24 Twenty-Four

Last year I watched th first season of 24 (kiefer, et al) on DVD because I had to work the evenings it was on.

Yesterday I watched the first 8 episodes of season 2.

It is brutal. I can't see how anyone could have watched this show without the fast forward control. There are so many ridiculous plot contrivances used in this show that it is almost unbearable. Convenient flat tires, people who are unable to act according to the laws of normal human nature for no other reason than the show would end prematurely before the alloted 24 hours. So many stupid decisions that result in stupid things. So much it was unbearable.

I wrote an entry on mydea.ca after watching season 1 with my ideas for season two. Obviously they did not take my advice.

Maybe the show wasn't meant to be watched in 24 straight hours. Spare me the misery. My firend and life partner screamed at the TV, screamed at me (and hit me continually on the right shoulder) because having only one TV and one living room, I in a way forced her to watch it.

How to make 24 a better (or at least watchable) show
or 5 rules for positively watchable narrative development

1. Stupid decisions, no matter how you look at them remain stupid decisions and should not result in positive plot development.
2. Large cities have too many people in them for the same people to run in to each other multiple times, especially when one of those people is trying their hardest to allude the other. When the same person continues to run into the very person they are trying to avoid every time they turn a corner, the viewer tends to think the story is stupid.
3. The choices characters make need to be logical steps based in reality not stupid steps based on stupidy.
4. Random acts of nature causing further story developments are stupid and are therefore stupid.
5. Never write a show with 2-hours worth of story and then use ill-timed flat tires, random meetings in large cities, stupid decisions and random acts of nature to draw the story out into 24 hours. This is stupid.

No one forced me to watch it, i'm just a poor excuse for a man looking for a better excuse for television.