24
Fox
Tuesday, 9 p.m / 8 p.m. CST
Fox's "24" is an action-espionage drama that unfolds in real time — meaning that the hour it takes you to watch it corresponds to an hour in the lives of the characters. Correspondingly, Flak will be providing a
written-in-real- time-alongside-the- show review of "24" each week for the
duration of the series or until the gimmick of the review becomes tiresome.
Episode 13: 12 p.m. – 1 p.m.
If the Fox promo-voice guy says "It's payback time," it must be payback time.
The recap they're showing this week is really long and comprehensive. It has the negative effect of prepping you for what's going to happen in the episode — for instance, bringing up Jamey's suicide is a head's-up that the issue will be dealing with that. But all told, these recaps have been invaluable in the sense that you really could start watching from any episode and "get it."
Did you know Kiefer Sutherland's real name is Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland?
The Gaines/"Alan" relationship is pretty good for TV bad guys. Both are well-acted (Michael Massee and Richard Burgi), and both give off a totally sinister vibe that works because we're seen them pretty fully humanized — "Alan" by pretending to be a father with a kidnapped daughter, Gaines by being undercut by his superior. You might recognize Massee as one of the goth thugs in The Crow or as cult leader Afesian in an "X-Files" episode about past lives and, well, cults. Burgi is from, well, a bunch of TV shows. "The Sentinel?" "The District?" Does anybody watch those?
In my first "24" piece, I praised Under Suspicion, by (the usual) "24" director Stephen Hopkins, as a pretty interesting movie about marriage framed as something else. There are two interesting marriages at the heart of "24" — Jack and Teri Bauer, and David and Sherry Palmer. Jack and Teri's story had fractures in place at first, but those have basically been smoothed over by the sudden trauma of their daughter's kidnapping — in the final analysis, not all that interesting yet, although Teri's insistence on concealing her rape as well as whatever internal injury she's suffering is, of course, all a time bomb. But David and Sherry have basically fought for 12 hours about Sherry's decision to conceal their son's potential involvement in a murder (or involvement in a potential murder). David wants to adhere to the very straightest and most narrow while Sherry has clung to a pragmatic, anything-for-my-children/ anything-for-your-career approach … and since David's career is potentially headed straight to the Presidency, that's been a hard sell. "How can I do the job when my own house isn't even in order?" — that was the line David just gave to Sherry. Good stuff. All in all, it almost — and I mean almost — makes me curious about Hopkins' Lost in Space, because that's obviously family-centric. And it was written by the Oscar-nominated screenwriter Akiva Goldsman. (Pause for laughter.)
The show has continued to use …
Wow. That little bit of bullet-riddled ultraviolence was out of nowhere enough to be a shock. And yet, it's not really a cheat to have Jack there at just the right moment to save his wife and daughter, because the women have effectively evaded the gunman. That story knot — problem, resolution — was dealt with. The reappearance of the gunman is a half-contrivance, but when you combine it with the half-contrivance of Jack appearing just in time to fell him, the halves negate — the scene works — instead of adding up to a whole contrivance.
The show has continued to use …
Ooh, those SBC Ameritech ads burn me up. "Why risk it? Stick with the one you know" (in reference to switching phone companies). It's so easily rephrased: "We don't have any particularly worthwhile products or services to offer or advertise, so just settle into the inertia." Remember the terrible, much-mocked ad campaign in Wag the Dog? "Why change horses in midstream?" Oorgh. How can they spend so much money on marketing and end up with such stupidity?
The show has continued …
I love David's Boy-Scoutness, played against the journalist who has succumbed to threats and the intimidation of her source's murder. He gives her the story of her career, but she's been too cowed to follow up on it. David's rectitude is almost reaching Jefferson Smith proportions, although I still have trouble with the idea of the show playing his wholesomeness against the weakness of a fallen journalist. Not to overly romanticize journalists — well, OK, that's exactly what I'm doing — but it's just a lot for me to believe that a young journalist with her obvious connections doesn't have the sticktuitiveness to seek refuge or other recourse.
Interestingly, the split screen doesn't work that well for the action sequences. Action or suspense sequences are frequently based on cross-cutting — here's what the hero is doing, here's what who- or whatever is opposing the hero is doing. But part of why it works is that while you're watching the hero, you don't know what the villain is doing; while you're watching the villain, you don't know what the hero is doing. Ta-da, suspense. But if you always know what both the hero and villain are doing, that's so much flavor that it's blanching.
And so David stands at the door of compromise — it's revealed his son will be implicated in the source's murder. … And he steps through. Blammo. A really nice, extra-thoughtful sequence. Every fall-of-a-good-man story begins with a small kernel of compromise (Treasure of the Sierra Madre and its 1998 redux A Simple Plan are two of the best), and I'm not saying that David could have been expected to do anything else; the story pushed him into an impossible situation. But I don't think things are going to get any better for David now that he's made his choice.
I can't belive they're advocating the "24" website, because I haven't been able to get onto the site the last few times I've tried. Why do I try — is it to keep up with the latest "24" news? No, it's because I need graphics for these stories, and even when I can get onto their site, I can barely find a useable image. (I've already resorted to using the digital-readout, visually uninteresting "24" logo.) I'm going to start using funny-looking pictures of Kiefer Sutherland if Fox doesn't start releasing more press photos. First up: Dark City.
What is Rick thinking, leaving his refuge? I've been able to buy Kimberly's not-quite-affection for him, but this action is really strange.
Oh, and by the way, on the earlier question of contrivances — Jack finding the reflector was a contrivance, writ extra large.
The show has continued to use the gimmick of …
I'm sorry, I'm captivated by the cat-and-mouse repartee of Jack and Gaines. … And now it's over, and Gaines is dead. A pretty ignoble death, even from a dramatic standpoint. It happened too fast, and it didn't help that Fox gave it away with their coming attractions spot. Great googily moogily.
"Eleven more hours?" my wife asks in the wake of this seeming climax. Indeed. On one hand, there's plenty left; we can transfer our anti-allegiance to Gaines' superiors easily enough, and there's also this new hitman from Belgrade about whom Nina just informed Angela (and what a terrible entrance they gave him — oh no, not a young man with long hair and sunglasses!). On the other hand, will there be too much of a schism between hours 1-13 and the successive hours? Place your bets.
All I had been trying to say earlier was that the show has continued to use the gimmick of making explicit reference to the passage of time, and use it well. This will happen in 10 minutes; that will happen in an hour. That's only effective in real-time narratives, but how effective it is.
And I got the TV off just in time to miss the coming attractions.
— Sean Weitner (sean@flakmag.com)
