24: Thumbs Down!

Pre-show rant: Man, I need 24 to be good tonight. Sunday's Vikings game was soooo disappointing. I'm hoping for at least one interrogation for every Favre interception (2), and one kill for Jack for every Vikings fumble (6). I don't know what Jack can do to make me feel better for that 12 men on the field penalty. Maybe if one of the terrorists looks like coach Brad Childress and Jack shoots him 11 times (Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!) then says, "THAT'S ELEVEN!", then shoots him again (Blam!) and says, "THAT'S TWELVE!" Okay, now that I've got that off my chest,

Previously, on 24...

We immediately find out that Renee didn't saw off the guy's entire hand, just his thumb (The Fonz says, "Ayyyy"). Jack says, "You so crazy Renee" and Renee says, "nuh uh!" Then we get a whole bunch of super boring crap. The peace treaty is going sour, Hassan is having marital issues, CTU lady turns out to be an ex-con and her old boyfriend wants her to steal pin numbers. BORRRRINGGG! Remember when 24 used to be about Jack Bauer? Those were better times.

Hassan's brother is trying to buy uranium from the Russians, and agrees to pay them. "When can you deliver the uranium?" "Five hours." In 7-plus seasons of watching 24, I never stop cracking up whenever anyone gives a time estimate. "Chloe, I need the schematics, when will you have them?" "In 5 minutes and 7 seconds, Jack!" Wow, that's ... that's really specific. Why didn't you just say "In 5 minutes"? Anyway, the uranium will be delivered in 5 hours (aka, March).

I've already talked about how I loathe the CTU fiancee story, but at least now I can point out more of why it's so stupid. She's an ex-con, accessory to murder, who's served her time and now does data processing for CTU. CTU doesn't know about her past. BUT, Renee was beat up by Vladimir and the FBI tried to cover up her back story, and Chloe found that hidden FBI info pretty darn quickly. Does CTU do any background checks on their internal employees? Good lord, every other season SOMEONE in CTU is a spy/mole/bad guy. You really think they don't know about her past? Job interview: "So, Dana, tell me about yourself." "Dana, who's Dana? I'm Jenn.. I mean, YEAH, I'm Dana. Riiight. Um... yeah, I was a really good data person." "There's nothing on your resume here. Where were you the last 5 years?" "Uh... not in prison?" "Great, you're hired!"

Disappointment continued with Joseph (David Anders), the Russian bad guy's son. He's all concerned about his brother who got radiation sickness, and instead of keeping him hidden like daddy wants, he's going to take his brother to a hospital. (Obvious prediction: This will ultimately be how Jack and Renee find and stop the bad guys). It also means that David Anders really won't be that bad of a bad guy. He'll threaten a doctor to save his brother, but he won't be a major evil henchman like I had hoped.

At this point you're probably thinking, Ben, why aren't you telling us about Jack and Renee? This is what I was asking FOX pretty much the whole show too. Renee patches up Seeya's thumb and wants him to take her to Vladimir. No interrogation. Boo. Incidentally, if you're a whiny Russian henchman, and your name is "See-ya", what are the odds that you're going to live for much longer? Who out there thinks Seeya is going to live? Anyone? Anyone? No? Didn't think so.

Seeya takes Renee to Vlad, Vlad kills Seeya, Jack says "DAMMIT", Vlad threatens to kill Renee, Jack asks Chloe for ground support, Chloe says they'll be there in "2 minutes and 10 seconds" (YES! Why does that make me laugh so much?), Jack says "DAMMIT" and the Vlad decides to believe Renee and now she's undercover again. And that's it. That's all we got. Sigh.

Tonight's kill count:
Bad guys: 1 (SEE YA!)

What. The. Fuck.

Yeah, I thought I used up all my swears during the Vikings game, but turns out I still had at least one more in me. One kill? ONE? Jack stays put with 3 kills. Bad guys go +1 and now have 13. Our projected death toll is plummeting, and is now at an optimistic 77 kills. Ugh. Seeya!

Won't you fly high free bird? Yeah.

Dear Internet,
Just finished watching Conan's last Tonight Show, and was happy to see Beck on stage for "Free Bird". Tonight Beck was a little overshadowed by Will Ferrell's cowbell, but I remember ages ago (2002!) when Beck had an appearance on the Late Show and he had Ted Danson join the band for "Lost Cause". They wrapped Ted Danson in a blanket and he played the triangle.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7l3pj_beck-lost-cause-with-the-flaming-li_music

Incidentally, if you Google "Ted Danson, Beck", you get like a million hits for the show "Becker". And Sea Change is my favorite album ever.

24: Adventures in Babysitting

Previously, on 24...

