What a Difference a Day Makes: 24 Little Hours
Published March 20th, 2007 in 24, TelevisionI’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.
Jack’s Day, 7-8pm: You know, it probably was the same way last year, and maybe I’m just too ready to see this show’s flaws. But I swear, the intros to catch people up feel like they’re ten minutes long. I wonder if Jack has noticed that nothing interesting ever happens to him in the first five/ten minutes of an hour. I think that would be a very relaxing feeling. Of course, he probably would have noticed things tend to go to shit at :50, and that’s really no way to live a life:
“Hey, what time is it?”
“3:45…why?”
“No reason…” (looking up in the sky with a slightly worried expression.)
In any case, at the end of Jack’s five minute rest-period, he’s outside the Russian Consulate after being rescued by Ricky Schroeder and a tac-team. Jack’s shoes look a little uncomfortable… maybe that’s because they’re on THE OTHER FOOT NOW! (that joke would have worked a lot better if I was actually able to say it to Jack. Then again, it still wouldn’t be that funny and he’d be able to physically retaliate, so I’m fine with the current setup.)
The field medic thinks Jack might have internal bleeding, due to “floating rib fragments”. Looks to me like he has gas, but perhaps I get periodic floating rib fragments and no one told me that’s what it was. Well, nothing that doesn’t involve the words, “shattered”, “ruptured” or “amputated” is going to keep Jack down, so he wants to get right back on the case. Unfortunately, Ricky Schroeder has other ideas. Ricky: “CTU has the ball, Jack; right now this is out of your hands.” I know we’re supposed to support our law enforcement, but this guy really is an insufferable prick. He certainly wouldn’t be fun at the company get-together. Besides, the statement, “CTU has the ball” is preposterous. Jack should have replied, “Agent Doyle, you and I both know that the only balls CTU has ever had are the two that prevent my legs from touching.”
What a Difference a Day Makes: 24 Little Hours
Published March 14th, 2007 in 24, TelevisionI’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.
Jack’s Day, 6-7 PM: I’ll delve into it more later, but Monday night some co-workers and I went out for dinner and drinks, entertaining some out of town guests. The reason I mention it now is because I wasn’t able to watch 24 in the hilarious company of Roommates Kat and Mary. Instead I watched it at home with Wonder Woman, and any chance that she was going to add funny comments died when she put on headphones so none of the stupidity could get in. So essentially I was by myself, taking notes in between propositioning Wonder Woman via email.
From my notes, one might assume that I was drunk. Like, Bucket O’ Vodka-drunk. My notes ramble, swing wildly from one emotion to another, and are filled with pop culture reference that make no sense, but I’m sure seemed very clever to me at the time. But after I looked at the episode recap online the next morning, I realized that my notes were accurate and that I was sober. I can’t say the same for the eight-year old writing this season.
The first “Wait…am I drunk or did that just happen?” moment came at 6:03 - Rickey Schroeder: CTU agent. First of all, I want to say that Silver Spoon looks like he put his face through the same windshield as Mark Hamil. (What, too soon?) Second of all, let’s take a second to think about this: 24 is a show starring a Lost Boy. Last season we had a Goonie. This season: Silver Spoon. I hope Ralph Macchio is taking a new set of head shots – I want to see a terrorist crane-kicked to death. As interesting as it is to see who the next CTU agent will be, as long as the show’s producers are running up the white flag, I wish they had gone the other route and thought of a way to saddle Jack with a cute toddler for a partner. Hey, speaking of Jack…
What a Difference a Day Makes: 24 Little Hours
Published March 6th, 2007 in 24, TelevisionI’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.
Jack’s Day, 5-6 PM: As you may recall, last week Jack hooked up with President Scrotum-Neck to go question the Russian Consul, who Logan thinks can lead them to the Russian General (Bad Guy 7 of 12 I believe, though I’m too lazy to check) who could then lead them to the terrorists with the nuclear bombs. Given the flimsy nature of this lead, I would think Jack’s sense of urgency might be a tad more palpable, but he just spent the last hour changing into a suit, which makes me wonder if he knows how to tie a tie. Maybe Logan had to help him. I wish I could have seen that.
