WENDELL ROBINSON . COM

The following takes place after the airing of each new episode of 24 on FOX…

What an internal battle I had to fight with myself and the TV remote last night! 24 or the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final. In the end I went for the split screen so all was good in my TV land.

What wasn’t good was another 24 action dud (and Ohio State losing, albeit to a better team). Sure it was cool that Gredenko had Fayed cut his arm off, but… did we ever get a really good shot of the arm? The limited volume on the blood and guts register is well… boring. And don’t get started with me about how there’s too much violence on TV, etc. My kid’s not watching this show, so I don’t care. Memo to Joel Surnow: GET ME SOME ACTION. GET ME SOME VIOLENCE. GET ME SOME BLOOD - or don’t expect me to come back next season.

Last night’s 16th hour brings us one union employee’s work day away from the end of the season and I’m looking forward to being finished. Yeah I’m stuck with the show until it’s over, but I keep hoping it will get better. Highlights from Monday’s show included the aforementioned self-determined amputation of Gredenko’s arm, President Palmer’s ability to maintain power after a 25th amendment challenge and the abrupt about face on Palmer’s part by calling for the nuclear strike in the Middle East. More subtle plot setters included Lennox catching Vice President Daniels and his aide Lisa conspiring to perjure their way into the presidency and Doyle’s shenanigans with Milo’s computer.

Some thoughts before we get into this week’s things…

What was the deal with Gredenko giving up Fayed in the bar and then wandering the beach to die from a loss of blood? Did we literally just spend the last 15 hours with these two guys so that the writers could fill 24 hours? I hope for my sake and yours that’s not the case because if it is this could have been a pretty good two hour movie instead of an extended plot tease. I can’t believe that they would make the story’s final eight hours be nothing more than chasing around a disconnected terrorist with two suitcase nukes.

Let me take a slightly preemptive victory lap - I had mentioned in an earlier post that this injury would cause Palmer to make a significant error in judgment. It’s obvious that he’s not in good shape (ie. the two adrenaline shots from the doctor), and I think

Ohhh… probably should just get into my things for this week:

• … as I was saying, I think that Palmer’s nuclear strike will go terribly wrong. After some brinksmanship, they’ll try to recall the missile and a glitch will cause it to detonate and kill some folks in the Middle East. At the same time, he’ll fail physically and there will be a crisis of power at the top.
• Daniels will be co-opted by Lennox because of the tape Lennox has from the VP’s attempt at perjury. Lennox will be able to use this as blackmail and will ultimately be running the show.
• Doyle and Nadia’s reset of Milo’s computer goes back to when Milo let Nadia use his password. Could it be that it was Nadia who let the firewall down and allowed the terrorists access?
• Look for some of the season’s early plot players to resurface. They’ve got to start tying all of the threads together so… I expect we’ll see Phillip Bauer and the Chinese to come back into the fold.

That’s all I’ve got for this week. Hope you stay tuned.

By the way if you’ve got thoughts on what you think will happen, feel free to post them here. Your 3 AM emails are interesting (especially the recurring one that insisted after each show for the first 10 hours that Jack would be dead in the next show… although that may happen soon), but I’d rather you post them so others can read your thoughts.

Thanks!