24; Day 6: 3AM - 4AM
The following takes place after the airing of each new episode of 24 on FOX…
The first 15 minutes were entertaining last night, which is an improvement from last week’s yawner, but I’m looking forward to next week’s two-hour finale simply because it’ll be over (at least for this season). Last night’s 22nd hour did more to preface an anti-climactic ending than anything else. A major arch-villain has yet to expose themselves (and if it’s Phillip Bauer that’s really poor), Jack has been less and less human as each episode passes and I become more and more amazed by the stupid pratfalls that allow bad guys to get away and conjure up even dumber future scenarios. Other than that… well let me put it his way, I was TIVOing both 24 and the Cavs-Nets game last night (going back and forth between the two) and while I’m not a basketball fan I was more interested in what LeBron and company were up to than Jack and his pals at CTU.
Sure we may be going to war with the Russians (but even the premise for that is sssoooooo weak that it’s almost laughable: a piece of Russian technology for a bomb trigger is the delicate key that keeps keeps global strife at bey - pleazzzze), the defacto leader of our country is a gung-ho bipolar romantic, another 
nosey bureaucrat is mucking up the workings at CTU, and the country that Jack Bauer continues to faithfully serve is screwing him once again (haven’t we gone down this road before… like maybe 5 times?). Let’s hope they kill poor old Jack off next week (this time for real), at least then we’ll have some sanity from the writers.
Having said all of that, next week’s two-hour finale should be a humdinger. There are so many plot threads and questions that they have left dangling, it will require a herculean effort to weave them all back together again. I hope the writers haven’t put all of them out there simply to provide perfunctory static, but given the way the plot has evolved , it wouldn’t surprise me.
Okay, here are my things for this week:
- CTU will deliver Josh to Phillip Bauer, but during the process, the Chinese will interrupt the operation and regain the component.
- Phillip will be able to get away with Josh (that’s the plot line for next year… Jack will scour the world to find Josh because)…
- Marilyn will reveal to him that (as I said months ago) Josh is his son.
- Some way, some how we will avoid a war with the Russians, but there will be a cost… perhaps surrendering a top US official to the Russians as collateral (like Tom Lennox?… who we’ll find out has been a Russian spy all along… and is the real bad guy this year!).
That’s all I’ve got. Tune in next week as I recap the season.
