Can Jack Bauer Cure the Common Cold? No? Dammit!
Well, the seemingly mild case of the common cold I had last week went into overdrive this weekend. From Friday night onwards I was flat-out sick, and on Sunday I was reduced to a quivering mass of sickly protoplasm as I lay in bed shivering, going in and out of some crazy fever dream. The last few days have been one giant pill-poppin' marathon, as I've been downing Advil, Sudafed, and walking through the Halls of medicine every few hours, with ample dosage of chicken soup, gingerale, etc to help cure what ails me. Monday I took a rare sick day, as my high temperature and overall achiness late Sunday night clued me into the fact that I was in no condition to swim with the sharks of Hollywood come Monday morning. As of today, I'm back in action, but by no means operating at 100%. But hopefully I'll get there. Soon! Dammit all ...
I did manage to have a good time on Friday though, as NBC Pages new and old met up after work for some quality dinner followed by some 80's night craziness. It was great to see some old friends and meet some cool new faces as well. And even though it probably didn't help my then-worsening health any, it was a fun night for sure - can't go wrong with the 80's live cover band either. Good (fast?) times. After Friday though, I was down for the count ...
At the least, this was a pretty good weekend to be MIA. The NBA Playoffs were in full swing so I spent a lot of time just watching some quality b-ball whilst sipping on some chicken soup (thank god for the Togos adjacent to my apartment ...). Anyways, it was a great weekend of basketball, as to me there is NO sporting event more exciting, more filled with storied rivalries and colorful personalities, than the NBA playoffs. And man, some very, very interesting results to kick things off. I mean, you had both Denver and Golden State pulling off HUGE upsets. And it was great to see, as both teams have likable stars who are deserving of some spotlight. Especially cool was seeing one of my favorite players, Baron Davis of the Warriors, having a breakout playoff performance on the national stage, as he and his teammates felled the Mavs, all the while looking not just like a scrappy underdog, but like a legit contender. Denver pulled a similar feat in San Antonio, showing that the playoffs are a time for the stars to shine their brightest. AI and Carmello took it right to the Spurs, and suddenly, the Nuggets look like they are a force to be reckoned with in the West. We also had a few series that look like they are really going to come down to the wire. Miami - Chicago is going to be a war, old-school Eastern conference style. Toronto and New Jersey is a tough-to-call matchup, though the experience of NJ can't be underestimated. It's the playoffs, baby. And kudos to the always-great coverage on TNT, which blows away that of ABC / ESPN.
24!24! 24!
- Yeah yeah, there's a lot of hype about some show called "Heroes." But I'm going to have to put that one on hold, otherwise, Jack Bauer may come to my house and pop a cap in my ass. Jack has one superpower only, and it's called GRAVITAS, baby!
Last night's 24 was a big improvement over last week's ep. The focus was again on Jack, along with another key character in Bill Buchanan. This ep was pretty effective in doing the whole "Jack against the world" angle, building up the showdown between Jack and Audrey's captors very well, to the point where I was on the edge of my seat for the final 10 minutes or so. However, in retrospect, wasn't Jack a little too desperate to save Audrey, acting without even thinking of a real way to hav his cake and eat it too? I mean, upon giving the Chinese guy the component, the Chinese guy didn't even take a minute to verify it was the real deal! Jack could have easily, as it turns out, have given them a fake and they'd be none the wiser ...
Still, that was a pretty gripping showdown, and the revelation that Audrey has gone all crazy-like is kinda cool in an eerie sort of way. I mean, it drove the ever-stoic Jack Bauer to utter "My god, what have they done to you?" ... so, if even Jack is shaken by this turn of events, then we as viewers pretty much have to be as well.
I'm hoping though that things now line up in the following way - as I see it, the only fully-satisfying conclusion to the season will be that soon, maybe as soon as next episode, we find that Jack's father has been the mastermind behind all this China stuff, and the full extent of his involvement in all the conspiracy / bluetooth group stuff is revealed. This leaves Jack as the only man left capable of preventing his dad's masterstroke from coming to fruition (something big, say, nuking DC to pave the way for a new world order ...?). And of course that means Jack needs to be exonerated and restored to full-on CTU status ASAP. Who better to do that than new Director of CTU Heller. Shocked at his daughter's state and out for revenge, Heller sends his buddy Jack on a one-man mission that only a Bauer can see to completion, because who better to take down a Bauer ... than Jack f'n Baur?!?!
Now THAT's how they need to end the season!
(By the way, for a season-ending cliffhanger - what if Papa Bauer goes all Darth Vader, messes with Jack's mind to convince him to turn against the US government, and makes him an offer he can't refuse, to join him in the Bluetooth Mafia! Jack accepts, turns to the darkside -- America is now most likely $#&#'d -- BOOM - end of season ...!)
