24, Season 6 and me
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- July
- 27
The other day I wrote a post about my befuddlement with Kiefer’s pride in Season 6. I was, of course, somewhat joking when I said I couldn’t understand how he would be proud of it and called it a crapapalooza.
Honestly, the main reason I used that word (not the first time), is because it makes me giggle. Yes, that is extremely immature, but everyone has their moments when they act as if they’re in kindergarten again.
As Adam pointed out yesterday, 24 is still better than most drek on television. I opined as such throughout the season, saying a bad hour of 24 is still better than a good half-hour of, say, According to Jim.
That doesn’t stop me from wanting better from it.
The first four hours of Season 6 were OUTstanding. The nearly final scene between Heller and Jack, so well written and acted. The fight scene between Jack and Fayed (hell, that whole episode was the best since the premiere); Chloe drops a D-Bomb; Nadia and Jack taking out the terrorists; Papa Bauer killing Graem.
As I pointed out a couple of times in Season 6, 24 has jumped the shark every single season. Jack Bauer likes to jump the shark. He likes to tease sharks before he rips them apart with his bare hands. What’s the fun of a season without jumping the shark?
But still, Season 6 was the weakest season yet. And I feel that more strongly now since reading this interview with showrunner Howard Gordon in iF magazine.
Is it possible for the executive producer and creator of a show to be so wrong about the characters on his own show? To wit:
• He tells iF that he doesn’t think President Logan is dead. OK, here’s what’s wrong with that—first off, shouldn’t Gordon know? Second, it seemed one of the least ambiguous deaths on the show this season (after Fayed’s, of course).
• He tells iF that Papa Bauer is dead. Most of us who watched the show were pretty much in agreement that Phillip Bauer managed to get on that boat just before the rig exploded and ride away. They didn’t even show him die! In fact, in response to the next question, about Wayne Palmer and whether he’s dead, in a coma or otherwise, Gordon even points out, “24 is such a weird world, unless you see them go down, they’re not out.”
• He doesn’t know who Josh Bauer’s father is, but Jack was a prime suspect.
We all thought he was his son, then even last year we had a moment where we said it’s actually Phillip Bauer’s kid, which was so twisted. We had a draft where that was addressed and we wound up dropping it.
So who is Josh’s daddy?
Otherwise, Gordon spilled this:
• Season 7 picks up 3 years later. (For those keeping track, that means it’s actually 2015, though it’s never played that way. “Time has a very metaphorical quality on 24,” Gordon opines.)
• President Allison Taylor has no history with Jack and only really learns of him for the first time this season.
• The show will either be primarily in New York or almost all Washington, D.C. (they’re leaning toward D.C.). (Though it’ll still be shot in Los Angeles.)
• No more Marilyn Bauer (thank goodness! bring back Kate Warner!).
• Definitely no more CTU; Jack’s a “freelancer.”
• The set that was CTU will “probably become the Washington bureau of the F.B.I.”
• If the show had taken place in Africa, Jack would have been working on a Habitat for Humanity-type project. He would then have gotten caught up in a coup and have a “Black Hawk Down”-type moment.
• If the show had taken place in Africa, it would have broken the 24-episodes-being-24-hours model, jumping forward a few hours at two points.
I think Season 7 is shaping up just fine.
This entry was posted
on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 12:18 pm by Amy Vernon.
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ummm, Definitely no more CTU??? What, what about Chloe. Jack or her go, I'm gone.
Definitely no more CTU.
Chloe is signed on for the season. Only Bauer, Chloe and the new prez have been announced as the cast.
Damn, well then I'll have to watch it. (Yeah right, like I could NOT watch the next season of 24!) I just can't imagine a 24 without Jack or Chloe.
I really like the way Buchanan has come around also. I did not like him when he first started, whatever season that was…
Thanks for the response…
No problem, and I hear ya… Chloe really has become an integral part of the show. Killing her off would be as devastating as (maybe more than?) killing off Tony was.
Bill was pretty great this past season. I like how 24 is able to take people who start out totally unlikable and have their full character unfold over time, becoming heroic sometimes, even – Tony, George Mason, Bill are all examples. And Chloe was almost completely unlikable at first, but now is the best thing next to Jack about the show.
Did you just knock According To Jim?
Good!
I most certainly did, Adam. And I've never even seen more than 5 minutes of an episode (and that was only b/c in flipping past, I discovered I went to college with one of the co-stars (not that we were buddies, but her college boyfriend was someone I'd known for many years). Then the commercial came and broke me out of my reverie and I kept on flipping, never to return.