So Long, Jack Bauer (For Now)
Most TV fans this week were consumed with the series finale of "Lost". As someone who didn't make it very far past the first episode, I had only a passing interest in the ending of the show. But the fans of the show were extremely passionate in their opinions when Sunday's finale ended. Either you thought the show ended in mind-blowing fashion... or you thought it was terrible. But everyone I run into lately seems to say they feel a little empty inside now that "Lost" is over. Now I've obsessed about TV shows in the past, but I don't think I've ever been that upset to see a show go off the air... although I am still pissed at Fox for canceling "Reunion" after 8 episodes...
Anyway, speaking of Fox, "24" ended on Monday night, and that is a show I do care about. Although I came late to the party on "24" as I do with so many shows, I quickly became a big fan. Before I go any further, let me acknowledge that much of what happened on the show is far-fetched at best. For one thing, how many freakin' presidents have they gone through on that show? Presidents getting assassinated, resigning, all kinds of shenanigans in a show that ran for eight years (but is believed to have spanned a longer period of time in terms of narrative, say, 12-15 years). It pretty much reduced the United States to banana republic status with the revolving door of Oval Office occupants and the violent ways they tended to go down. And then, of course, there's Jack Bauer... who never eats anything, never goes to the bathroom, and can somehow find a way to get from one side of LA or NYC to the other in 15 minutes. And he gets shot, stabbed, beaten, and tortured every season and comes back for more.
And speaking of torture... yeah, "24" was the show that was held up by some on the Left as emblematic of the Bush administration's posture toward terror suspects. And I'm really surprised they didn't draw howls of condemnation for the way Bauer went about his business in the final episodes, leaving a path of dead bodies in his wake, using every instrument imaginable to torture a Russian operative (finally killing the guy by cutting the guy's guts out so he could retrieve a swallowed memory card... that still worked, amazingly), and showing how incredibly simple it is for one man in heavy body armor to take on an entire Secret Service detail. But I think by this point, the show had reached such cartoonish heights that nobody thinks one terrorist in full armor with a M-16 could realistically do something like that. Also, the NYPD was portrayed as laughably inept in the way they managed to bungle arrests.
But despite all of this, I was riveted, and quite honestly the extremes to which the one-man attack squad known as Bauer takes on the world (seemingly) and comes back for more has been the cathartic escape that always left me coming back for more. I didn't even like to see the previews or commercials for upcoming episodes because I wanted to be surprised by every twist and turn of the plot. When Jack used an axe to take a guy out early this season, I'm not gonna lie, I cheered. I actually got giddy down the home stretch realizing that Jack had completely snapped and was going postal on the world. Yes, I am a sick, sick man.
"24" was all about the fast-paced, non-stop action, with something always happening that was relevant to the main story in some way, shape, or form. Even when there was some sort of B storyline (usually involving Jack's daughter Kim), it was going to eventually have a major impact on the main plot. In Kim's case, it usually distracted Jack from getting the bad guys. As Bob Kevoian once said, "If it wasn't for Kim Bauer, they could call the show '16'." It was "real-time", it was chaotic, it was the world in danger and saved in 24 hours. Of course, real global events don't resolve themselves in 24 hours (just look at the present North Korea mess), but on this show, the bad guy was always found (usually in a severe plot twist) and taken out just in time. The ever-present clock letting us know exactly where we were, loudly counting the seconds in and out of every commercial break and at the end of each episode, unless a major character died in which case we got the "silent countdown" to end the episode.
Admittedly, "24" went out at the right time. The show probably peaked around Season 5 with the Russians and President Charles Logan serving as perfect adversaries and Bauer having to come out of hiding from faking his own death, which got him put on a slow boat to China at the end of the season. The following season gave us the "jump the shark" moment when a just-off-the-boat Jack can't get himself back together mentally in time to stop a nuclear bomb from taking out a Los Angeles suburb. After that, it became the gimmick seasons, the White House last year (including a terrorist commando raid on the seat of government), and this year New York City. With most of the original or most well-known cast members dead, you can't really go much farther. Also, speaking of Logan, they never resolved how he survived being attacked by his mentally unstable wife in Season 6. The last time we saw him, he was flatlining in the ambulance... then all of a sudden, he's back this season no worse for wear. Which gives me the feeling that even putting a gun to his chin and pulling the trigger won't stop him from coming back in the future.
Ah yes, the future. They left it open for the much-talked-about movie by having Jack escape U.S. and Russian law enforcement, presumably to Europe, where we're told the feature film will take place. As they had advance knowledge of the show ending, they were able to craft a stirring ending to the last episode, where (SPOILER ALERT) we see a wounded Jack saved at the last second from being killed by Logan's commandos, looking up at the drone camera floating above and saying goodbye to a teary-eyed Chloe O'Brian... and incidentally, who doesn't love Chloe? Forever snippy, always there for Jack, not above grabbing a gun and forcing the issue (or tasing a creeper in a hotel bar, like in Season 5). She is immortalized in 21st-century slang for not having "owned" a bad guy, but "Chlowned" him. Anyway, Chloe orders the drone feed cut off, so the last image we get is the video screen image of Jack fading to static, followed by a real countdown of 3, 2, 1, to the end of the series.