All I know is that at the top of the hour, when they meet in front of the house to leave, both of them have cleaned up considerably. Nuclear Terrorism, Shmuclear Terrorism – what good is saving the country if you can’t look good while you’re doing it? I just hope they remember to pick up a nice bottle of wine on the way to the consulate.
What a Difference a Day Makes: 24 Little Hours
Published March 1st, 2007 in 24, TelevisionI’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.
Jack’s Day, 4-5 PM: Alright, I’m just going to say it: 24 sucks this year. A year ago you would have never heard me say that, for two reasons.
#1: It didn’t suck.
#2: Jack Bauer had become pseudo-real to me. The show was so compelling that I found myself talking about him like he was a real person, even if he was a half-crazed avatar of destruction and vengeance. (And the United States of America, just in case he ever needed a warrant. (yeah, right!!!)) Sure, the plots were outlandish and placed bizarre importance on Ontario Airport; yes, Jack managed to get around Los Angeles faster than Santa Claus. But damned if I was going to say anything too bad about him; when he and Burke show up at your door, it’s too late to say you’re sorry.
Now, Jack Bauer is a sham. (Full disclosure: I looked behind me before I typed that. Just in case.) Story-wise, you could say it’s a result of Jack’s Chinese prison and all of its affiliated tortures, but I’m not buying it unless that’s where Fox has started to outsource their writing staff.
All he does is run around, point guns at people and yell bad-ass things that only sound bad ass when you back them up. Sure, he chewed some guy’s throat out, but what has he done lately? He was shown up by Jack Bauer: Muslim Edition in episode 2, he quit, he cried, he failed to stop an act of nuclear terrorism, and when he couldn’t kill his brother his Dad had to come in and clean up his mess. He wouldn’t even be where he was if his dad hadn’t unbelievably decided to leave him a cell phone with a magic number to dial.
I understand that for 24 really exciting things to happen, some outlandish things have to go down, but something about this season feels sloppy; it makes even less sense than it usually does. Jack has now happened to come across two cell phones. First he finds one in a 1980 Pontiac then his dad just leaves him one on a roof ledge. This is video game caliber logic. If Jack punches a brick wall, eats the flower that comes flying out of it and starts spitting fireballs, at most I might shrug.
Example: Jack’s Dad kills his own son to prevent CTU finding out his role in losing the nukes. He puts a gun to his grandson’s head…then he just lets Jack live? On top of that, he gives Jack a lead to find the nukes??? Remember, these things happened two “hours” from each other; not only has Grandpa been too busy holding his grandson hostage to really reflect on his actions, but not enough time has passed for me to forget, which is usually the reason I overlook all this nonsense.
Yet here we are at the top of the hour, with Jack on the phone with ex-President Logan, who thinks he knows something. Fine. I’ll accept the premise that this is possible even though it doesn’t jive with anything we’ve seen before from this character, which mostly consisted of two parts bluff, one part bluster, and eight parts loose neck-jowls. This is a man who needed two Secret Service agents to handle his wife. But even if he does know something, it’s a piece of information that might help CTU find the man who might help CTU find the terrorists. A couple more degrees of separation and Jack is gonna be torturing Kevin Bacon.
What a Difference a Day Makes: 24 Little Hours (3 of 3)
Published February 21st, 2007 in 24, TelevisionI’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.
Jack’s Day, 3-4 PM: Okay, home stretch. Now a question: You’ve just been blown up because your ex-girlfriend betrayed you. What do you do?
a) Call up your buddy Will who totally told you that that chick sucked, and you should have burned that bridge a long time ago?
b) Call your buddy Curti- oh….nevermind this option.
c) Order up a tac-squad and climb back on the killing horse.
Pretty much answers itself, doesn’t it? When Jack comes to, the widow and the hunk from IT are running from some bad guys, who have chased them to an alley that does not exist in any parts of West L.A. I know of. What cracks me up is that they’ve run like three blocks and the Widow is huffing and puffing in a full fledged asthma attack. And I’m supposed to believe she had sex with Jack? Please.
