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

I was watching the pilot episode of "Sex and the City" a few nights ago, and thought I recognized the actress in the opening -- it was Kate Warner!

Sorry to interrupt.

 

Holy Kolker, those Russians reallllly know how to hold a grudge, eh?

Best Bauerism of the week (there's been a lot of them lately)

"He's a counter-intelligence operative, YOU IDIOT!"

 

Well ****.

 

Beast mode engaged, plus 50,000 points for decapitation.

 

This episode was one **** after another, right to the end. I mean, jeez. Just how much crap can one guy deal with in one lifetime?

Well, nice knowing you Jack. Something tells me that the Russians are gonna make his year under Cheng's tender mercies look like a picnic.

 

I'm hoping the next season he just breaks out and kills all the Russians.

 

Part of me expected him to just blow up the copter.

Spoiler

So it was 2. Every woman Jack loves must die. I really can not believe they killed her. It wasn't a **** NO!!!! reaction like I had with Rene. It was instead more of a **** REALLY?!

Wow at Heller's final thoughts to the Prime Minister. If you couldn't pity the man any more, that pretty much did it. Terrible way for his presidency to end and for his life really. Everything he'd hoped to accomplish on that trip was lost and he lost the most precious thing in the world to him as well.

So looks like more 24 is definitely planned. I can assume we'll hear about that at the SDCC panel that was just recently announced. Gonna need another new president though. Unless they just scrape the bottom of their 24 living characters who can fill that role:

President Karen Buchanan?
President Mike Novick?

President Aaron Pierce

 

Really, there is absolutely nothing left you can do with the elements of this show--every single possible dynamic has been done several times over. Jack being taken into custody by a foreign power in the finale, awaiting endless torture? Gee, that sounds familiar. It was a fittingly underwhelming conclusion to an underwhelming miniseries, in my opinion. The only excitement ever on this show anymore is the cheap thrill from the soap-opera-esque trick of bringing back an old character from a previous season. The few things I enjoyed about this season were incorporating the Snowdenista movement, Cheng's return, and President Heller's poignant remarks about his forthcoming descent into madness. The rest was completely ordinary, at best.

 

Man oh man, what an episode, I loved it.

The final bit after the 12 hour skip was pretty amazing all the way through. Jack got a silent clock so that's closure (a heroic sacrifice for his friend) if the show doesn't get renewed. If it does get renewed, they can make "24" S10 as "Die Hard 5" in Russia but have it not suck this time.

I could take maybe 3 or 4 eps as Kate Morgan in the driver's seat as they try to rescue Jack but they need Bauer back to keep going. There's a comic-con panel for "24" next week which could be an indication that S10 might happen, not many shows get their own comic con panel a week after getting axed. It is at the 10 AM graveyard comic con shift, though that could be just scheduling. Keifer is still gonna be hung over!

I loved "My name is CHENG ZIII!!!" random yelling declaration of self. That was kind of badass.

The S8 series finale episode was decent but mostly made better for the final scene. I thought this episode was consistently excellent which felt more like an appropriate "series finale" if it is the last episode.

I had a indication that someone died in this episode, I thought it was going to be Chole, which would have really pissed me off. Audrey's death was really effective but to be honest I think Rene Walker's death in S8 was even more of a gut punch. Still, Keifer's reaction to the news of Audrey's death is some of the best bit he's done all season. And I did think for a moment that Chole might die but she made it (and it set up that fantastic swap scene that ended it). And Belichick didn't die! Belichick is kind of awesome! Keep him around!

Also keep that Russian Merc to say vaguely menacing things at key moments. "Enjoy your stay in Russia, Mr. Bauer, but we both know that isn't true".

12 episodes really streamlined out the gunk that tends to gather in a 24 episode run. It's so good it can't be the only season of 12 eps!

24 Season 10: Kate Morgan, Belichick, Chole O'Brien and Tony Almeida go to Russia to free Jack! Make it happen!

 

As cool as President Aaron Pierce would be, I think at this point it would be for the best to not showcase the President at all anymore. It worked just fine in S1 and that was it's best season I think. And no more redundant "mass terror" threats please. Just keep the plot character focused going forward like S1 was.

I agree with that.

 

TBH, I so wish the miniseries had stayed focused solely on the primary terror threat from Margot and Co. But no, true to 24 fashion, they had to needlessly complicate matters with the utterly unnecessary Russian/Cheng double threat, sinking the miniseries in a miasma of drek that became all too typical of latter seasons. And we're left with another day where the world was saved from disaster at the very last minute, another of Jack's love interests dead just because, and him being carted off AGAIN to a very nasty vacation, again, just because. I know I shouldn't have expected anything less from 24 at this point.

Honestly, if he lives or dies or simply returns a year from new missing a few more pieces of his flesh and soul, I simply won't care anymore. **** you 24, but you're not getting another break from me.

 

A President-less "24" season could be an interesting idea. They basically serve in the plot to give marching orders to Jack for various episodes and frequently butt heads in ideology. I though it worked well this season because Heller has a history with the show but that would be realllly hard to pull off again with a new POTUS. (Here's a thought, how about a POTUS that makes it through 2 terms as President in 24 land! That would be new!)

