays. Heroes has been the breakout drama of the new fall season, but the thing with 24 is that a.) for any fan of 24, it is THE must-watch show of the week, no questions asked, and b.) thanks to hugely popular DVD's and ever-growing heaps of positive buzz, 24 has, remarkably, grown each year from a modestly successful cult-fave into one of FOX's top franchises. It will be interesting to see how this affects Heroes, and, if it does, to see if NBC yields at all or continues pitting Heroes against the Jack Bauer Hour of Power.

Alright, have a good weekend. Rest easy that we no longer need to rely on some wannabe guys with names like James Bond or Ethan Hunt or, dammit all, Codename: The Cleaner to save the world for us. This Sunday, Jack Bauer shows those wannabes how it's done, and the gravitas will be a'flowin'.

Can't wait to see Zombie Almeda get some sweet revenge on a cybernetically enhanced Christopher Henderson. That IS what's going to happen ... right?

1 comment:

  1. An undead Tony may catch up with ole RoboCop, but I'd wager he'd have to contend with a once-more revived Nina Myers en route. Tony will then be caught in an impossible rock and a hard place, but will quickly figure out that the only way to escape his predicament is to chop off Chase's remaining arm.

    On a serious tack, is NBC nuts for slating Heroes up against Jack? Pal-leeze! I'd say NBC's only hope in that scenario are the legions of soon-to-be Bauer boys and girls who have not yet finished catching up to Season 6 just yet and need something to ease the pain that comes with being behind in the saga.

    My main burning question from tonight's part one of the premiere:
    What exactly did Prez. W. Palmer dish out to the Chinese that was valuable enough to them to exchange for Jack -- and so quickly, too? (I half-expected Jack not to show his face until the second hour, or at least the final few minutes of the first hour, just for suspense's sake.)
    -SMOCypj

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