Premiere week continues and the killing spree has slowed to a crawl. Hopefully these first four hours have given us all the setup we need, and Jack can get his groove back. Tonight Hassan was close to being assassinated, but was saved by agent Ortiz. I feel pretty good about my prediction of Hassan surviving the season now. I knew they'd either kill him right away and get into the bigger plot point, or save him right away and get into the bigger plot point. In this case, assassination averted, and Jack must now save the world from nuclear war. Again.

Renee Walker is back from last season, and she's supposedly gone a bit crazy since we've last seen her. Good. As soon as she got of the helicopter I was hopeful for some good torture scenes. She was queasy about Jack's methods last year, and that was annoying, but if she's gone crazy since then maybe she and Jack can double the interrogation fun. Good cop, bad cop routine? I don't think so. I can't wait.

I think the main story with Jack and Renee will be pretty good. We learn that she was an undercover spy looking for the evil Russians known as "Red Square". Ooooh, I hate them already. She's upset with Jack right now for tagging along on her mission, and even calls him her babysitter. Hmmm, I'm noticing a disturbing theme here. Freddy Prinze Jr. saves Hassan, but they've sidelined him back at CTU for the time being. What I dislike greatly is the side story with the engaged CTU lady's secret past. I have no hope for that becoming interesting in any way, and I want her to be killed off pronto.

I like the addition of David Anders as a Russian baddie. He was only in there today for a minute, but I remembered him from Heroes as Takezo Kensei/Adam Monroe. I thought he was pretty good in that, even though I stopped watching Heroes shortly after season 2. I just remember Hiro's line back then we he said, "The hero of Japan is... Gaijin?!" and Kensei was basically just saving Japan to pick up chicks. I'm guessing he'll drop quite a few people in his role as a Russian henchman.

Highlight of the night was Renee chopping off a Russian guy's hand with a grinder. FAN-TASTIC! Looks like Renee's not squeemish anymore! This is more of what I wanted from Renee, but I admit I didn't expect her to just march in and saw off her comrade's hand. That's where the episode concluded, and the Russian guy wasn't dead yet, so looks like we're in for some good ol' interrogation to kick off next week.

Tonight's kill count was pretty low.
Bad guys: 5 (2 in the carbomb, 1 cop knifed by Hassan's bro, cop and wife killed by Davros)
Jack: 1 (Davros)

So that's 3 kills total for Jack, 12 total for the bad guys. Only 3 kills in 4 hours for Jack? 15 kills total to lower our projection to 90 kills for the entire season? TWO BABYSITTING JOBS?? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE???

24: Grandpa Jack is Back!

Previously, on 24...

Season 8 is active, and I'm ready! We immediately have 2 bodies, and a sniper is trying to take down someone else, and that guy does get shot while hijacking a car, but he'll be okay for now because he has to get information to Jack, who we find... babysitting. Ugh. Jack's going to have to wicked interrogate someone later to make up for this.

Here are my thoughts so far on the new season:
I like that they have Anil Kapoor (from Slumdog Millionaire) as President Hassan. I predict he'll live. I don't like that they've added Freddy Prince Jr. as a field agent. He's a terrible actor, and doesn't look anything close to as bad ass as any of the field agents they've had during 24's run. His character, agent Cole Ortiz, is engaged to someone in CTU with a mysterious past. My guess is that she'll die, he'll cry, and Jack will say "DAMMIT" and Ortiz will have to toughen up to help save the day. I'm happy there's no more Janeane Garofalo, and hopefully madame president won't play as big a role this year- I found those two to be extremely annoying last year.

Kind of a weak setup to get Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub) involved this year. Her husband Morris lost his job so she was forced to take a job at CTU NY, but she's all slow and incompetent there, so they just let her work with Jack. How could Morris lose his job and not find a new one, and how could Chloe not be good at her job anymore, and what kind of money does CTU pay anyway? Weak, but I'm okay with it because I like Chloe on Jack's team, and I like her complete lack of social skills. (Mary Lynn Rujskub is actually pretty funny herself. She was on Conan just last week).

I liked it when they first mentioned Jack Bauer at CTU, and Arlo said, "Who's Jack Bauer?" WHAT? Shouldn't Jack Bauer be in the CTU handbook? Shouldn't Jack Bauer BE the CTU handbook?! C'Mon!

An early "O, Jeez" moment came when Kim had to convince Jack to fight terror again. "If you don't save the day, you'll never be able to live with yourself!" Yeah, he's stopped a drug cartel, multiple presidential assassinations, biological warfare (twice), and nuclear warfare (twice), and he won't be able to hold his head high if he decides to skip this one.

Only one interrogation scene today, and that was between Director Hastings and the reporter chick. Hastings did say "tell me the truth", but he didn't yell "TELL ME THE TRUTH!!" Big difference. She's not going to be tortured or have anything interesting to add. If Jack was there she'd confess to everything, but this one will end up just being a waste of time.

