24: Season 6

[Hero*]

Anyone else notice that Jack Bauer's brother, Graham, was in the last season of 24 as well working to push the President around from his little office or whatever it was?

OMG REALLY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? sorry.

[WuTang420]

episode 6 is out somehow. i ofc cant discuss where to get it, but its out there, dl at 70% right now, ill tell ya how it is

[Ewan]

Ep 6 was on TV in the US last night, that's the episode they are talking about.

[WuTang420]

roflmao yeah i just realized that. ive had the flu and been forced to cover some dumbasses shifts at work anyways, im about a week behind in general atm

[DoTheFandango]

Anyone else notice that Jack Bauer's brother, Graham, was in the last season of 24 as well working to push the President around from his little office or whatever it was?

That's the point.

[D1st0rt]

ya he was on the phone and i was like HOYL SHT THAT DUDE IS JACKS BROTHER!?!!??!?!!

I think its spelled Graem too, what a loser

[ZeUs!!]

Let's be frank here: 24 has lost its mind. The hinges were always loose, but this sixth series is something else. It opened last week with Jack mute, scarred and bearded following months of torture in a secret Chinese prison. The man could scarcely walk. Two hours later he was cheerfully high-kicking a suicide bomber out the back of a train.

Nuts. But somehow it all seemed, to use a bit of internet parlance, a bit "meh". Jack's dealt with worse threats, right? Wrong. By the end of this week's two-hour televisual brain rape, you'll have trouble sleeping.

Aghast at the sheer swivel-eyed horror of the new episodes, several US commentators have condemned the show as a work of Neo-Con propaganda that promotes torture as a viable tool in the war against terrorism. It's hard to disagree. When 24 first began, Jack used torture as a shocking last resort, dabbling only occasionally, like an ex-smoker treating himself to a cigar on his birthday. These days, if Jack needs a piss, he'll torture anyone who might be able to tell him where the nearest bog is. Every other scene seems to run like this:

Jack (twisting screwdriver into waiter's tear duct): "First on the left, or first on the right? TELL ME WHERE THE JOHN IS!"

Waiter: "AUUGHHH left! It's on the left!"

Jack: "About time" (nonchalantly shears waiter's face off with glass shard and nips off for a piss).

So far, so brutal. But the show has developed another, almost more disturbing signature move: the desperate "against-my-will-kill" performed by an average Joe.

In season five, a grisly plot twist saw a young, quivering naval engineer being forced by circumstance to slit a terrorist's throat while Jack whispered gruff encouragement over the phone. This time round, a blameless civilian dad is coerced into battering a man to death with his bare hands. At this rate, by season seven, there'll be a convoluted storyline in which a weeping professor of ethics MUST bite the heads off 10 babies IN THE NEXT TWO MINUTES or MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS WILL DIE.

Speaking of death, gleefully right-wing co-creator Joel Surnow calls the season six terrorist threat "smaller and more real" than before. He's wrong on both counts. Instead, it seems to consist of endless Space Invader waves of sharp-suited suicide bombers, overseen by a furious Middle East maniac who closely resembles a bald Dean Gaffney (which goes some way to explaining his fury).

Jack, meanwhile, has teamed up with a preposterous buddy-movie version of Osama Bin Laden; a ruthless jihadist leader who's suddenly decided to broker a peace deal - largely, it seems, so he and Jack can enjoy absurd getting-to-know-you banter as they drive from one bloodbath to the next.

Final absurdity: David Palmer's younger brother Wayne is now president of the US. He's about 28- years-old, sports a shaved head and a goatee, and looks like he's just stepped off the set of an upmarket R&B video. His inauguration must've been awesome.

In short, 24 has become a spiralling, undisciplined caricature of itself: The Naked Gun with blood-curdling paranoia in place of jokes. This is no longer a knockabout drama serial. It's mad crypto fascist horror. You can still laugh at it, of course. But only just.

[Voth]

Instead of micro-analyzing every plot line, why not just watch it if it entertains you, and if not, don't watch it?

Also remember; very rarely are their realistic TV shows that are still entertaining. Just like in a lot of literature, you have to suspend disbelief, because there's way too many unbelievable plotlines and storylines that have been published to microanalyze them all.

Just enjoy it, or don't watch it.

[Sufficient]

I agree that the show is pretty ridiculous. I think it's to the extent that it makes the show less entertaining ... at least for me. And imo, Jack is a jack-ass (get it =D?). The first season sticks out as a lot more realistic and entertaining than the following (I'm in the middle of season 4 only).

[ZeUs!!]

Instead of micro-analyzing every plot line, why not just watch it if it entertains you, and if not, don't watch it?

Also remember; very rarely are their realistic TV shows that are still entertaining. Just like in a lot of literature, you have to suspend disbelief, because there's way too many unbelievable plotlines and storylines that have been published to microanalyze them all.

Just enjoy it, or don't watch it.

I think the gripe is not that the show is completely ridiculous, but that it is growing more ridiculous