My 24 rant will be delayed
Due to circumstances not entirely out of my control, I didn't get last night's 24 episode taped. So, I poked around and downloaded it with BitTorrent. It's in XSVCD format, so I have to figure out how to view it on my computer. Windows Media Player didn't want to play, apparently it didn't think it had a codec for it. (If anyone knows exactly what I should do, let me know. I have PowerDVD, but it doesn't have a way to look at files on my hard drive. It only wants to look at the dvd drive.)
So, guest critic Paul Foth did get his done, and I'll post that here, and then included it again in the usual post, which hopefully I can get done tonight.
****
OPTIONAL OPENING PARAGRAPH IN CASE YOU DON'T MANAGE TO SEE THE EPISODE:
Our regularly scheduled primary, Jeff Kouba, has been incapacitated by nerve
gas--or maybe it was his boss yelling at him with garlic and onion sandwich
breath. It remains for me, the second stringer, to put my hood up, dash
across a room filled with that heady aroma, send this rant, and make it back
to the safety of the broom closet, all without laughing (or screaming) out
loud.
Who was that talking on the CTU PA system at the beginning of the episode?
We saw all of the survivors, and none of them had this guy's voice. We can't
be expected to believe it was a recording, can we? We got a complete rundown
of the situation, including which rooms were safe (and already sealed, so
the knowledge wouldn't have done anyone on the outside any good) and the
name of the nerve gas, which has changed YET AGAIN. It's now Sentox VX-1.
Where did that 1 come from?! Let me use the title of Lemony Snicket's first
book about the Baudelaire children and call this a Bad Beginning. Now,
moving on to more Unfortunate Events:
Barry, don't be a hero, don't be a fool in this strife. (Sorry; I've seen
that TimeLife infommercial starring Greg Brady hawking the 70s CD collection
a few too many times.) But does he listen? No. He gets points for breaking
Chloe out of her Post Edgar Stress Disorder just enough to get her away from
the window and back to the conference room table, but then he turns right
back into a speedbump. I loved--absolutely loved--Chloe's, "All right, okay.
I'll get back to work," line as Jack is throttling Barry. It was certainly
the (probably intentionally) funniest moment the series has ever had.
But.
Almost as soon as Chloe gets back to work, she discovers that the seals on
the doors have lost 80% of their integrity. This is, what, ten or fifteen
minutes after the cannister started spewing, right? It takes another ten or
fifteen minutes for the deterioration to go up to 86%. Okay, fine, the
writers are trying to give us an implicit lesson on exponential decay, but I
think they're doing it in the wrong direction. The rate at which the seals
are being eaten by the walruses--I mean, the magical corrosive agent (more
on this in a paragraph or two)--isn't going to slow down with time. If
anything, it's going to speed up. At the very least, this was a missed
opportunity at creating more realistic dramatic tension.
Maybe, just maybe, the deterioration slowing down can be explained by the
build up of--I don't know what to call it, seal slag? blubber?--on the
surface, so that the corrosive agent (I don't mean Chloe) has a harder time
getting at the part of the seal that remains intact. But we see zero
evidence of this. No smoke, no bubbling seal material, nothing. This is one
amazing corrosive. It makes a door seal completely disappear--100%
conversion of mass into energy, apparently. Of course, were that really the
case, CTU and a sizeable chunk of Los Angeles would've been destroyed in the
resulting fission explosion. (Wow, two (bad) physics lessons in two
paragraphs.)
But what makes this corrosive agent even more amazing is that it apparently
attacks the door seals, and only the door seals. Why don't we see skin
sloughing off the bodies of all those dead CTU personnel? Why aren't their
eyes leaking? Gross, yes, but if this stuff can tear through door seals like
Sherman on his way to the sea, it's going to be slowed down even less by
human tissue.
Which all goes to say that yet again we're presented with a crisis that,
while it may have been played in an emotionally true way, is completely
undercut by the utter hash it makes of physical plausibility.
And what was the deal with Jack putting his hood on while engaging in his
running about, knees bent behavior? Was he trying to keep the corrosive
agent from attacking his hair? Shouldn't he have tried protecting his face?
Or did he know his skin wouldn't be eaten? Is Jack a mole? Or just the
victim of poor writing?
Moving on, or at least over, are we supposed to feel sad about Samwise
taking a premature trip to the Grey Havens? He confesses his culpability in
the attack by telling the red shirt he's with about his key card being
stolen, but since he hasn't done much beyond getting really, really
paranoid, he doesn't exactly win any sympathy from the audience. And Red
Shirt, being a member of the crack CTU Security Squad, never asks, "If your
bleepity-bleepin' card got blankity-blippin' stolen, how the flippin'-bleep
did you get back in the building? What are you, a flippity-blankin' mole?"
