Monday, February 12, 2007

Huh. I didn't see that coming.

In the ultimate TV coup, Sky are now showing both 24 and Lost on Sunday evenings. Last night was the first such showing, and I was of the opinion that they had them in the wrong order: Lost should be the warm-up act followed by the marvellous 24.

Little did I realise that 24 would pretty much suck, while Lost was really really good.

The problem with 24 this week was that they telegraphed all the plot twists. I saw every one of them coming a mile off, and that's not a good thing.

The problem with 24 generally this season is threefold:

1) The real-time format is gone in all but name. This is a huge mistake - there was a lot of tension in the first season that came from characters getting stuck in traffic at vital times... which you don't get when Jack can drive across LA in fifteen minutes.

2) Before the season started, Jack spent many months in jail being tortured for information. Immediately before the first episode, he was on a plane from China to LA. I don't care how mentally tough you are, you can't go from that to being a superhero. It was bad enough in the first couple of seasons, when Jack neither ate nor visited the bathroom (and barely slept); here it's just ridiculous.

3) I'm getting really sick of Jack's refrain "don't make me do this." Torturing suspects is wrong, regardless of the circumstances. It might occasionally be necessary, but not with the regularity with which Jack uses it. It's about time someone stepped up and said to Jack that he's now so far off the rails that he can't even see the track now.

In completely unrelated news: never visit Friends Reunited. It will always appear that everyone you know is doing much better than you are, no matter who you are. This may well be because the people who aren't don't post there, but that's small consolation.

4 comments:

Amy said...

Ooh, I loved 24 but your info has really put me off now so I am not going to go out of my way to watch it. Not that I was going to go out of my way to watch it but I perhaps won't go out of my way to think about watching it...
Anyway, how can they lose the real-time idea?! Craziness!
I have to say though, signs that Jack was just going to be a mean, rule-stretching torturer have been there a while, haven't they?

Julietbec said...

Huh?

Chris said...

It is a television series dear. The first and second series of which were quite good.

Lost I don't know about. I never really fancied it, even though it starred a hobbit.

I'm more of a Dancing on Ice man.

Amy said...

How can Juliet not know about 24?! I only know about it from Rob, through whom I met you... you see the thought process going on in my head? "Rob-Chris&Juliet-cake-24..." I can't separate them!