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#1 2010-01-23 13:36:26

24nut
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From: London
Registered: 2007-04-14
Posts: 376
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8x01 Discussion - 4:00pm - 6:00pm

Opening this ready for tommorows episode when it airs in the uk, everyone looking forward to a new season kicking off?

I know i am!

Last edited by 24nut (2010-01-23 13:37:20)


"Please, as someone who was once your friend, let me die in peace" - Jack Bauer [Season 7]

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#2 2010-01-23 14:37:34

J_A
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From: CTU Zurich
Registered: 2007-03-05
Posts: 1,436
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Re: 8x01 Discussion - 4:00pm - 6:00pm

well, i've seen eps 1 / 2 and I'm going to watch 3 / 4 tonight. i won't give ya any spoilers, I'll just say the 24 formula is firmly built-in, and I haven't exactly been pulled into it (yet?) after 2 eps. there's lots of nice things and the pacing is good, but since i'm not sure what I expected, I don't exactly feel my thoughts are quite ready to be posted yet (also, because when I watched them last night, I was too tired to think).


tony.jpg

"Yeah, I didn't wanna believe Tony Almeida was a terrorist either, but at some point we just have to deal with the facts. Not with what we want to believe is true."

You need to start living in the real world! Because every second you help the government you're spittin' on Teri's grave!

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#3 2010-01-27 00:02:56

Steveb
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Registered: 2007-03-07
Posts: 319

Re: 8x01 Discussion - 4:00pm - 6:00pm

Interesting.

The opening episodes were good certainly, but didn't have the same dramatic punch that last season's premiere did. I think that may be the Tony factor in play, but I also think it maybe a responsive element. After the general debacle that was season six, they had to play one hell of an ace to keep people watching for season seven. And it worked and season seven is generally regarded is being up with the best of it, so this season they could take the foot of the gas a little bit and build things slowly.

I have to say I actually really enjoyed these episodes. Our returning characters have basically found themselves in a world that has left them behind and that makes a great story. The new CTU with it's hi-tech measured approach and unmanned drones flying down 5th avenue is a world away from where we started with Jack tranquilising his boss and terrorists disguising themselves as telephone repairmen, and that's great, instantly we've got a whole host of new people for Jack to fall out with and shout at despite the fact (and I think the writer's may have slipped this in) that he "doesn't want to do this anymore."

I'm guessing that this will actually be a running theme this year, as opposed to previous years when they've started something and then forgotten it by about episode five. I can see this series being very slow, but having a very good pay off- particularly if this is the last season. We're already getting certain conclusions and resolutions, for example Kim telling Jack to fight and thereby finally acknowledging who her Dad is, if even he "doesn't want to do this anymore." Similarly Chloe shouting Jack down and reminding him how much he owes her was great and if for some reason Chloe was killed off two minutes into episode three that scene was a perfect denoument for her character and a fitting end to the tenure of the last CTU stalwart.

But it wouldn't be CTU without a little unnecessary soap opera and it was ably supplied by Starbuck and Sarah Michelle Gellar's husband and their impending wedding, but, and here's a twist, she's got a dark secret. Will Katee Sackhoff get a slightly better payoff than the "she was an angel all along" bollocks that infested the end of Battlestar Galactica? Well, we know she has a hillbilly sister, an ex-con hunting her down and at some point she changed her name to Dana for some reason. So as it stands, no not really. We shall wait and see.

Over at the UN, which felt as if it had been shoe-horned for the convenience of not having to head over the state-line every five minutes, it's nice to see that we have a President who we recognise. By my reckoning that's the only time since season two into three when a President hasn't been ousted between seasons. Technically I suppose Logan was President at the end of season four and still there in season five, but that doesn't really count in my books. Although he began his season as President signing an agreement with a foreign leader as well, so by that logic President Taylor will be in the pay of Jack's previously unheard of sister by episode 15. Currently though, she's entertaining that guy from Slumdog Millionaire and his at present-unnecessary-to-the-story family, including his "oh he's connected to the terrorists is he, well I didn't see that one coming!" brother/ chief of staff. It was all a bit bland wasn't it? I'm au fait enough with the real time concept to know this is the case but I'm hoping the terrorist attack will be something spectacular when it happens as the whole Presidentil stuff needs an adrenalin shot. Also I've got £20 that says the new Chief of Staff has some kind of past/ dark secret and/or hidden agenda that'll come into play before too long.

I suppose my final point must be the bit that the press were talking about incessantly: the fire axe moment. I may have missed something, but the press junkets were ravn about this whole thing and making comparisons to the infamous season two "I'm going toneed a hacksaw" incident. Remember that,? It was back in a time before Jack decided that he "doesn't want to do this anymore." But it was nothing like that, surely, a more shocking use of the fire axe came about three quarters of the way through the season three finale when he cut Chase's hand off? But what do I know. Suffice to say I didn't really see it as the gratuitous moment it was labelled as, I instead saw it as part of a nicely choreographed action sequence that kind of summed up these two episodes: good, but I can't help thinking that they have really got started yet.


