Progressive Boink

[A Link to the Matt]

With the steady decline of interest in the 24um, I found myself wondering, how long can a show like this go on? It's a great premise, and I lvoe every single second that I sit down and watch what happens to Jack on a weekly basis, but how many different combinations of Terrorist plot/Corrupt Cabinet/Trouble at CTU/Jacks personal life problems can there be? We all know Kiefer is singed through 2010, but is it smart for the show to run that long? Will we eventually lose interest or will the writers eventually run out of ideas? What do you all think?

[Spoodles]

Well, I think it's just as rich as any other series. I mean, they've already repeated ideas. This season's nuclear bomb compared to season 2's. Presidential assassination attempts in seasons 1, 2, and now 6. The veep making a play for the office of presidency. Etc.

But really, every show retreads something that's been done before. If they keep the tension ratcheted and continue developing character, we should have a long, fun ride.

I think they need to stop killing characters off so quickly though. I loved the characters of David Palmer and Tony Almeida, but I was okay with their deaths because really there wasn't a lot more they could do (Palmer's S4 role was already a stretch). They had good runs and we actually came to care about them as characters. But Edgar had only been around for a season and a half, and Curtis not much more. There were new levels to which they could have brought those characters. When Curtis died, it was more shock than emotion that I felt. When Edgar died, it was heartbreaking but I felt for Chloe more than anything else.

The only new CTU character I'm interested in at all this season is the Muslim woman. The Return of Milo is pretty bland, and Morris is okay but they haven't given him good material yet. Hopefully we get some good development there.

[Jim]

See, I think that Nadia is a boring character, but I love Morris. However, I don't enjoy this shitty sideplot with Chloe constantly questioning Morris. I just hope his pimp hand is strong, because I'm getting really sick of Chloe.

Up until a few weeks ago, I was really losing faith in this season. Being that it's on at the same time as Heroes, I was considering watching Heroes and then downloading 24 (rather than the opposite, which I still do). Luckily, in the last few weeks, the show has really picked up steam. Maybe it's because Logan is back, but I'm definitely enjoying the direction the show has taken in the last few episodes. The only complaint I have is that Jack still isn't kicking enough ass. Hell, last week, he was barely even present. That needs to change.

As for the longevity of the show, as long as Jack is still the main character, I'll continue to watch. If they were to kill off his character, there's pretty much no way that I would continue to watch the show. The fact that he's signed through 2010 is reassuring, but you just never know.

[Bill]

It could go on for much longer if they'd stop doing the same thing over and over. This season would've been perfect to actually focus on Jack getting out of China. But instead they feel required to pull some random bullshit between seasons so that by the time the next day starts, everything is back the way it was. Jack's here, terrorists are there, bombs are involved.

The other problem is that this season has kind of sucked. Too little action, too little Jack.

[tibber]

i post on another board where 24 is popular and the consensus there is that the show has jumped the shark. i don't know how widespread that feeling is though.

[A Link to the Matt]

But in order for something to jump the shark, there has to be a point when it did. is there a general consensus on that? It can not have just jumped the shark on prinicipal.

[Jon]

If I had to choose something, it would be that Jack is a reclusive shell of a man in the first episode and since then, to being pretty much normal with just a few flashes of being slightly more insane than he used to be.

I honestly don't think it has, though. Each season just needs time to establish its own culture. I thought Season Four had a really strange culture, but the people they introduced (such as Bill and Curtis) ended up having memorable roles. I think this season has some work to do (Nadia has been completely insignificant to this point), but I think they've done a great job with Morris, and surprisingly I'm even starting to like Wayne Palmer a little. His acting has been fairly bad throughout the season, but there have been flashes of great performances in the last hour or two.

What I really want to see is a haggard and injured Wayne Palmer realize what's at stake, wrest control of the government from his Vice President, and start acting like he's David's brother.

[Captain Hot Stuff]

This season would've been perfect to actually focus on Jack getting out of China.

That's exactly what I wanted! 24 hours of Jack breaking out of a labour camp or something and trying to get over the border into Russia, or to a US embassy, or something.

It would have been a refreshing change. There's nothing in the show's title or format that says it HAS to be about terrorists (or even has to be about Jack Bauer). It could go on forever, in all kinds of genres, as long as it changed gradually. Jack's escape from a Chinese prison and his odyssey home would have been a great start.

The original idea for the series was a romantic comedy on the day of a wedding, which is something I'd still like to see done as a spin-off.

[Andy]

Hmm...

Where are the caterers.

I SAID WHERE ARE THE CATERERS!!!

Matthew Perry as the worry-some and pathetic party planner with an uproariously hilarious homosexual accent...Yeah, I could see that working.

Well this was the first season I've watched (and on a whim at that), and strictly based on that point of view, I wouldn't say the show jumped any sharks. If anything I would guess that an assassination of the president would be a kind of jumping the shark moment, but I never saw it obviously, and apparently nobody else thinks so, so I gotta take their word for it.

[Jon]

What I really want to see is a haggard and injured Wayne Palmer realize what's at stake, wrest control of the government from his Vice President, and start acting like he's David's brother.

thx