Even though I have every reason not to, I am enjoying this season of "24." (SPOILERS START NOW!) They're repeating themselves just blatantly now- Jack breaking into another foreign consulate? Another presidential assassination attempt? Haven't there been more attempted presidential killings in the six years of "24" than in the entirety of American history put together?
Still, the show is exciting, the tension is still there, and Jack Bauer remains one of the great action heroes of all time. The "WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR"/"TELL ME WHERE THE BOMB IS" schtick has never gotten old, and probably never will.
However, a few things don't quite make sense- the public never found out about Logan's treachery? There's no Dana Priest in their world? Jack's evil brother was connected to both last year's evil Russian separatists and this year's evil Russian ultra-nationalists. How could the two possibly be on the same side? And Wayne Palmer, by far, is the worst president in the show's history. Why not Ray Wise, who was the veep last season?
Then, there's the politics, which are getting more attention than ever this year. No, "24" is not a "conservative" show at this point, not unless you consider the gleeful endorsement of torture to be a central tenant of conservatism (It wasn't prior to Bush-Cheney, and probably never will be again after.) The show clearly has gone back and forth politically, with plots resting at various times on liberal or conservative assumptions.
I say this as a liberal, but when "24" gets all "liberal" on us, it can be just as fuzzy-headed and simplistic as the worst of Paul Haggis. Take Season 2: The first half (stopping a nuclear bomb) was awesome. The second half (stopping an EVIL consortium of oil interests from starting a war) was not quite so awesome, probably because the villains may as well have had "Halliburton" tatooed on their foreheads.
This year, I have a specific problem: the character of Assad. He is long time, well-known terrorist leader who has carried out numerous attacks all over the world in the name of jihad, sort of a fictional version of Osama Bin Laden. Now, he has renounced violence and vowed to "negotiate" and "pursue his goals peacefully." We're also supposed to believe that Assad is so powerful in the terrorist world that he can call off future attacks all by himself.
What's left not articulated is- what are those goals? We're given no indication that he's not still a radical Islamist, only that he has renounced violence. So what exactly is it that he's pursuing peacefully- worldwide sharia law? Head scarves for everyone? No more rights for women or gays? The end of the state of Israel?
All of those things, I'd imagine, are off the table were Assad to be negotiating with an American government. And besides- if Bin Laden/Assad were to renounce violence, come to the U.S., meet with the president, and call for an end to terrorism, I can't imagine most terrorists would follow his heed. More likely, they'd brand him a traitor and an infidel and issue a fatwa calling for his death.
Yet all season long, anyone who has expressed skepticism about Assad has been considered... intolerant, if not a pure villain. You figure it out. At any rate, after this week (SPOILER!) he's dead, so it no longer matters.