24 kickstarted its long-delayed seventh season last night with the first two hours of its four-hour premiere. Usually the four hours are somewhat self-contained and highly action-packed. As many flaws as season 6 had (and it did have many), it delivered a kick-ass opener with Jack biting a guy's neck, Jack kicking a terrorist out of a subway car, a nuclear explosion, and Jack killing Curtis.Last night's two-hour opener started out in the same spirit, with a suspenseful car crash and kidnapping of engineer Latham (John Billingsley) by risen-from-the-dead Tony Almeida and his nameless terrorist cronies. But for the next hour and 55 minutes, action largely gave way to exposition, as all the many storylines were set up and all the many new characters were introduced.
To make up for last season's failures, the writers wiped the slate clean with a new location and a whole new cast of characters. But while CTU may be disbanded, Jack's new FBI home might as well be its less popular identical twin. Chloe has given way to Janeane Garofalo's socially awkward techie. Rhys Coiro's analyst is basically the same character Zachary Quinto played in season 3. And while their boss could transform into the next Bill Buchanan or George Mason, for now he's just boring.
There are a couple of new additions who might pull their weight. Jack's FBI partner Renee lets Jack do his thing and can take down 300 pound guys in 3 seconds, so she can stay. President Allison Taylor seems to follow President Roslin (Battlestar Galactica)'s playbook on how to be a badass female president, but she needs better material than a lame justification for the war in Iraq. Her husband drags things down further with the investigation of his son's death. We know from Redemption that his son was killed by Jon Voight's minions, but that doesn't make watching him threaten hot brokers any more fun.
Of course, 24 is the Jack Bauer Show, so the supporting players are just there to help and hinder his terrorist hunt. But, as I asked in Redemption, who is Jack Bauer? He's been put through such ridiculousness over the course of the series that any humanity in him has long since seeped out. His former friendship with Tony gives him some connection to this season's stories, but he mostly answers everything with, "I don't care." Yeah, he got to threaten a guy with a pen, but these first two hours showed very little of Jack Bauer being awesome and a whole lot of him justifying torture. We don't watch 24 for serious political discourse. It's a superhero show for the War on Terror. Lighten up and kill some terrorists.
As for Tony, he had probably the worst send-off in 24 history (and there's been a lot). But while it's nice to have him back, a lame villain in a goatee does not seem worthy of the Tony Almeida we all knew and loved. I'm hopeful that his early capture last night means there's a better explanation for his actions, and maybe he will team up with Jack Bauer once more to save the day. Cause Tony just doesn't seem to work as a villain, even if he has the motivation. Also, the vague terrorist plot taken from various Die Hard movies isn't holding up to terror threats of the past. Maybe once everything comes together a little better we'll start to see the 24 of old. Tonight seems like a good time to start.
No comments:
Post a Comment