"The water is unpalatable, to improve the taste we added Whiskey. By diligent effort I learned to like it." Winston Churchill

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#4 2010-01-29 12:48:06

24nut
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From: London
Registered: 2007-04-14
Posts: 376
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Re: 8x01 Discussion - 4:00pm - 6:00pm

I agree with you about the fire axe moment, after hearing so much about it i guess it didn't live up to expectations, when i watched it i just thought, cool, he took out 2 guys with an Axe, awesome. But it was not the biggest use of an Axe in the series tongue

Well in preparation for the next 2 episodes being shown on sunday, im going to watch these episodes again, i think i need to analyze these first 2 episodes again before making an in depth comment about them.


"Please, as someone who was once your friend, let me die in peace" - Jack Bauer [Season 7]

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#5 2010-01-29 23:28:58

hardy24
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Re: 8x01 Discussion - 4:00pm - 6:00pm

Just finished watching episode 2 now. Don't want to go into too much detail right now since it's late, but even giving allowances for the manner in which I saw the two episodes (over two nights with each episode interrupted midway for stupid Sky Player to buffer the second half), it really hasn't grabbed me. There is definitely a spark of life there, but that just makes the bad bits harder to take.

The Good
- Jack in the first episode
- Acevada (informant) I thought showed some promise, and should have lasted longer.
- Buffy Husband has done remarkably well with the very little he's been given.
- Starbuck in parts.
- The futuristic CTU is an interesting idea, but they need to establish some rules fast about exactly how advanced they've gotten, or it will get old fast, if almost everything is solved quickly.
- President Hassan
- New York, what we've seen of it.

The Bad, everything else, but specifically...
- The central plot, wow, really not strong.
- Just generally I'm getting pulled out of the plot every 2 minutes because I see something and i'm thinking, "how dumb is that?", examples, so Both Presidents had a press conference in the middle of negotiations to announce they were negotiating, which the media already knew, and what they where discussing, which the media already knew, and that they where making progress, which the media already knew. The negotiations have no reality to them, they have no detail to them, hence I have no investment in them, so really nothing at stake then.
- While a futuristic CTU is a nice idea, it still has to look like a place of work. Not a nightclub. In reality I should barely notice what it looks like, I should be more concerned with what the characters are saying. So making a huge deal about how space-age and different the interrogation room looks is a MEGA FAIL.
- I could go on for a while, but lastly, how does a guy get to being CTU Director without having an ounce of investigative logic in him?, So this reporter has security files on her computer she shouldn't have. She denies downloading them. He might trying asking her, "Okay, what where you doing at the time the files where being downloaded?" Buffy Husband needs to send him packing and take over.

Generally not impressed so far, certainly not by episode 2, episode 1 had more of the good bits. If 3 & 4 don't pick up, everyone really is running out of time.


put your hands in your pockets looked away : andsmiled.com : blog

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#6 2010-01-31 20:15:59

Steveb
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Registered: 2007-03-07
Posts: 319

Re: 8x01 Discussion - 4:00pm - 6:00pm

I think the whole negotiations element is something of a MacGuffin to give the Presidents a reason to be where they are. Which as I think I said earlier seems wholly unnecessary. Although I wonder if they're trying to avoid the season six effect of having central storylines that can't interact due to distance. I do think that while the negotiations are a bit watery, one thing they have done is create a believable and three-dimensional middle eastern President. The casting helps certainly, as Anil Kapoor is fantastic, but he's very well drawn and has been given flaws that are human.

As for CTU, it doesn't feel like CTU but that's not necessarily a bad thing- although it begs the question of why you'd bother calling it CTU, when the FBI served so well last year. It's obviously a pay-off for last season's "The FBI can't do this so let's bring the defunct agency that somehow solved everything and never had issues with staff getting annual pay rises back into existence." I found the whole interrogation a bit redundant, as it didn't achieve anything. It might, should they bother tomake use of the fact that they've incorrectly detained a journalist with whom the middle eastern president is sleeping with, but who knows.

I hope that the seeming lack of central plot is due to them building up slowly. It sort of harks back to season one when the story wasn't really going that fast until about episode 5 when it had it's first major twist. The difference here is that the originality factor is no longer there and as such sloppiness can't be ignored.


"The water is unpalatable, to improve the taste we added Whiskey. By diligent effort I learned to like it." Winston Churchill

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#7 2010-01-31 22:47:37

J_A
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From: CTU Zurich
Registered: 2007-03-05
Posts: 1,436
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Re: 8x01 Discussion - 4:00pm - 6:00pm

Steveb wrote:

The difference here is that the originality factor is no longer there and as such sloppiness can't be ignored.

indeed. if there's anything to be learned from s7 is that while you CAN go back to Season 1's quality of sorts, you can never achieve the originality it had back all those years ago. but really, I don't think they claim originality anymore. they're rehashing old storylines and just mixing up the elements anew. it can work as long as the characters are interesting, and carefully worked with. but the moment that fails, all the repetitiveness will come back to bite them in the arses. so they'd better tread carefully.


tony.jpg

"Yeah, I didn't wanna believe Tony Almeida was a terrorist either, but at some point we just have to deal with the facts. Not with what we want to believe is true."

You need to start living in the real world! Because every second you help the government you're spittin' on Teri's grave!

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