It shocks me that 24 fans are able to stomach the shtick. When 24 first came on the block, it was structurally provocative and punchy in ways that television (at the time) wasn’t. It popped up just before the reality TV boom, where everything was happening on screen at a breakneck pace. And it let its multiple screens and real-time structure loose on an American TV viewing public reared on the comparative sluggishness of Law and Order and Hill Street Blues.
An old friend of mine tried to inaugurate me into the world of 24 when it first arrived on DVD; he figured that the ease and presence of multiple hours of a show was a better primer course than just having me come over once a week. He ended up throwing me out of the house and refusing to ever be in a room with me again while 24 was on. I thought the multi-frame stuff was goofy and precious. I thought the whole scenario, while chock-full of appropriately dramatic cliffhangers, was thin as a tissue. And I simply thought the whole thing was an overcooked, silly exercise in gymnastic editing.
I thought its shtick was the only thing 24 had going for it.
I still do. Color me shocked that the show has lasted for seven seasons (with a new one ready to start up again in the early winter) and its original devotees still give it the time of day. I can’t believe that Kiefer Sutherland and company have ridden the show this far. And if getting through the season five box set I reviewed in 2006 was difficult, it has been downright arduous getting to the end of this seventh-season box set.
Most of it lies in 24's tired choice ot resorting to a 'back-from-the-dead' surprise-plotline - while this kind of sensibility works in defiantly silly affairs like Knots Landing or even Magnum P.I., with 24's brooding, cranky overall thematic pout preventing it from ever being less than exceptionally series, it makes an out-there story twist like this one seem undercooked. Sure, it's great to see Jack Bauer with good team members - I'll take any excuse to watch Janeane Garofalo, and Cherry Jones makes a great president - but while many fans of the show say this seventh go-round is a distinct return to form, this writer can really only say that it's same-as-it-ever-was.