As for the 12 ep arc, I did love it and the Cheng stuff at the end was interesting but it did kind of feel like they were doing a 24 episode season worth of twists into 12 episodes. Not that I think that's bad! But I could see the structure that's been there since Season 1 - wherein the badguy introduced in episode 1 (or 2) is never the badguy introduced in episode 24. Although, I do like that they kept Margot along for as many episodes as felt natural to the plot. And her exit was fan-freakin-tastic. So I can't complain. But you can see the seams if you've watched a lot of 24.

Also Jack's walk-away-smirk when he was going to the Russian chopper was freakin' priceless. He's Jack Bauer. Being in Russian captivity won't keep him down for long. I wonder if in the 24 verse Subarov is still Russian President? Is he basically just flat-out Vladimir Putin now?

If there is a S10, I hope they don't do the S6 style Jack walks off the plane after being beaten up off screen style opening to the year. They already did that. Make the Jack Bauer Great Escape Season, which is what he all thought that S6 was going to be anyway.

 

I'd be ok if Season 10 opened with Jack just walking out of Moscow, a bunch of explosions and burning buildings behind him (because cool guys don't look at explosions), covered in blood and armed to the teeth (and of course his man purse slung over his shoulder). And then he gets his mission. And we find out it was just the Tuesday after Live Another Day.

 

I would have been slightly disappointed if they did, but part of me wanted the final scene to be Chole getting into the car and saying "Let's go get Kate, we have some work to do".

I'm definitely in the camp of it being better for a further season being showing the lead-up and execution of Jack's escape.

 

Yeah, if they let Kate Morgan take front and centre for a few episodes in a heist / breakout scheme to get Jack (keep him limited to some tense Jack vs. Russian captors stuff) for about 4 episodes or so it could be neat. My dream roster for a Jack Bauer's Big Russian Breakout Jamboree (Which should totally be the title) is Kate Morgan, Chole O'Brien, Aaron Pierce, Belcheck, two redshirts to have nasty things happen to them, Tony Almedia and "Mandy". And Charles Logan. Just for kicks. Because he, uh, knows stuff about Russians and stuff.

However Yodaminch exact suggestion is 9 kinds of awesome.

 

Finally saw the finale. I love 24, but the finales are ANNOYING. The writers are apparently allergic to happy endings.

Just for once, can we have a happy ending to a 24 season? Please???

This season was excellent, I'm just currently miffed about the final episode. For some reason, I actually thought they might end this season on an up note: Jack saves the president. He gets pardoned. Everyone realizes how awesome Jack is ,that he's saved the world like 12 times, and he exists sorta happily ever after.

Nope.

Why ....why did I think that? It's 24.

Maybe season 10 will end that way. (there I go again!)

 

It was a sorta happy ending in as much that Jack had to sacrifice himself to save Chole, and they have a really fantastic moment together before they go away. And his Bauer smile on the way to the chopper sorta reads to me like Jack is gonna get outta the sticky Russian situation because he's Jack, silent clock finale be damned.

As for Jack getting a mega-happy ending, well as mega-happy as Jack could get, I think that boat sailed sometime around S4. If not after Terri's death at the hands of Nina way back in Season 1. It's been said many times that Jack, and people in his orbit, are irreparably damaged just by Jack having to do what he does and the world he lives in. It's awesome that Jack has saved the world multiple times but there's a cost to it, and there are only so many ways his story can end.

What I love about the show is that it's crazy action heavy with Very Bad Guys and Jack is ultimately heroic, even if he has to do terrible things to get to that point, but they're great at, let's call it mirco-bursts of emotion where everything slows down. (Jack's reaction at Audrey's death in this episode is a great example of that) That's also the advantage of the real-time format, you're going to see this little breakdowns that would ultimately happen. One of my favourite season finales of 24 (aside from the Cheng-shows-up S5 end twist, which was neat) was the Season 3 finale. Jack sort of stops, has a breakdown in a car by himself, and then someone calls him, Jack just says "Yeah? I'm on my way." Cut to countdown clock. Wasn't very cliffhangery at all but it showed the toll it takes on him, eventually.

Time's 24 recap actually had an astute observation about Jack as a character representative of the cost of the world wide threat of constant war we find ourselves in:

"suffering and sacrificing has always been Bauer’s ultimate job on 24, more so than saving the country. He may kill bad guys ingeniously, he may be help the President survive a drone-missile strike through, essentially, a video editing trick–but Bauer’s real service after 9/11 and for years beyond has been to take on himself the psychic pain of being a nation at war. It’s not enough that he save us, he must lose as well–lose his wife, his friends, his country’s trust and loyalty. He’s not just an action figure but America’s pin-bestudded emotional voodoo doll."

 

I think they used S6 elements only because those were the ones that were left hanging the most out of all the seasons, so they threw things in there for fans who know the 24-verse could see them, but they were open-ended enough that it didn't need too much backstory to get the history. All of the other seasons are fairly closed!

Still think it isn't the end, if only because of the comic-con panel coming up with Kiefer Sutherland. We'll find out in a few days!

 

So what are everyone's thoughts on Fox considering more 24 without Jack Bauer?

Personally, I won't watch an entire season without Jack. Even if it were starring Tony or Kate. Now, if this was all about planning Jack's extraction and the first few episodes were Kate/Tony driven with Jack only mentioned but not seen and assisted by Chloe, I could get behind this. I could even get behind Jack not being the center of stopping whatever plot is going on but instead assisting while he recuperates. But 24 with no Jack at all? No thank you. And absolutely would not be interested in following a new character for 24 episodes. Would much rather see another mini series.