Amph 24: The Jack Bauer Power Hour (and Spin-Offs)

Looks like Audrey got her marbles back.

 

I'm not so sure, she seemed to have the same blank stare as always. Even before she went to China.


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I certainly hope this injects some more life into Keifer's staggering career as of late.

 

I loved Season 2. The Kim plot was terrible, but the rest was simply tremendous. And I still love Kate Warner.

EDIT: I should point out that I've never gone and rewatched any of the seasons. I have to do that once, curious to see how Season 2 holds up.

 

I went and rewatched with my wife who hadn't seen them. Heels is correct. Season 1, while good, it is slow.

And this is as laughable as ever from season 2.

http://www.vulture.com/m/2013/12/24-kim-bauer-cougar-trap-episode-oral-history.html

 

OK, I admit it, I have an obsession with Kate Warner.

As for season 1 being too slow, maybe, but I like that they didn't feel a need to have a nuke go off every week. The last 5-6 episodes, starting with the introduction of Dennis Hopper and the underground prison (which is when I started watching) were tremendous. Not to mention Terry's death, which was still the most stunning thing I've ever seen on TV or in a movie.

 

Terri had a really crappy day if you think about it.

 

I wasn't too much of a fan of Tony's characterization in the second-to-last season.

 

But Season 1 was where it all started. From that first scene, to early and suprise deaths. I still remember when Jack 'killed' Nina and when we weren't sure if Tony was the mole or not. The first season had some of the best twists and surprises (especially the end scene) that would lead to 24 being one of the best edge of your seat dramas for years to come.

Season 2 followed it up with some great stuff with the exception of Kim (never have I wanted a cougar to maul someone so much). 2 was overall very strong. It also gave us Michelle. 3 was where things started to go a bit off but still gave us one of the most memorable moments with Chapelle and it gave us Chloe which really the rest of the seasons would not have been as good without her. I did like season 4 a lot for the reasons you stated. And it also lured us into a false impression of Charles Logan so that the big twist in Season 5 really was a surprise for most. 6 started good but just went way down and they basically wasted the potential of several great villains. 7 brought some serious life back to the show and the stuff with the White House was especially impressive. But it helped that they did Redemption. 8 I have mixed feelings on but was overall satisfied with.

 

Seasons 2 and 5 are the best. The first sixteen episodes of two are I believe the longest stretch a single plot thread has lasted during the series. I loved how it was basically understated detective work that ultimately led them to the bomb, instead of a series of bombastic set-piece shootouts. The short arc in the middle where Nina essentially functions as an ally while she and Jack engage in pyschological warfare was brilliant.

Five was the season that was simultaneously the most layered while also still essentially, and successfully, functioning as one cohesive story.

Season 3 is, to me, the worst season by far. It is incredibly one-dimensional throughout: chase villain, capture him, discover there's a guy higher up on the food-chain, chase him, rinse and repeat. It's blatantly obvious that the writing never got more than one or two episodes ahead. One really bad example of this: The episode where Jack and Chase go to the MI6 office to retrieve a hard drive. The episode itself is ridiculous--a helicopter machine guns the office and a bomb is rigged to explode the hard drive, both amazingly occurring at the exact moment Jack and Chase arrive at the office. But the bigger point is is that this hard drive nor any intelligence derived from it are ever mentioned or relevant again. Jack's romance with Claudia was so shoehorned and perfunctory as to be embarrassing. And of course the Anne Packard/Alan Miliken nonsense. The single worst thing about this season is how completely and totally Nina Myers was wasted. Jack hunting for Nina could have been the premise of an entire later season. Instead she was thrown in to this mess (obviously to liven things up as it was meandering so) and unceremoniously killed off a few episodes later. It still makes me angry.

With Season 6, they swung for the fences with the Graham=Graem Bauer twist and, well, they missed. Badly. D.B Woodside's acting was also terrible. I've actually never even re-watched this season on DVD, but while it was going on what I remember striking me the most was how it seemed virtually every single plot dynamic was recycled from a previous season. Off the top of my head, the only one I remember now is the "someone affiliated with the government turns out to be in intimate contact with one of the baddies and after discovering it tries to dupe him" angle, but I remember there were many, many more.

I have very mixed feelings about Season 8. Jack actually snapping and going on a reign of terror was a bold and interesting move, but the direction of those episodes was poor. Jack essentially remained the "protagonist" of the story, but his actions were so indefensible that it wasn't really possible to get behind him. Ultimately, if you're not behind Jack Bauer in 24, something's gone wrong. Something I found hilarious about the end of this season: Kiefer basically reprised as the Sniper from Phone Booth at the very end.

 

As an aside about Season 2, did anybody here ever listen to the commentary track during one of the episodes with Carlos Bernard, Michelle Forbes, and Sarah Wynter? It was laugh-out-loud funny.

 

I really need to watch seasons 2-5.

 

I need to watch seasons 1-5 plus the beginning of 6.

 

I liked Taylor in Season 7. She was extremely presidential and was uncompromising in her beliefs-going so far as to have her daughter arrested for murder. In 7 she put country above family. The only other president to do that was David Palmer in season 1. What happened towards the end of Season 8 though was terrible and it really seemed against her character. I think the writers did Cherry Jones a great disservice with that.