When Samwise leaves the room, what evidence is there that it's actually
sealed? There's no sound of a pressure differential equalizing, no brush of
the seal against the floor, no retraction of the seal between the door and
the jamb. The door practically RATTLES, for crying out loud. Did Samwise and
Red Shirt manage to stay alive simply because they BELIEVED the room was
safe? That's some powerful mojo CTU's got going there.
So Samwise saves the day and makes it back to the room where he started,
apparently so he can die his gurggly death in front of the security camera.
We are left with the conclusion that the only purpose he served in this
entire season was to facilitate the nerve gas being released inside CTU HQ,
which plot point, as was pointed out with much vigor last week, was written
so shoddily that any emotional investment we may have had fizzles in much
the same way Edgar's face should have.
But wait: we get a bonus death! Tony buys the farm, too. I predicted that
would happen, although not in the way it ultimately did (I'm available for
parties and bar mitzvahs.). It's sad to see him go, but the real tragedy is
that he didn't go out a hero. It would've tracked better emotionally had the
writers found some way to switch Tony and Samwise's deaths (and the more I
think about this possibility, the more I'm convinced it would have been a
better way to go). They could still have worked in Jack talking to Tony
about the similarity between the current situation and Teri's death in
season one. Plus, I'm not quite remembering: how did Tony make the
connection between Buckeroo and Michelle's death? Did someone tell him
that's why Buckeroo was being tortured? Did he just pull it out of the air
(although I can't belive THAT happening on THIS show)?
Buckeroo is apparently the Marwan of this season (or maybe he's sharing
Marwan duties with the gas cannisters), since after killing Tony he
completely disappears. Maybe he's hiding in the razor blade disposal room,
where Maya found her suicide instrument last season, but my guess is that
the next time we see him, he'll be dashing across the CTU parking lot,
looking for a car to steal, with no explanation of how he got out of
Medical.
The IDEA of this episode was a good one--pretty much all of the action was
confined to CTU HQ, with only brief glances at the terrorists and White
House West--but, yet again, the execution left me feeling cheated.
It looks like next week we can look forward to Helen Mirren taking over CTU.
I speculated last week that the highly-placed mole Sergeant Bierko alluded
to may be Vice President BOB, but now I'm thinking it might be this woman.
BOB now seems to be motivated by a personal desire for power, while this
crew from Homeland Security seems downright creepy. Of course, the way these
things were portrayed was awfully obvious, so maybe we're being set up for a
surprise.
To end things on an up note, Chloe had some great lines in this one. I
already mentioned the way she told everyone she would get back to work.
Another favorite was during her talk with Kim, which again demonstrated that
the show does have some pretty talented actors. Chloe's offer to find out
where Chase is was sincere, earnest, and very funny.
So, guest critic Paul Foth did get his done, and I'll post that here, and then included it again in the usual post, which hopefully I can get done tonight.
****
OPTIONAL OPENING PARAGRAPH IN CASE YOU DON'T MANAGE TO SEE THE EPISODE:
Our regularly scheduled primary, Jeff Kouba, has been incapacitated by nerve
gas--or maybe it was his boss yelling at him with garlic and onion sandwich
breath. It remains for me, the second stringer, to put my hood up, dash
across a room filled with that heady aroma, send this rant, and make it back
to the safety of the broom closet, all without laughing (or screaming) out
loud.
Who was that talking on the CTU PA system at the beginning of the episode?
We saw all of the survivors, and none of them had this guy's voice. We can't
be expected to believe it was a recording, can we? We got a complete rundown
of the situation, including which rooms were safe (and already sealed, so
the knowledge wouldn't have done anyone on the outside any good) and the
name of the nerve gas, which has changed YET AGAIN. It's now Sentox VX-1.
Where did that 1 come from?! Let me use the title of Lemony Snicket's first
book about the Baudelaire children and call this a Bad Beginning. Now,
moving on to more Unfortunate Events:
Barry, don't be a hero, don't be a fool in this strife. (Sorry; I've seen
that TimeLife infommercial starring Greg Brady hawking the 70s CD collection
a few too many times.) But does he listen? No. He gets points for breaking
Chloe out of her Post Edgar Stress Disorder just enough to get her away from
the window and back to the conference room table, but then he turns right
back into a speedbump. I loved--absolutely loved--Chloe's, "All right, okay.
I'll get back to work," line as Jack is throttling Barry. It was certainly
the (probably intentionally) funniest moment the series has ever had.
But.
Almost as soon as Chloe gets back to work, she discovers that the seals on
the doors have lost 80% of their integrity. This is, what, ten or fifteen
minutes after the cannister started spewing, right? It takes another ten or
fifteen minutes for the deterioration to go up to 86%. Okay, fine, the
writers are trying to give us an implicit lesson on exponential decay, but I
think they're doing it in the wrong direction. The rate at which the seals
are being eaten by the walruses--I mean, the magical corrosive agent (more
on this in a paragraph or two)--isn't going to slow down with time. If
anything, it's going to speed up. At the very least, this was a missed
opportunity at creating more realistic dramatic tension.
