A very good premiere, no question about it. I like that they're finally getting the question of how Jack feels about all this torture stuff. Non-stop action, as usual, and some intriguing no characters. But, as usual with "24," a few quibbles (SPOILER WARNING FOR ALL):
- In the season's first hour, they pulled out Roger Ebert's old Fallacy of the Talking Killer. Nice of Fayed to tell Jack his entire evil plan, and then put him in a death machine that doesn't work. (The biting of the neck was a great kill for Jack, though.)
- Sorry, but I'm just not buying Kumar from "Harold and Kumar" as a terrorist. Unless they're taking him in the direction of fiction's first-ever stoner terrorist, but it doesn't look that way.
- How come the Islamic terrorists on "24" never look like Islamic terrorists in real life? They all have Western styles of dress, almost no beards, and no Islamic garb whatsoever. It may be because the world of "24" has sleeper cells all over America, while the real world seems to have next to none.
- The lifelong terrorist kingpin renounces violence, and gets every terror-supporting government to back him and negotiate with the West? Yea, right. If only it were that easy. And they're really running out of terrorist names- "Assad"? "Fayed"? Why not come up with a name that doesn't match the president of Syria, or Princess Di's boyfriend?
- And like anyone could get elected President of the United States if their sister worked for the Islamic Civil Rights Center (much less, both David Palmer and now Wayne.) And how come, Harry Lennix's unconvincing accent notwithstanding, the Islamic civil rights group didn't seem to have any actual Arab Muslims working for it?
But regardless, I'll still be glued to the TV tomorrow night, and for the next 22 Monday nights after that.
Posted by Stephen Silver at January 15, 2007 02:09 AMRegarding the names of the Muslim villains: Thus far the producers haven't had the balls (and I say this as a fan of the show) to use the most common name for terrorists throughout the world - Mohammed. It's like they don't want a fatwa issued against them or something.
Regarding presidential siblings: At age 28 you're too young to have an actual memory of Billy Carter. But surely you recall the cokehead / crooner Roger Clinton? And the securities-law (or was it S & L ?) challenged Neil Bush? In any event, in this regard Sandra Palmer is WELL within the bounds of credibility. Also see Barack Hussein Obama and Keith Ellison.
Regarding no sleeper cells in America: The 9/11 attackers all lived (with some attending flight school) in this country for some period of time before the attack. It is, to be kind, wishful thinking that no more such individuals are now present on American soil.
Posted by: Benedict at January 16, 2007 01:23 PM