Anyways ... (whew!) ... the rest of the ep was slightly bogged down with ever more heaping helpings of CTU and White House melodrama. Okay, yes, I got a kick out of Powers Boothe as the badass VP who is also a "dirty old man." Who wants to bet that that blonde woman he's bonking is one or two episodes away from turning on poor ol' Powers like a bottle of expired Viagra? But, on the other hand, Karen Hayes is SOOOOOOOOOO annoying. Holy crap, Bill Buchanan needs to dump her ASAP. All she does is whine and threaten to resign. Thousands of people died, and she's surprised someone is going to take a fall? Meanwhile, why is the once-awesome character of Chloe being so wasted on stupid back and forth bickering with Morris? Everyone at CTU is either an inherently lame character (Nadia, Milo, Doyle) or a potentially cool character being wasted on crappy soap opera-y subplots (Chloe, Morris). And why is it that whenever an elder-statesman Director of CTU is forced to resign (or is killed, fired, whatever), the next in line is inevitably thirty years younger, with little to no experience, and someone who only hours earlier had been tortured, maimed, or otherwise accused of being a mole?!?! Heller or whoever can't get to CTU fast enough ... At least, now, in present state as fall-guy to Uncle Sam, Buchanan is actually getting a bit interesting ...
Okay, that's enough of my bitchin'. Overall this was a good episode that reinvested me in Jack Bauer's story and got me excited for the places that the plot can now go.
My Grade: A -
- I hate to do this but I need to - this Sunday, as I mentioned, I was a sick man. I was collapsed on my bed, barely eating, and had but one thing to look forward to to bring a smile to my face - that being the promise of an all-new episode of THE SIMPSONS. Sadly, Sunday's ep was not just mediocre, but just plain bad. It lacked humor, lacked zip, lacked wit. Ugh, just sad. Let's see - Marge becomes addicted to an online computer game? Wasn't funny, didn't even make sense, and had no real insightful humor or commentary to go with it. Lame, lame, lame. An out-of-nowhere B plot about Lisa's newfound passion for soccer? Terrible, half-assed, good for maybe one decent gag at the expense of so-three-years-ago Bend It Like Beckham. The attempt to tie both subplots together into an overarching theme of parent and child bonding? Stop, just make it stop. I could have just watched the episode where Bart really wants that videogame BoneStorm instead. This was really poor.
My Grade: D
- Alright, I'm going to bare down and sneeze and sniff my way through the rest of the day. And I'm outta here ...
I did manage to have a good time on Friday though, as NBC Pages new and old met up after work for some quality dinner followed by some 80's night craziness. It was great to see some old friends and meet some cool new faces as well. And even though it probably didn't help my then-worsening health any, it was a fun night for sure - can't go wrong with the 80's live cover band either. Good (fast?) times. After Friday though, I was down for the count ...
At the least, this was a pretty good weekend to be MIA. The NBA Playoffs were in full swing so I spent a lot of time just watching some quality b-ball whilst sipping on some chicken soup (thank god for the Togos adjacent to my apartment ...). Anyways, it was a great weekend of basketball, as to me there is NO sporting event more exciting, more filled with storied rivalries and colorful personalities, than the NBA playoffs. And man, some very, very interesting results to kick things off. I mean, you had both Denver and Golden State pulling off HUGE upsets. And it was great to see, as both teams have likable stars who are deserving of some spotlight. Especially cool was seeing one of my favorite players, Baron Davis of the Warriors, having a breakout playoff performance on the national stage, as he and his teammates felled the Mavs, all the while looking not just like a scrappy underdog, but like a legit contender. Denver pulled a similar feat in San Antonio, showing that the playoffs are a time for the stars to shine their brightest. AI and Carmello took it right to the Spurs, and suddenly, the Nuggets look like they are a force to be reckoned with in the West. We also had a few series that look like they are really going to come down to the wire. Miami - Chicago is going to be a war, old-school Eastern conference style. Toronto and New Jersey is a tough-to-call matchup, though the experience of NJ can't be underestimated. It's the playoffs, baby. And kudos to the always-great coverage on TNT, which blows away that of ABC / ESPN.
24!24! 24!
- Yeah yeah, there's a lot of hype about some show called "Heroes." But I'm going to have to put that one on hold, otherwise, Jack Bauer may come to my house and pop a cap in my ass. Jack has one superpower only, and it's called GRAVITAS, baby!
Last night's 24 was a big improvement over last week's ep. The focus was again on Jack, along with another key character in Bill Buchanan. This ep was pretty effective in doing the whole "Jack against the world" angle, building up the showdown between Jack and Audrey's captors very well, to the point where I was on the edge of my seat for the final 10 minutes or so. However, in retrospect, wasn't Jack a little too desperate to save Audrey, acting without even thinking of a real way to hav his cake and eat it too? I mean, upon giving the Chinese guy the component, the Chinese guy didn't even take a minute to verify it was the real deal! Jack could have easily, as it turns out, have given them a fake and they'd be none the wiser ...
