Monthly Archives: May 2010

Series Eight, The Movie, The Show, The Site

Looking Back & Looking Forward

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Hi everybody, just a real quick update. I’m so glad to see so many comments on J_A’s Finale Review and so many votes in the “Rate Episodes 23 & 24” poll.

I wanted to let you know that I hadn’t dropped out the picture. I will be posting my thoughts on the final hours of Series Eight just as soon as I’ve seen them, (i’ve got the last four episodes to watch) and while the urge to simply rush through them is very great, knowing that these are the final 4 hours I’m resisting that temptation and will wait to watch them when I can really savour them.

Looking forward, I also wanted to let people know that we’ll continue to cover 24 whatever form it now takes. Hopefully this will be a Movie in the not too distant future, or it may be that the Movie doesn’t happen straight away and we’ll have to amuse ourselves in the meantime with a look back at the show over the years.

The clock never stops.

Howard Gordon, Series Eight, The Show

The Clock Has Stopped. A Finale Review.

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I never thought that I would find myself crying once those final seconds of 24 ticked away. And yet, here I am, sitting on my computer chair with my left leg pulled up to my stomach and my right curled under my butt, the show as I’ve known it is over, and tears are rolling down my face…

How did this happen? Wasn’t I one of the advocates of the “It should have ended years ago” and “It’s time to stop the clock”-credos? Didn’t I firmly believe myself past my 24 addiction?

And why exactly am I crying?

There’s no easy answer to that. The simplest and most detached explanation would be “because Howard Gordon wrote a damn good script and the actors did a damn good job of acting it”. But that reply doesn’t tell you why it has made me cry. I can try to dissect things a little. I know that I’m sad over “24” ending, despite everything, because it has been a part of my life and the best thing on TV for the last 9 years. I’m sad because back in 2001, when “24” first happened, I felt like I’d been searching for that very TV show to come along for more than two decades of my life; never before had a TV show so completely and thoroughly consumed me, engaged me, made me wonder, fear, tremble with anticipation and want more like a junkie in desperate need of his next shot. Never before had a show (re-)awakened the writer in me and inspired me to write hundreds of pages of fanfiction, pushed me to create my own storylines, fill in the blanks for existing characters, spin the thread further, create my own world beyond the show. But most of all, it was so bloody entertaining to watch.

Continue reading The Clock Has Stopped. A Finale Review. →

The Show

Episode 22 – With Bauer or against him?

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Wow, this was such a good ep I had to watch it three times in a row. I’m really enjoying the final eps of 24 and I keep wondering how this will really end. Who Jack is going after next is no big secret, and what he’s done so far has been so genuinely Bauer that it made your skin crawl. The interrogation of the Russian sniper was an instant revival of the Ronnie Stark interrogation of Jack in season 2 – you could say Jack has learned from the best. Except he’d taken it up a notch, and eviscerated the guy to dig out a sim card… Dude. If that wasn’t cool.

I feel no sadness about the demise of the sniper dude, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to stay on Bauer’s side and see him as a real good guy. I get the whole, “You killed Renee, so I’m gonna kill you” attitude, but with some of the things he’s done in this ep he crossed the line, and like his pal said, “This path you’re on, there ain’t no coming back from it.”

Of course, Jack wasn’t planning on coming back. He’s a man with a mission, a suicide mission, and wants only revenge. And so it makes you wonder, is Logan’s faithful underling all that wrong when he says the simple truth is that Bauer has lost it? I’m not sure how much I can support his eye-for-an-eye attitude at this point. As entertainment, what he’s doing is fun and finally gets me sort of excited. It’s great to watch. But when you think about it, what he’s doing  – going after Logan while shooting at Secret Service agents (although he “shot to wound”, not to kill) just gives you that bitter taste in your mouth where you ask yourself, where does the good end and the evil begin? And that’s regardless of what kind of a bastard that guy is, and how much he does deserve to die.

But this is just 24 doing what it’s’ been doing when it was at its best: making you think, making you wonder. How far would you be willing to go? How far can or should Bauer go?

If you’ve seen the ep, you’ve probably answered the questions yourself. Are you having trouble supporting Bauer’s doings?

I won’t go into the details of the ep, but there is one really good synopsis & review of it on TheJackSack. It’s a bit longish, but well written, and with a great sarcastic undertone. There’s really not much to add to it. Go and read, and chuckle.