Innocent Bystander

Ain't no KA-CHUNK when he's gone...

It is, of course, a sad Sunday here at the IB compound. Today would have seen the premiere of the seventh season of 24, but due to the writers' strike and the real world incarceration of star Kiefer Sutherland, there will be no KA-CHUNKING tonight. In fact, there may not be any this year.

24 had 8 episodes in the can before the strike happened, but because of it's one big storyline over 24 episodes format, the producers decided to forgo broadcasting any of them, a concern that the Lost producers don't seem to have (that series returns Jan. 31). In its place tonight is part one of a two-night premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles, a series we're looking forward to, but not so much that we'll write about it after each and every episode. (Rest easy, America.)

We are, like everyone else in the viewing public, starting to get frustrated with this whole strike thing. While I whole-heartedly support the writers' stance on payment for online distribution of their product, and increased payment for things like DVDs, I'm frustrated by the fact that no one seems to get the two sides back to the bargaining table. Speaking of Terminators, why doesn't Governor Schwarzenegger get involved, since California is bearing the brunt of the economic impact of the strike? Tonight alone, what about all the people who regularly supply and service an awards show like the Golden Globes? Food, drink, limos, gowns, red carpets, my God! PAPARAZZI!? Nobody is winning here, and I'm mystified as to why the producers don't do what they always do: Screw the public. That's you and me. The writers--and soon, the directors and actors--want a bigger chunk of profits and added money from the Internet? Raise the price of everything. I'll pay an extra buck for a DVD, another 50 cents for an iTunes download. Ultimately, it all comes down to corporate greed anyway, so why not just bite the bullet and do the usual wrong thing and raise prices and get it over with?

The KA-CHUNK Weekly...special edition: 24/7 preview!

Sorry, folks...Fox or someone pulled this video off of YouTube. It was the United Kingdom trailer for 24 Season 7, featuring an intro by Kiefer Sutherland and scenes from the upcoming season, which actually look pretty cool. And yes, it included Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard)...but this is decidedly NOT the Tony we remember.

If they repost it, I'll try and link to it again. Suffice it to say, Season 7 already looks better than the horrible Season 6.

KA-CHUNK! 24 Extra...

I would be remiss in my blogging about the new TV season without mentioning the return of 24, scheduled for January 2008. Fox has already released news of a returning character to the show, one we all dearly missed in that misbegotten last season.

Yep. Carlos Bernard is back as Tony Almeida.

The 24 producers want us to know we should have caught onto the fact that he didn't die, since there was no silent "KA-CHUNK" on the commercial break after he was killed. (They call it the "silent clock;" we call it the silent KA-CHUNK.) And rumors were rampant last season that the less then stellar storyline would end with a bang that included Tony's return. It didn't, even if the show redeemed itself in the last few episodes.

It seems apparent that everyone involved realized the past season was one in the loss column. There's a lot of talk about the new season coming up: Janeane Garofalo joins the cast. CTU is disbanded. A woman president (which makes the 24 timeline even more confusing...is she newly elected, or a replacement for the dead President Wayne Palmer, assuming he actually died--when does the new story take place?). Early reports pegs the 4-hour premiere on January 13 and 14, 2008. And the DVD set of Season 6 comes out on December 4.

It always bugged me that the producers chose to kill off popular characters like Tony and Curtis Manning, only to replace them with lamer versions, like Rick Shroeder's Mike Doyle. If the point was the series is and always will be about Jack Bauer, how does introducing new characters fit in? Carlos Bernard was reportedly in a new series by the 24 creators that wasn't picked up, which would explain his absence last season, if only in an exceedingly hopeful vein by the producers. But he belongs on 24, even if it involves some lame-ass explanation.

But there's bad news afoot, too, at least for me. After a season which included three of the most annoying actors ever--Regina King, DB Woodside, and Peter MacNicol--John Billingsly, who so annoyed me in The Nine, that I basically stopped watching it, joins the cast. Also back for the ride are Chloe O'Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub) and Bill Buchanan (James Morrison).

KA-CHUNK: Day 6, Hours 23 and 24

(Reader discretion is advised. This post contains spoilers. If you haven't already seen Monday night's episodes of 24, stop reading and go watch them NOW.)

It's over.

If all of season 6 of 24 was as well written and acted as the final scene between Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), James Heller (William Devane) and the comatose (but still lovely) Audrey Raines (Kim Raver), this season would be winning Emmys again come September.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. And when Jack whispered to Audrey that he was at a "crossroads," he wasn't just talking about his character. 24 itself is at a crossroads.

It was a season that started off with a lot of promise. The first four episodes were great. The return of Jack from China--after 18 months in prison--in a trade deal with a terrorist. The suitcase nukes, one of which went off, killing 12,000 people. The death of Curtis Manning. The revelation that Graem (Paul McCrane), the shadowy figure behind President Charles Logan in season 5, was really Jack's brother. The introduction of Jack and Graem's father, Phillip Bauer, played by the great James Cromwell, first an upstanding and powerful businessman, soon to be revealed as the snake offering the apple behind it all.