The highlights of the show were the rocket launcher to blow up the helicopter, and Jack taking out the two guys by throwing one over the railing and hitting the other one in the guts with an axe. YES! Jack also stopped Victor's bleeding by using a dirty dumpster mattress, but then Victor died a minute later, which brings us to today's death tally:

Bad guys: 7 (Manny, Maurice, Victor, 2 cops, 2 CTU agents)
Jack: 2 (2 bad guys)

9 dead during the 2 hr premiere. At this rate we'll end up with a paltry 108 kills. Could be a slow season, but then again, Jack is a grandpa now.

TELL ME THE TRUTH! (Do these pants make me look "bad ass"?)

There are many things I am looking forward to this weekend. Vikings football, Ultimate Frisbee, and the premiere of the new season of 24. I love that show. It's so stupid and awesome, with yelling and torture and Jack Bauer punching terrorists while yelling. It's pretty much the perfect thing to watch after a dreaded Monday workday. So I think I'm going to have a weekly 24 blog post, recapping all the action and kill counts and who I think will die and so forth. I plan on continuing my regular weekly posts too. Bonus.

So far I think my favorite season of 24 was season 3. After last season wrapped up I borrowed that season on DVD to watch again (I needed to watch a good season of 24 after last year's AWFUL season!) I open up the DVD box and see a picture of Jack with the CTU team. They all look serious and determined, ready to take on any possible threat to America's safety. They all share the same look that says, "You wanna mess with us? With US?! I didn't think so!" I almost cautiously put the DVD box down and slowly backed away.

Then I unfold the box set and see this:


What the? Oh good lord. Are you kidding me? What is this, Jack Bauer's high school senior photo? Seriously, I'm pretty sure my older sister had a pose just like this for her senior picture, but even she looked more intimidating than Jack Bauer does here. It looks like Jack fell into the Gap. Is he going to fight the war on terror by looking sensitive? If I were a terrorist and I saw this guy was my opposition, I'd laugh my ass off, and then kick him and declare victory. Epic Fail, DVD photo person! We don't want the denim defender. We want this guy:


YES! He's got the American flag ON HIS FACE! U.S.A! U.S.A!

The Future, Conan?

I watched Conan last night and literally applauded every time he made a joke about NBC. If you haven't heard, NBC is cancelling the Jay Leno show and is planning on moving him back into Conan's Tonight Show timeslot. Conan then might be bumped back to sometime after Jay or possible sometime after Jimmy Fallon. I think Jay Leno is terrible, I think Conan is hilarious, and I think NBC is crap for taking the Tonight Show time away from Conan. (I'm old, I can't stay up past midnight to watch Conan!)

Conan's entire show Monday night was full of jokes reacting to the news that he'd be bumped, and I applauded not only because they were funny, but because he's able to tell off his boss/company ("Hooray! Boo for work!"). My dad has said that to succeed in business you need to be tall and have great hair. Conan is tall and has great hair, and even he is getting screwed by work these days. For whatever reason, I'm not depressed by this. I actually find it somewhat comforting.

Maybe it's a "misery loves company" mentality. Hey, look, I'm not the only one who gets dumped on at work from time to time. My friend made a similar note of this when the whole Tiger Woods scandal went down. You're looking at a guy who's ridiculously talented on the golf course, making a billion dollars through endorsements and is married to a model, and if things are going sour for him, it somehow makes life a little more tolerable for me.

Anyway, it's fun to hear Conan sound off about his issues with work. Sometimes I'd like to tell a few people what I'm really thinking, but I don't think I ever actually would. Even if I won the lottery and could quit my job, I seriously doubt I'd burn any bridges on my way out. Sometimes you just need to shrug and laugh and carry on, and I'm enjoying the way Conan's doing that (while it lasts).

MY EYES! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!

So far, not much new in this New Year. I kicked off the year seeing Avatar with the family, and the film was better than I anticipated. I'm glad I went in with low expectations, despite everyone else telling me it was the greatest thing ever. I'm not going to write up a big review like I did with Sherlock Holmes, mainly because I saw Holmes the day after it came out and waited awhile before seeing Avatar. Avatar had plenty of silly plot points, it was long and my butt was getting sore near the end, but overall it I enjoyed the spectacle and had a fun experience.

My favorite part was that Mom didn't go blind. This is the packaging from the 3D glasses:

After the show, Mom wanted to keep the glasses. "Mom, you're supposed to throw those in the 3D glasses recycling bin." At first she wanted them for when Avatar comes out in 3D on DVD, or for a souvineer for her scrapbook. We tried to tell Mom that she really didn't need to keep them, and she countered with: "Well, I can just use them as sunglasses!" Entire rest of the family: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"