3PM – 6PM

This is an incredibly rushed, ill thought out reveiw/rant of episodes 10, 11 & 12. It had meant to be a review of just 10 & 11, but I wanted to get back on to reviewing proper episode doubles (how they are written and produced), this is my way of doing that.

I’ve been trying to think of another way of saying this, of saying nicer, but really my view of 10 & 11 was that they were real nothing episodes with a couple of good moments, and to make matters worse they were the moments they’d already shown us in the trailer a week before hand.

Even more frustration comes when you look at the bigger picture, which has been crawling along so slowly that it’s basically been moving sideways. The head terrorists have been doing what they do when the writers are playing for time a) they travel b) they look do an evil look when confined to a box c) the monologue to a red shirt about there plans, being careful to make clear why there plan is so brilliant and how soon it will happen. I’m almost certain Gredenko spent most of these three hours stroking his bread.

The Morris subplot has held my attention fairly well, but mainly as an exercise in a subplot and how the writers are trying to differ the plot from other similar previous subplots. It’s almost an amalgamation of every b-plot the show has ever had. But it doesn’t bore me like it should some how, and in trying to figure out why I’m actually interested.

On to Washington. My feelings on this storyline are all over the place, I really don’t know where to start. The assasination attempt at the end of 11 was one of the better moments of the episode, although I spent most of the episode thinking that their plan would never work in real life. In many ways I think it would have been a better move on the writers part to not show us as much of the preparation, and to even keep the method of the attempt a secret until absolutely necessary to add some suspense to the moment.

On the flip side of all this, I’m really annoyed that they killed off Assad. Not just because Alexander Siddig is a great actor, but because it’s almost an admission that they didn’t know what to do with the character and the plot line of a potential lasting peace. The real pursuit of peace was the one storyline I most wanted to see played out, because I thought it had the potential if written well, for this season to do something different, and prove that the show could still break new ground, and not simply cover the same well worn patch. The writers were at the brink, but they didn’t have the guts, so turned back and wrote in a couple more explosions to please the network.

That said, the aftermath of the attempt does have some potential, and if they fully exploit it, I may forgive them.

Another quick note before I move on. anyone else think it was odd that Karen Hayes has been sitting waiting for a plane longer than it took Assad to get from L.A. to D.C.?

The last big thing we’ve got to cover is Logan. He was so great last year that I’m glad to have him back, especially when he sports full beard and gets to do some real character acting (or as close 24 gets these days). I’m not certain that him and Kiefer together works that well, or at least not how it was written in these episodes. I found myself willing to give Logan a chance almost immediately, so Jack being so well ‘Jack’ towards him quite annoyed me, so hopefully those two will not be together forever and Logan can go around being Logan.

Lastly, it was either really stupid or a masterstroke for Jack to break into another consulate, i’m not sure at the moment, i’ve got to see how it plays out, but it was definitely good for some laughs and it could almost be considered the writers putting two fingers up to critics who say they do the same stuff over and over, and saying “we don’t care, just as long as we do it with style, it doesn’t matter.”

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