What a Difference a Day Makes: 24 Little Hours (2 of 3)
Published February 20th, 2007 in 24, TelevisionI’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.
Jack’s Day, 2-3 PM: Let’s keep it going! After successfully disarming the rotary phone nuke, Jack is heading back to CTU. Perhaps I’m projecting, but given the time of day, I bet Jack could also use CTU’s men’s room to fight some intestinal terrorism. Just because you can deactivate a bomb in front of a ton of dudes and corpses in a room where some guy got his shoulder drilled doesn’t mean it’s easy to drop one there. (Yeah, I know those were two redundant and terrible scatological jokes. I’m fine with that.)
Note: As Jack is driving back to CTU, I come up with several contrived reasons to shout “You gave him something that WORKED???” at my roommates. (See the previous entry.) For instance: “Hey, Mary, could you pass me that bottle opener?” (Mary passes bottle opener; I open bottle.) “Thanks, but…YOU GAVE ME SOMETHING THAT WORKED???” It’s never funny.
What a Difference a Day Makes: 24 Little Hours
Published February 20th, 2007 in 24, TelevisionI’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.
Jack’s Day, 1-2 PM: Jack’s in a chopper, but since they don’t know where the kidnapped CTU tech is, I have to imagine they’re just sort of tooling around. This would be a good time for Jack to see all of the parts of L.A. that aren’t abandoned oil derricks, warehouses and sparsely used freeways. Y’know…the real parts.
What a Difference a Day Makes: 24 Little Hours
Published February 13th, 2007 in 24, TelevisionI’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.
(WARNING: This is one of the longest 24 posts ever. Go grab a cup of coffee.)
Jack’s Day, 12 Noon – 1:00 PM: I know it’s been a while since I posted one of these. In fact, I’m officially late after last night’s episode. Well…what can I say? My mom came to see me a couple weeks ago, and she wasn’t beating around the bush when she said “you look like shit.”
As you may remember, Jack’s starting off the lunch hour in a van on his way to someplace where he and his Dad are going to be killed by men working for Jack’s brother. What I will never be able to articulate is the complete lack of shock on the faces of Jack and his father. It makes me wish I could see what a Bauer family Christmas is like. You know there isn’t so much as a light or stocking hung, a present bought, or a ham ordered until the night of December 23rd. Because all that stuff it takes you and your family a month to do? They do it in 24 HOURS. (Not to mention they cut their own tree down with a nail file.)
(Also, since I spend way too much time on this sort of thing, I spent ten minutes imagining a scene with Mama Bauer tied to a chair in the kitchen, both of her thumbs broken, and Jack standing over her screaming “ARE YOU MY SECRET SANTA? TELL ME!” This made me giggle.)
What a Difference a Day Makes: 24 Little Hours
Published February 2nd, 2007 in 24, TelevisionI’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.
Jack’s Day, 11-12 Noon:
11:06: Jack unbags his little brother, who starts crying. Jack wants to know where Dad is, but Little Brother swears he doesn’t know. More crying. Jack’s about to bag him again on the pretense that he doesn’t believe him, but I think it’s also that Jack is uncomfortable with the sound of men crying. Gasping: fine. Pleading: great. Death rattling: wonderful. But crying gives him the willies.
What a Difference a Day Makes: 24 Little Hours
Published January 29th, 2007 in 24, TelevisionI’m a big fan of 24. Sure, the story is good, but I’m mostly impressed by how much Jack Bauer manages to squeeze into a day. To illustrate, I’m going to compare each hour of Jack’s day to the corresponding hour in my own day.
Jack’s Day, 10 - 11 AM: When the morning gets started we’re not even looking at Jack. We’re watching as President Limp-Dick goes down to the White House bunker, or “coward hole”, whichever term you’d prefer. I’m just saying that wherever Jack is, he’s probably sprinting towards the nuclear bomb blast because it’s the only thing that can give him a tan.