So there will be a movie and we're not really saying a final goodbye to Jack Bauer, but it was a satisfying ending to the show. No, I'm not feeling empty inside without Jack Bauer, but it is kinda annoying to have to keep finding new favorite shows to watch... this year alone we also lost "Heroes" and "Flash Forward", both excellent shows that couldn't hold an audience and met their maker too soon (the latter ending tonight). Ah well, TV is like that.
Anyway, speaking of Fox, "24" ended on Monday night, and that is a show I do care about. Although I came late to the party on "24" as I do with so many shows, I quickly became a big fan. Before I go any further, let me acknowledge that much of what happened on the show is far-fetched at best. For one thing, how many freakin' presidents have they gone through on that show? Presidents getting assassinated, resigning, all kinds of shenanigans in a show that ran for eight years (but is believed to have spanned a longer period of time in terms of narrative, say, 12-15 years). It pretty much reduced the United States to banana republic status with the revolving door of Oval Office occupants and the violent ways they tended to go down. And then, of course, there's Jack Bauer... who never eats anything, never goes to the bathroom, and can somehow find a way to get from one side of LA or NYC to the other in 15 minutes. And he gets shot, stabbed, beaten, and tortured every season and comes back for more.
And speaking of torture... yeah, "24" was the show that was held up by some on the Left as emblematic of the Bush administration's posture toward terror suspects. And I'm really surprised they didn't draw howls of condemnation for the way Bauer went about his business in the final episodes, leaving a path of dead bodies in his wake, using every instrument imaginable to torture a Russian operative (finally killing the guy by cutting the guy's guts out so he could retrieve a swallowed memory card... that still worked, amazingly), and showing how incredibly simple it is for one man in heavy body armor to take on an entire Secret Service detail. But I think by this point, the show had reached such cartoonish heights that nobody thinks one terrorist in full armor with a M-16 could realistically do something like that. Also, the NYPD was portrayed as laughably inept in the way they managed to bungle arrests.
But despite all of this, I was riveted, and quite honestly the extremes to which the one-man attack squad known as Bauer takes on the world (seemingly) and comes back for more has been the cathartic escape that always left me coming back for more. I didn't even like to see the previews or commercials for upcoming episodes because I wanted to be surprised by every twist and turn of the plot. When Jack used an axe to take a guy out early this season, I'm not gonna lie, I cheered. I actually got giddy down the home stretch realizing that Jack had completely snapped and was going postal on the world. Yes, I am a sick, sick man.
"24" was all about the fast-paced, non-stop action, with something always happening that was relevant to the main story in some way, shape, or form. Even when there was some sort of B storyline (usually involving Jack's daughter Kim), it was going to eventually have a major impact on the main plot. In Kim's case, it usually distracted Jack from getting the bad guys. As Bob Kevoian once said, "If it wasn't for Kim Bauer, they could call the show '16'." It was "real-time", it was chaotic, it was the world in danger and saved in 24 hours. Of course, real global events don't resolve themselves in 24 hours (just look at the present North Korea mess), but on this show, the bad guy was always found (usually in a severe plot twist) and taken out just in time. The ever-present clock letting us know exactly where we were, loudly counting the seconds in and out of every commercial break and at the end of each episode, unless a major character died in which case we got the "silent countdown" to end the episode.
Admittedly, "24" went out at the right time. The show probably peaked around Season 5 with the Russians and President Charles Logan serving as perfect adversaries and Bauer having to come out of hiding from faking his own death, which got him put on a slow boat to China at the end of the season. The following season gave us the "jump the shark" moment when a just-off-the-boat Jack can't get himself back together mentally in time to stop a nuclear bomb from taking out a Los Angeles suburb. After that, it became the gimmick seasons, the White House last year (including a terrorist commando raid on the seat of government), and this year New York City. With most of the original or most well-known cast members dead, you can't really go much farther. Also, speaking of Logan, they never resolved how he survived being attacked by his mentally unstable wife in Season 6. The last time we saw him, he was flatlining in the ambulance... then all of a sudden, he's back this season no worse for wear. Which gives me the feeling that even putting a gun to his chin and pulling the trigger won't stop him from coming back in the future.
Ah yes, the future. They left it open for the much-talked-about movie by having Jack escape U.S. and Russian law enforcement, presumably to Europe, where we're told the feature film will take place. As they had advance knowledge of the show ending, they were able to craft a stirring ending to the last episode, where (SPOILER ALERT) we see a wounded Jack saved at the last second from being killed by Logan's commandos, looking up at the drone camera floating above and saying goodbye to a teary-eyed Chloe O'Brian... and incidentally, who doesn't love Chloe? Forever snippy, always there for Jack, not above grabbing a gun and forcing the issue (or tasing a creeper in a hotel bar, like in Season 5). She is immortalized in 21st-century slang for not having "owned" a bad guy, but "Chlowned" him. Anyway, Chloe orders the drone feed cut off, so the last image we get is the video screen image of Jack fading to static, followed by a real countdown of 3, 2, 1, to the end of the series.
So there will be a movie and we're not really saying a final goodbye to Jack Bauer, but it was a satisfying ending to the show. No, I'm not feeling empty inside without Jack Bauer, but it is kinda annoying to have to keep finding new favorite shows to watch... this year alone we also lost "Heroes" and "Flash Forward", both excellent shows that couldn't hold an audience and met their maker too soon (the latter ending tonight). Ah well, TV is like that.
Labels: 24, television
posted by Dave | 1:52 PM
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