What I'm Watching: 24

24: Season 6, Episode 21 "2:00am-3:00am" (F)

I read over Entertainment Weekly's review of "24" from the most recent issue after watching last night's episode, and agree entirely with the current assessment of the show. While most people seem to have liked the ridiculousness of the corrupt president in season 5 (??!), almost everyone agrees that the show is now very bad and hardly original. With this episode, it proves far too easy for a band of mercenaries to get into CTU for a ridiculously improbable reason, and an action sure to cause a friction in U.S.-Chinese relations. We don't have to worry, though, because in the present state of things, international relations boil down to three people battling to sound the most evil (Vice President Daniels would have to be the winner, while Russian President Subarov clearly loses).

Repetition is probably the biggest thing wrong with the show. CTU has already been infiltrated, and in far more realistic, or at least suspension-of-disbelief realistic ways. In season two, a bomb went off to hinder CTU's efforts to stop a more significant nuclear bomb. In season five, a number of CTU's employees were killed through CTU's ventilation system. For the first time since Nina drama in season one, CTU is physically stormed, but this time is far more fatal, at least for one sacrificial Milo. Looking back to the first season, Jack is the only surviving cast member now. Everyone else is dead, save for Kim and a few bit guest stars. Recycling old plotlines with new cast members is a flawed plan of action - though the new characters in the show don't remember what happened to their doomed predecessors, viewers do. And we are generally pissed about watching the same thing over and over again.