24 EXPLODES: It must be said: the writers and producers of "24" have got balls of steel. In an age when movies are routinely pushed back months or years because their content might remind people a little too much of what's going on in the real world, the "24" team decided to make the centerpiece of its second season a plot by Middle Eastern terrorists to detonate a nuclear bomb in a major US city. And as the season has progressed, more and more details have been added to edge the story even closer to home:(Spoiler alert): A young, white, upper class American character, Walker-Lindh-like, was recruited to the terrorist cause. The terrorists may be supported by (unnamed) Middle Eastern governments. The agents raid a mosque in order to arrest a suspected terrorist. A plane is hijacked, and then it turns out the plot is to explode the nuke on a plane over the city. Then on tonight's episode the nuclear bomb actually exploded, in the California desert.
The "24" producers aren't simply trying to cash in on current anxiety about "the situation," nor are they making feeble, half-hearted attempts to insert terrorism into their plots in order to remain relevant, like "The West Wing" has been doing for the last two years. They're telling a tense, action-packed story, and doing so in a revolutionary manner. And while there may be logical and logistical errors all over the place, we somehow don't notice them while we're watching- and that's a mark of great storytelling.
"24" made its debut mere weeks after 9/11, and in its second season, rather than shy away from real-world issues, the show has confronted them head-on- always knowing, of course, that all it takes is one more real-life terrorist attack, and their show won't be broadcast again for a long, long time.
Despite its resemblance in more than one way to the abysmal Michael Bay film "Armageddon," tonight's "24" was full of thrills and chills- the biggest chill coming when the actual bomb exploded- and then another one, two minutes later, when the teaser for the 10:00 news told of the latest spy-plane skirmish in the very-nuclear-capable North Korea. They had to have seen that one coming...