Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Season 9(?), Live Another Day: 11am-1pm: New Look 


Does it count as Season 9? Is that what we’re up to? But didn’t I hear this is an Event, not a Season? Or is it a series event? Or 12-episode event series? Tent-pole event series? Somehow I never thought of a broadcasting company touting their own series as a tent-pole, seems as if that means they admit to the flops that surround it.

OK, whatever it’s up to, it seems as if it’s up to entertaining me again. No, I don’t get the chills of expectation that other themes provide me, or the soaring vision of others, but the 24 theme has provided me with one small joy. Now that advertisements’ volume have crept back up despite the CALM, after I turn down the volume for the commercials, as I hear the heartbeat theme of the resumption of the show, I turn the volume back up in steps in synch with that heartbeat.

 I started by noticing small things. I noticed the diversity of the first collection of goons—good guys? Bad guys? They’re definitely goons, with serious demeanors, whatever kind of guys they are. Doesn’t matter what kind of guys on this show (OK, they’re all guys, but wait…), as everybody is grey, whether they’re black, white, yellow, brown, bronze, pink, male, female. Such an equal opportunity portrayer of the indiscriminate nature of the human existence. Oh, now that I think about it, everybody but the president and his staff this time around. But maybe that’s the point as 24 has had black, white, male, female presidents of all moral stripes. By now, 24 can have any kind of president, any kind of president’s staff, and we don’t care. It’s achieved true diversity equality, even among its viewers.

Then I start to notice the faces. Maybe it first happened when I see Audrey is back(!). Gotta have some continuity season to season, more than just Jack and Chloe. Audrey, of the brainwashed history—washed about as clean as you can imagine a few Seasons ago (I’ve lost count). Audrey of the daughter of the Secretary of State (I think he was), who’s now president (how did that come to pass? One little backstory I’d like to hear about, though it’ll probably get no more than one sentence of lip service). As I find out she’s back, I see her hubby(?), chief of staff Mark, fasten a necklace around her neck and declare she’s so beautiful no one at the reception will notice anything else that goes on there. Then I see her, and wonder what’s so beautiful about that gaunt and haunted visage? Have I lost all sense of beauty? Then I start noticing no one looks especially good. Every face is pretty really portrayed, with rough edges, blemishes—24 promoting flawed is perfect? Then there Audrey’s pop’s (Pres. Heller’s) teeth that look like this!

Even CIA drama-queen Kate don’t look so hot in close-ups. More of 24 trying to show life how it really is? Trying to show us that the 24 world is extra-gritty? Well, whatever is going on there, Kate is the center of intelligence drama—days numbered, living under a cloud as an analyst ever since her hubby was discovered as a China plant. And her soon-to-be replacement, the black goon (BG), the initial goon of the group, who when given the chance immediately shows he has no brains. Then does it again. Then does it again. Then does it again. Then does it again. Then, … (don’t you do it, too!).

How? He tells his boss Kate is a crappy agent, and OK, we need some of that for the bane of a show like 24—exposition (sorry about that link, but that just proves you can find anything on-line), but then his boss tells him Kate was a better field agent than BG, then BG kisses up to boss by saying he didn’t give Kate the intel that led to catching Jack, then BG again (and maybe even again) says Kate’s crappy, then Kate figures out what Jack’s up to all by herself after overpowering the guard escorting her out for being too smart in front of boss, and BG “lets” Jack escape and rescue Chloe (‘””’ not because BG fakes it but because nobody “lets” Jack do anything—Jack does whatever he wants). All that just so boss can team-up BG and Kate, who give the obligatory eye rolls (awww, Dad).

And I’m starting to think Jack has yet another female reflection on a par with him, I’m thinking Rene, perhaps my favorite, alas now dead, 24 character. Is there hope? Then Jack picks her out of the agents who cornered him in the garage and disarms her even quicker than he disarmed BG. So much for her being close to a match for Jack. She has seemed quite set on Jack as a terrorist bad guy (as has most everyone), so I’m getting set for a season of her thinking she’s a good guy, hunting down Jack. Then Jack tells her that he’s a good guy and that someone is plotting to assassinate the president. And I’m left wondering just how much drama this drama queen (DQ) is good for. Does she now believe Jack’s out for the good just because he said so? Is this her come to Jesus moment? Or does she lump this into everything else she thinks about Jack, particularly how good he is at getting what he wants?

She also makes me think of LBD (I think I first referenced her here) from Season 8, though the drama LBD provided contained apparently more mystery than DQ does this time round.

I watched another Jack recently, Reacher. Cuz o’ mine recommended it, saying something to the effect that “fun movie—Jack has everything under control all the time, you know nothing bad’s gonna happen to him.” What’s with these Jacks? We know Jack’s gonna rescue Chloe. We know he’s gonna escape. We know he’s accurately predicting the future (so very hard to do) when he faces the heroin kingpin in his lair with 2 gunsels having the drop on him, only a gunsel as his shield and one pistol as his armory and he tells kingpin that though kingpin thinks he has the upper hand, kingpin has 2 choices—give up the guy Jack wants or “I assure you, I will hurt you.” Kingpin doesn’t listen, gunsels go down so fast I don’t see how, and along the way Jack picks up a knife just sitting around and cuts kingpin.


And I’m left feeling like Jack is back. 24 is back. Maybe we don’t have Renee (never looking this happy). File:Renee Walker.jpg
Maybe we don’t have LBD. Maybe we don’t have Powers Booth or President Logan (slimeball) or David Palmer. File:David Palmer.jpgMaybe we don’t have Tony. Maybe we don’t have Director Bill (I hope I remember the right character). But we do have a mysterious villain. Who’s a woman. Who’s a mother who uses her daughter as an undercover agent? We do have a president (with bad teeth and a failing memory, though mistaking FDR for Teddy and 3 for 4 doesn’t seem symptomatic of any disease I know—they seem simply common mistakes anyone of any cognitive function could make), we have a pecking order of presidential lackeys already keeping secrets from the president, we have a president who seems not quite sharp but who has Jack’s devotion (from personal loyalty, long-time friendship, definitely not duty to country), we have Jack against the world (even his friends, like Chloe, whom he says is his friend, then he says he has no friends, then she tells him he didn’t have to go all Jack on her and her colleagues—all he had to do was ask because they’re friends), we have some intra-agency intrigue, subplots, mistrust, we have grey, grey, grey everything, we have Chloe pouting, Chloe tattooed, Chloe so goth it must be passé, Chloe pausing tongue-tied, Chloe finally saying just the right thing, Jack pointing out the emptiness of Chloe’s rationales, highlighting that life isn’t black and white even on TV. We equal opportunity for being evil, impossibility for being good, everyone facing another tough day, and me sure only that no one will exit unscathed, no happy endings for anyone with a speaking role. And curious enough to see how these grisly ends come to be.

So, yup, I’m ready to be entertained. And hopeful—hopeful that I can make it through this entire “season,” perhaps happy it’ll break with all other seasons and last only 12 hours. Sphere: Related Content

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