Maybe, just maybe, the deterioration slowing down can be explained by the
build up of--I don't know what to call it, seal slag? blubber?--on the
surface, so that the corrosive agent (I don't mean Chloe) has a harder time
getting at the part of the seal that remains intact. But we see zero
evidence of this. No smoke, no bubbling seal material, nothing. This is one
amazing corrosive. It makes a door seal completely disappear--100%
conversion of mass into energy, apparently. Of course, were that really the
case, CTU and a sizeable chunk of Los Angeles would've been destroyed in the
resulting fission explosion. (Wow, two (bad) physics lessons in two
paragraphs.)
But what makes this corrosive agent even more amazing is that it apparently
attacks the door seals, and only the door seals. Why don't we see skin
sloughing off the bodies of all those dead CTU personnel? Why aren't their
eyes leaking? Gross, yes, but if this stuff can tear through door seals like
Sherman on his way to the sea, it's going to be slowed down even less by
human tissue.
Which all goes to say that yet again we're presented with a crisis that,
while it may have been played in an emotionally true way, is completely
undercut by the utter hash it makes of physical plausibility.
And what was the deal with Jack putting his hood on while engaging in his
running about, knees bent behavior? Was he trying to keep the corrosive
agent from attacking his hair? Shouldn't he have tried protecting his face?
Or did he know his skin wouldn't be eaten? Is Jack a mole? Or just the
victim of poor writing?
Moving on, or at least over, are we supposed to feel sad about Samwise
taking a premature trip to the Grey Havens? He confesses his culpability in
the attack by telling the red shirt he's with about his key card being
stolen, but since he hasn't done much beyond getting really, really
paranoid, he doesn't exactly win any sympathy from the audience. And Red
Shirt, being a member of the crack CTU Security Squad, never asks, "If your
bleepity-bleepin' card got blankity-blippin' stolen, how the flippin'-bleep
did you get back in the building? What are you, a flippity-blankin' mole?"
When Samwise leaves the room, what evidence is there that it's actually
sealed? There's no sound of a pressure differential equalizing, no brush of
the seal against the floor, no retraction of the seal between the door and
the jamb. The door practically RATTLES, for crying out loud. Did Samwise and
Red Shirt manage to stay alive simply because they BELIEVED the room was
safe? That's some powerful mojo CTU's got going there.
So Samwise saves the day and makes it back to the room where he started,
apparently so he can die his gurggly death in front of the security camera.
We are left with the conclusion that the only purpose he served in this
entire season was to facilitate the nerve gas being released inside CTU HQ,
which plot point, as was pointed out with much vigor last week, was written
so shoddily that any emotional investment we may have had fizzles in much
the same way Edgar's face should have.
But wait: we get a bonus death! Tony buys the farm, too. I predicted that
would happen, although not in the way it ultimately did (I'm available for
parties and bar mitzvahs.). It's sad to see him go, but the real tragedy is
that he didn't go out a hero. It would've tracked better emotionally had the
writers found some way to switch Tony and Samwise's deaths (and the more I
think about this possibility, the more I'm convinced it would have been a
better way to go). They could still have worked in Jack talking to Tony
about the similarity between the current situation and Teri's death in
season one. Plus, I'm not quite remembering: how did Tony make the
connection between Buckeroo and Michelle's death? Did someone tell him
that's why Buckeroo was being tortured? Did he just pull it out of the air
(although I can't belive THAT happening on THIS show)?
Buckeroo is apparently the Marwan of this season (or maybe he's sharing
Marwan duties with the gas cannisters), since after killing Tony he
completely disappears. Maybe he's hiding in the razor blade disposal room,
where Maya found her suicide instrument last season, but my guess is that
the next time we see him, he'll be dashing across the CTU parking lot,
looking for a car to steal, with no explanation of how he got out of
Medical.
The IDEA of this episode was a good one--pretty much all of the action was
confined to CTU HQ, with only brief glances at the terrorists and White
House West--but, yet again, the execution left me feeling cheated.
It looks like next week we can look forward to Helen Mirren taking over CTU.
I speculated last week that the highly-placed mole Sergeant Bierko alluded
to may be Vice President BOB, but now I'm thinking it might be this woman.
BOB now seems to be motivated by a personal desire for power, while this
crew from Homeland Security seems downright creepy. Of course, the way these
things were portrayed was awfully obvious, so maybe we're being set up for a
surprise.
To end things on an up note, Chloe had some great lines in this one. I
already mentioned the way she told everyone she would get back to work.
Another favorite was during her talk with Kim, which again demonstrated that
the show does have some pretty talented actors. Chloe's offer to find out
where Chase is was sincere, earnest, and very funny.
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