Still, that was a pretty gripping showdown, and the revelation that Audrey has gone all crazy-like is kinda cool in an eerie sort of way. I mean, it drove the ever-stoic Jack Bauer to utter "My god, what have they done to you?" ... so, if even Jack is shaken by this turn of events, then we as viewers pretty much have to be as well.
I'm hoping though that things now line up in the following way - as I see it, the only fully-satisfying conclusion to the season will be that soon, maybe as soon as next episode, we find that Jack's father has been the mastermind behind all this China stuff, and the full extent of his involvement in all the conspiracy / bluetooth group stuff is revealed. This leaves Jack as the only man left capable of preventing his dad's masterstroke from coming to fruition (something big, say, nuking DC to pave the way for a new world order ...?). And of course that means Jack needs to be exonerated and restored to full-on CTU status ASAP. Who better to do that than new Director of CTU Heller. Shocked at his daughter's state and out for revenge, Heller sends his buddy Jack on a one-man mission that only a Bauer can see to completion, because who better to take down a Bauer ... than Jack f'n Baur?!?!
Now THAT's how they need to end the season!
(By the way, for a season-ending cliffhanger - what if Papa Bauer goes all Darth Vader, messes with Jack's mind to convince him to turn against the US government, and makes him an offer he can't refuse, to join him in the Bluetooth Mafia! Jack accepts, turns to the darkside -- America is now most likely $#&#'d -- BOOM - end of season ...!)
Anyways ... (whew!) ... the rest of the ep was slightly bogged down with ever more heaping helpings of CTU and White House melodrama. Okay, yes, I got a kick out of Powers Boothe as the badass VP who is also a "dirty old man." Who wants to bet that that blonde woman he's bonking is one or two episodes away from turning on poor ol' Powers like a bottle of expired Viagra? But, on the other hand, Karen Hayes is SOOOOOOOOOO annoying. Holy crap, Bill Buchanan needs to dump her ASAP. All she does is whine and threaten to resign. Thousands of people died, and she's surprised someone is going to take a fall? Meanwhile, why is the once-awesome character of Chloe being so wasted on stupid back and forth bickering with Morris? Everyone at CTU is either an inherently lame character (Nadia, Milo, Doyle) or a potentially cool character being wasted on crappy soap opera-y subplots (Chloe, Morris). And why is it that whenever an elder-statesman Director of CTU is forced to resign (or is killed, fired, whatever), the next in line is inevitably thirty years younger, with little to no experience, and someone who only hours earlier had been tortured, maimed, or otherwise accused of being a mole?!?! Heller or whoever can't get to CTU fast enough ... At least, now, in present state as fall-guy to Uncle Sam, Buchanan is actually getting a bit interesting ...
Okay, that's enough of my bitchin'. Overall this was a good episode that reinvested me in Jack Bauer's story and got me excited for the places that the plot can now go.
My Grade: A -
- I hate to do this but I need to - this Sunday, as I mentioned, I was a sick man. I was collapsed on my bed, barely eating, and had but one thing to look forward to to bring a smile to my face - that being the promise of an all-new episode of THE SIMPSONS. Sadly, Sunday's ep was not just mediocre, but just plain bad. It lacked humor, lacked zip, lacked wit. Ugh, just sad. Let's see - Marge becomes addicted to an online computer game? Wasn't funny, didn't even make sense, and had no real insightful humor or commentary to go with it. Lame, lame, lame. An out-of-nowhere B plot about Lisa's newfound passion for soccer? Terrible, half-assed, good for maybe one decent gag at the expense of so-three-years-ago Bend It Like Beckham. The attempt to tie both subplots together into an overarching theme of parent and child bonding? Stop, just make it stop. I could have just watched the episode where Bart really wants that videogame BoneStorm instead. This was really poor.
My Grade: D
- Alright, I'm going to bare down and sneeze and sniff my way through the rest of the day. And I'm outta here ...
posted by Danny B at 3:01 PM
2 Comments:
Yo J-dog,
I actually agree with many of your points, and looking at the bigger picture - I agree that this season is really lacking a good villainous presence esp. after last season where we had both Logan AND Henderson - two of the best ever 24 bad guys. I still don't get why Graem Bauer was killed off so fast, as he was built up for a long while (much of LAST season)and had potential to be a great foil. His passive/aggrssive personality was also pretty entertaining. I guess overall though, I just enjoyed this particular episode, even if the bigger picture of this season of 24 is still very much up for grabs. I saw some subtle signs in this ep that things are headed in a good direction, so much of my enthusiasm is with good faith that we are headed for one slobberknocker of a final arc. If I'm wrong, then yeah, this ep is nothing special. But it got me excited about where things might be going, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.
Hey man,
Well put. I do hope there's a huge major arc coming up at the last minute here...but to twist Jack's words a little, IS there enough time???
By the way, I have been pondering several ideas for writing projects and came up with a real dazzler last night, but I want to collaborate with someone on it. You interested?
~J
PS: Smashing use of the word "slobberknocker."
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