Has “24” jumped the shark? That’s the question facing viewers this season. Keep in mind that these are viewers who accepted a treasonous president (cough, cough), two black Commanders-in-Chief, Elisha Cuthbert with a haircut that made her look like Debbie Harry, and more outlandish plot twists and near-misses than an episode of “Survivor: Morrisville.” So to make one of these people say, “Wait a second, that’s not believable” is something not to be taken lightly.
Already this season, Jack Bauer was traded from China to the United States for the rights to the location of a suspected terrorist and second baseman Kaz Matsui; was tortured for 20 minutes, but still mustered enough strength to chew a man’s neck off (apparently channeling his role from “Lost Boys”), tear off his bonds, uproot a floor grate and crawl away, all in the span of an ill-timed phone call; scaled a house in time to pull off the door of a helicopter and save the pilot before the ‘copter crashed to the ground; spit in the face of a nuclear blast and lived to laugh about it; shot his friend in the neck in order to keep a promise to a terrorist; gave bedroom eyes to his brother’s wife; and then bitch-slapped said brother in his own home.
I know Kiefer Sutherland just signed a three-year extension, so we know he’s not exactly going to get “disappeared” for a while. However, the writers have turned him into some sort of superhero … in the last few years, the guy has singlehandedly kicked a heroin habit without the benefit of a raincoat or a bucket, watched his wife die, forced his daughter to hate him, gone through three disturbing courtships, been left at the altar by Julia Roberts (OK, I'm not positive about this, but I missed a couple of episodes), been tortured in a Chinese prison for months, killed a couple of his best friends, saved the world like nine times, served as a presidential bodyguard on the side and killed more people than Pol Pot. Those things can make for a full day, especially considering he has done that without ever having to eat, sleep or go to the bathroom in the middle of a national security meeting (a.k.a., "pull a Chewie").
Can the brains behind “24” actually keep these scenarios up for three more years without treading over old ground or crossing the border into complete ridiculousness? How many terrorist cells, nuclear strikes and stolen missiles can the audience accept before they’re like, “Maybe they should stop electing this connected line of Presidents and send Jack Bauer to Pakistan to take the war to them”? How many disturbingly long, lingering shots of Chloe wrinkling her forehead in worry can they endure? How many CTU employees have to die before they expect prospective workers to be like, “Well, the compensation is good and the benefits package is great, but like 86% of the people that work here eventually die, so I don’t know …”? How many spies can make it to the upper levels of the U.S. administration before viewers become a tad suspicious? And how come, considering all of this, I can’t stop watching?
So give ‘em hell, Jack. I’m waiting for the perfect storm to come together to create the perfect episode: Bauer rips his brother’s leg off, beats his father to death with it, impregnates his brother’s wife, delivers his son/nephew, grinds a terrorist to death in a Slurpee machine, forcefeeds the Slurpee to another terrorist to give him brain-freeze, jumpstarts an aircraft carrier, stages a one-man attack on China for revenge and then beats the absolute christ out of MacGyver for no apparent reason other than that he can and he by-god feels like it.
You are a living tall tale, Jack Bauer – you are the real Bill Brasky.
“So anyway, Bauer would put on a white tie and tails and walk his cobra through the park on a leash. He named the cobra Beverly, and he taught it how to fetch and dial a phone. But then one day it bit the maid. So with tears in his eyes, Brasky had to shoot the maid.”