And then it all went downhill. But from the first hour of day 6, there were problems. The horrible acting and miscasting of Regina King and Peter MacNicol. The unbelievable "promotion" of Wayne Palmer (DB Woodside) to President, whose acting was an impeachable offense. The wimpy and uneffective Ricky Schroder was introduced as a pseudo-Jack, when Curtis--or better yet, Tony Almeida--would have been better. A succession of new faces came to CTU, all of them annoying. For this we lost Edgar?

And the story meandered. As if the producers and writers realized how screwed up things were, President Palmer was injured. And brought back. And collapsed. And got better. And was finally consigned to a hospital bed, way, way, WAY off camera. Powers Boothe stepped in as Vice President Noah Daniels, instigating still another presidential power play that went on forever, like some sudden death overtime in a hockey game, only played by Ice Capades performers in slo-mo. Jack Bauer became a secondary character, seen, in some episodes, in less than half the show. This may have always been the case, in each and every season, but with the lack of compelling secondary characters--they killed them all, and the ones they didn't kill, like Chloe, they neutered--anytime Jack wasn't on screen, we might as well have been watching the commercials. Even the great Charles and Martha Logan were brought back to be absolutely squandered. Martha was reduced to a nutcase, Charles a born-again zealot. Whether or not Charles actually died from the stabbing inflicted by Martha, is yet to be seen, but the TV Guide promised return of a character long thought dead didn't materialize in the final two hours.

So many opportunities to do great things, so much of it just pissed away. We can only hope that this was just an off-year, that next year they'll be back in full fighting form. Jack Bauer left Heller's house tonight and walked out into the dawn, gun in hand, and stood looking out over the Pacific Palisades. He looked at the cliff below and the camera showed his face, close-up, tight and conflicted, wondering what comes next. That's what we're all wondering. What comes next? Tune in January and find out.

KA-CHUNK: Day 6, Hour 22

(Reader discretion is advised. This post contains spoilers. If you haven't already seen Monday night's episode of 24, stop reading and go watch it NOW. Or don't. I really don't think it matters anymore. At least not until January 2008.)

How much more fun would tonight's episode (once again, brought to you by Cisco TelePresence™) have been if that was Tony--or Curtis--running around shooting up the warehouse with Jack instead of Ricky Schroder?

Oh, Lord...please let it end. Next week at this time, it'll all be over.

KA-CHUNK Extra!

According to an article in the current issue of TV Guide, before this season of 24 ends someone previously thought to be dead will return. And as much as I'd love it to be Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard), after careful consideration my money has to go with Sherry Palmer (played by the wonderful Penny Johnson).

Supposedly killed in Season 3 of the show, no one ever really came out and said she was dead. We saw her shot. We saw her body lying on the floor. In Season 4, David Palmer was no longer president, and he had not run for a second term due to the "scandal." And that's all I remember being said.

I think somewhere on the final night of this season (Monday, May 21 with two episodes back-to-back), Sherry will be back. I don't know what her connection is to this year's meandering and tedious storyline.

But boy, I sure hope I'm wrong and it's Tony instead.

KA-CHUNK: Day 6, Hour 21

(Reader discretion is advised. This post contains spoilers. If you haven't already seen Monday night's episode of 24, stop reading and go watch it NOW.)

There I was standing in the Ralphs checkout line yesterday, paging through the TV Guide with the Kiefer Sutherland cover. The focus of the issue was the season-enders coming up in the next few weeks. And since I was in the super-speedy 10 items or less line, I could only skim it. One thing popped out like a sore thumb: Another major character will be killed before the season ends.

Then tonight they blew a hole in Milo Pressman's head, and I thought big fucking deal.

Yeah. No great loss. Pressman (played by Eric Balfour) was in an early 24 season and came back this year. His short and unpleasant tour of duty in CTU was marked by a romance with acting CTU head Nadia, which, in tonight's episode, reached the height of stupidity. Nadia was flagged as a potential hostile, due to her ethnicity and then tortured by Doyle (Ricky Schroder) when it looked like CTU had still another mole (GASP!). Then Doyle apologized and they got all chummy, but in the meantime, Nadia and Milo were, like, all kissy-face, and totally mackin' on each other and then, like, Milo like got SUPER p-o'ed at Nadia, 'cause she was like, kinda into Doyle, you know? So, like tonight, Milo said he was down with Nadia being into Doyle, and that's where it ended before he was, like, shot in the head.

Thank God.

I'm waiting for the season of 24 when two CTU co-workers meet, fall in love, get married and have two kids during the course of one season. Yeah. One 24-hour day. Do they think we don't remember this shit?

Anyway, Fox keeps teasing that there's two more episodes, but anyone with even 3rd grade math skills (like me) knows that there's three episodes left, one next Monday (May 14) and two on the following Monday (May 21). Then we can all breathe easy again, since our long personal nightmare will be over.

Oh, yeah, Jack's father (James Cromwell) is back.

KA-CHUNK: Day 6, Hour 20

(Reader discretion is advised. This post contains spoilers. If you haven't already seen Monday night's episode of 24, stop reading and go watch it NOW.)

