General rant about 24
 

I like 24. I think it's a wonderful drama and Jack Bauer is the best character I've seen in years. If you can get over the fact that you're watching the same story over and over, it works well. Repetetive plot devices aside, there are 2 things about 24 that really get me.

1) Nearly all of the female roles are weak. In the first season, every female was either a traitor, a blind authoritative bitch, or a whining, crying, annoying nag. The trend continues from season to season. I believe the writers don't like women and see them as extra baggage. Only males seem to get the stoic, steadfast and stern dispositions.

2) The technical jargon is so ridiculous, it makes me cringe. I can deal with "custom" user interfaces and live satellite tracking... I'll suspend my knowledge when I see giant globs of data being sorted and displayed intuitively, too. But please, don't talk about the technical proceedures like you grabbed the technical terms out of a hat.

Beyond that, season 6 seems to be a real half-assed directing work. The acting and the set interaction is just atrocious. I need to see more, but from the first 6 hours I've seen, the show has become pure camp.

Oh, I still love it. In my opinion, it's still the best show on TV. Prison Break is a close second, but I digress. I agree with you on the repetitive plot stuff. Though, I am not sure you could call Nina weak. Nor President Palmers' wife. This season isn't as good as last years', and I think the execution of the nuke might have been a little off, but I am not a nuclear expert by ANY stretch.

This might be a little telling, though. I missed BOTH episodes last week, and when I was done with tonights' episode, I didn't feel like I'd missed anything. The first seasons, if you missed one, you missed A LOT.

I'm not going to spoiler it, but stop reading my post here if you're worried about spoilers. Thanks.

Have you seen season 2? Well good, then you've seen season 6. The similarities are way too many for me to really be able to take it with the 24-sized healthy dose of salt I've become accustomed to taking.

With regard to the first point, say what you will, but Nina was a well-written and well-played villain. Girls have NOT been treated well on 24, but she was dynamite until she got overused and removed abruptly in season 3. I've never quite understood or appreciated how capable and good men tend to be in 24 and how either weak or evil and manipulative the women are. I can't come up with a good analytical reason for it, so I pretty much attribute it to simple sexism on the part of the writers. It's one of those things you have to stomach and run with to watch the show.

I guess I feel the same way about point number 2. Apparently, no one wants to look at a real computer interface on TV so they come up with these ridiculously complicated graphics for us. It's a little silly, but that's TV for you.

After 5+ seasons, I'm definitely getting bored. If 24 doesn't get a major shot of adrenaline soon, could be headed off my watch list. No matter how much I love the character of Jack Bauer, the situations he finds himself in are increasingly less interesting to me.

I've only ever seen the first season, and now I'm watching season six simply because Alexander Siddig is in it, and I wouldn't be a good Trekkie if I didn't at least check it out. :lol: That being said, I think both of your points are entirely correct and those issues also annoy me a great deal.

I haven't seen the character of Chloe in the previous seasons, but so far in season six she's spent pretty much all of her screen time with a perpetual pout and it's just unattractive and makes her such a weak character that I don't really care about her at all. Compare that to the nearly messianic Jack Bauer who can do no wrong. Very few characters seem to have any depth at all beyond being either all good or bad, and there does seem to be a disparity between the good men and bad women.

The "techno-babble" and technology are quite cringe-worthy. I can forgive it in shows where they're dealing with technology that doesn't yet exist. But come on, there's no reason to be making things up for a show that deals with current technology. I just don't think the writers really care at all about accuracy in that regard. It seems, as Halx said, that they just pull random technological words that they've heard out of their head and stick them in any order.

I've had a few other main issues with the show this season, mostly regarding security at CTU. First off, how is it that Jack's father just gets a "wander around free" card at CTU (along with some others). He was the only one in the room with Graem when he dies, yet he's not a suspect? Oh I'm sorry, he's Jack's father, therefore also incapable or doing wrong apparently. They hold Graem's body for investigation, yet it seems anyone is able to get access to the body and belongings without a security escort? Did no one at notice an extra syringe was used? Did Buchanen somehow watch the tape of the interrogation, read the report and still not notice that the amount of drugs in Graem's system doesn't match up with what Jack gave him? With what I've seen of CTU so far, I'm not surprised the terrorist's were able to set off a nuke.

You're right, Hal.

I missed it entirely for the first couple seasons so was able to watch the downloads in marathon mode. That was great! Since then I've tried watching weekly, waiting and watching mini marathons, whatever. It doesn't help.

I've struggled through the repetition; repetitive characters, repetitive role-switching, repetitive plots, ad infinitum. The formula worked with better production and when novelty prevailed, but I'm completely bored with the way they trade character development for cheap surprises.

Now it's like taking the garbage to the curb, only longer.

I pretty much ignore the tech silliness. It's nothing new in hollywoodland.

Oh yah.. thanks for reminding me Onodrim. CTU.. worst agency ever. The turnover rate is like 95% and they have no competent security measures at all. Not to mention all the moles.. damn.. like 3 per season it seems.

lol CTU is one of the most dangerous places to be ... it's been bombed... gassed... moled... tons of people have been shot/knifed/syringed in it.

24 is getting boring, they killed off too many of the old characters that they spent multiple years developing and haven't replaced them with new quality characters. I think Michelle Dessler could have been a good field agent and I agree overall they need stronger female characters.

It\'s official. 24 will not return until January 2009.

Thanks writer\'s strike.... ERRR!

I stopped watching it a season or two ago? I don't even know when...

I watched it religiously for the first couple of seasons. Season three was a mess. Kept moving the time slot all over the place because of the NHL playoffs. Haven't watched it since.

Meh, I'm a 24 fan, and I don't mind it being away until '09, especially if that means it will fix the crap-fest that was Season 6.

I haven't seen a single second of a moment of an episode of this show.

It's empty-minded fun!

I wouldn't miss it the first two seasons. The third year began to bore me.

I think if the female leads weren't so weak, he wouldn't get to play hero so well.

Maybe if they have more time to write the next 24, they'll inject some freshness and stronger women.