Monday, May 05, 2014

SPOILER ALERT - 24 - SPOILER ALERT

Really, I mean it.

Go away.

Don't read any further.

If you do and you see something you didn't want to see, it's your own fault.

You were warned.











Random thoughts about tonight's 24 reboot:

- It took Jack not quite 109 minutes to get shot. He's slowing down.

- In spite of that, Mr. Sutherland is aging well. Though at one point in the first hour, he actually gave someone a look that was pure, vintage crazy-eyes Donald Sutherland. The apple doesn't fall far.

- Kim Raver is still as lovely as ever. But her character, Audrey Heller, still has terrible taste in husbands.

- I adore William Devane. It irritates me to no end that they've given his character some sort of illness - early onset Alzheimer's? I already miss the sharp-as-a-tack, wonderfully snarky Heller.

- We got a nice loud "dammit!" from Jack, but not until the end of the second hour, and while Chloe was with him, it wasn't actually directed at her. Again, Jack is slowing down.

- Speaking of Chloe - good heavens. Could they have made her look worse? By the way, the eighties called, and they want their fingerless gloves back.

- Totally saw the "Russian" girl coming. Her on screen mom is the actress who played Catelyn in Game of Thrones. At least she found work right after that role, um, died...

- Interesting that they set this in London, where you can't fart without CCTV picking it up, in stereo and from at least three different angles.

- Stephen Fry as the British P.M.? Really?

Overall, it was pretty good. Same frenetic pace, same misunderstanding of Jack's motives (and he's in too much of a hurry all the time to give any explanation beyond the cryptic). The split screen thing was gently used, which is a good thing, as it looked a bit dated. I understand they will be cheating a bit on the time aspect, cutting out many of the travel sequences and condensing the full 24 hours into just 12 hours of television.

It will be interesting to see if the show is as successful now as it was in its initial run just after the events of 9/11. At it's core, the show is about a man who deeply, passionately, sacrificially loves this country. That character hit a deep core in the viewers in the early years of this century; will it do the same in our current anti-patriot atmosphere?

1 comment:

Francesca Watson said...

I used to love William Devane ("Marathon Man" - hello??) but he crossed over into full-on creepy with those gold commercials. "And I just love the way gold feels...." Umm, TMI, dude. TMI.