Looking back on it all, I remember the first moment I had an inkling that there was something different--BAD different--about this season of 24 (brought to you by Cisco Systems, Inc.: Introducing TelePresence). It was that incredibly smarmy voice-over, different from last season, telling us, warning us, teasing us, that yes, indeedy: VIEWER DISCRETION (pause for effect) IS ADVISED.

Either my hearing is going, or I could have sworn I heard two major line malfunctions tonight: Nadia introducing Ricky Schroder as Agent BOYLE (it's Doyle), and the evil psychiatrist telling Jack, "I'm Jack Bauer," instead of "You're Jack Bauer." It could be my aged hearing (don't by the aids from an ad in the back of the Readers' Digest, folks), but that's what I heard, and I'm sticking to it.

Beyond that, there was one flash of brilliance tonight, one scene that almost made this season of 24 (brought to you by Cisco Systems, Inc.: Introducing TelePresence) tolerable, if not enjoyable. William Devane (aging noticeably in the past year) telling Jack to stay away from Audrey. And the show ending with him saying, "You're cursed, Jack. Everything you touch dies." Now THAT was a moment.

But beyond that one moment in an episode that introduced still more useless plot twists, I can't shake this dream I have. That the last two minutes of this awful, awful season of 24 (brought to you by Cisco Systems, Inc.: Introducing TelePresence)--a season that had moments of promise, especially in its first five or six episodes, all pissed away like all the writers and producers were peeing off a pier into the Pacific Ocean, in unison--starts with a black screen. The sound of a prison door, slamming. Heels on concrete, fast, clipped, urgent. A voice. "Jack." Again. Louder. More forceful. "JACK." Eyes opening slowly and we see HER from his point of view, Audrey leaning over him, finally finding him in the Chinese prison, coming to bring him home. One gasped response, "Audrey."

Fade to black.

Start over next season. Forget this one. I know I will.

KA-CHUNK: Day 6, Hour 19

(Reader discretion is advised. This post contains spoilers. If you haven't already seen Monday night's episode of 24, stop reading and go watch it NOW.)

It may just be me, but this season of 24 still has this other-worldly, almost dreamlike quality to it. Unfortunately, "quality" is almost a reverse pun...because it's still a troubled storyline.

I think that hit home for me tonight when Jack finally came face-to-face with Audrey and it was a less than satisfying reunion. It should have been a moment, but it wasn't, and it's easy to understand why the writers and producers didn't allow it to be a moment, but I still feel robbed. I'm guessing that moment will come at some point, because right now, dear readers, Audrey appears to be bug-fuck crazy.

Yeah. Evidently she didn't have the will Jack did and the Chinese broke her while in custody. It kind of doesn't jibe with her quick, earlier appearances, and I'm starting to suspect a "Manchurian Candidate" kind of thing developing here, where Audrey is more--or less--than what she appears to be. Even when that moment comes--and, of course, the moment I'm talking about is when she and Jack have that big scene where she recognizes him and realizes he's still alive--I have a sneaking suspicion that all is still not going to be right. It seems that 24, the one show in which you never knew what was going to happen has finally become the one show where everyone, sooner or later, meets their demise. It could be out and out death, or it could be the end of a career, like we saw tonight with Bill Buchanan. Along with Chloe and--for that matter--Wayne Palmer, one of the few recurring characters left in the series, Buchanan lost his job when his wife, Karen Hayes, the head of Homeland Security, had to fire him. There's only one reason for this: To set up the return of another old character as the acting head of CTU, one that will complicate matters even more--or make them easier--where Audrey is concerned. We'll find out who that is next week, I reckon.

I'm beginning to hope, more and more, that the final scene of this season is a bucket of ice-cold water being poured over Jack's head in a Chinese prison, that it was all some elaborate dream, gone by in the blink of 24 seconds, instead of 24 hours. He's still in prison and next year, Audrey, Curtis Manning and the not dead Tony Almeida come to break him out. And they hire Mandy as back-up. And Wayne and Sherry Palmer foot the bill for the mission. Hey...it's a better dream than this season's nightmare.

We want a do-over.

KA-CHUNK: Day 6, Hour 18

(Reader discretion is advised. This post contains spoilers. If you haven't already seen Monday night's episode of 24, stop reading and go watch it NOW.)

Not much to say this evening, other than 24 finally seems to be back on track.

With 6 episodes again--the final quarter--Jack has gone rogue! (Um...when has he NOT been rogue in the past five seasons?) President Palmer had a stroke. VP Daniels is back in power, and poor Rick Schroder is stuck holding his own by a fence while Jack runs off to save Audrey. Yes. This time it's personal.

Daniels' first order of business as he takes over the Oval Office--besides schtupping his chief of staff on the ol' presidential desk, if you know what I mean--is to rescind Wayne Palmer's executive order allowing Jack to save Audrey, with the critical suitcase nuke bomb circuit board Chang wants in return for her freedom. So we get a two-fer this season: Jack already killed arch-villain Fayed, now he gets a chance to get Chang, the man who imprisoned and tortured him for almost two years.

My, but it's been a busy day.