Mourning my once favorite show
24 began its seventh season a few weeks ago, after having not been on the air at all last year because of the writer's strike. I've been watching it and I have to say I'm really disappointed. We're six episodes in, and I've not been able to get into it at all.
This makes me sad. This used to be my favorite show, one of the few I really looked forward to seeing every week; nothing will interrupt my viewing of it, I don't care if you're on fire you can wait until ten o'clock. While season one and season five were in my opinion the best of the bunch, the others were still good, still entertaining, still able to capture your attention long before the point we're at now. The suspense is at a bare minimum and I don't really care about any of these new people (which is not usually the problem here that it is on other shows, they kill people off on such a regular basis you don't get attached to many of them) or anything that is going on. Crashing planes at a great distance is not exciting, the new president is really not doing it for me, the bad guys are boring, and oh my gods I fucking hate that female FBI agent that always looks like she's about to burst into tears can we put a bullet in her brain already?
It used to know how to do suspense well (the occasional stupid subplot aside, but hey all shows have those). It was a violent show, after the first year you could expect to see at least one fairly graphic torture scene per season (why yes, I do consider that a plus), but the best part was the way the show would regularly prune the cast in sometimes unexpected ways. They did manage to create an atmosphere where few people seemed safe and thing don't always turn out the way you think they would. The deaths of Terry Bauer in season one and Ryan Chappell in season three were the best examples of how that show could take a scenario that you've seen so many times its no longer even remotely suspenseful because it always works out for the best however it looks, and then completely shatter that sense of safety by actually doing what no one else is ever willing to do, let the hero not be able to save the day, let the captive innocent die. By doing so, they add some long lost excitement back into the genre and into certain scenes that have long since been empty; next time you see that situation come up you'll remember this and you can't be a hundred percent relaxed that everyone will be saved, after all if these writers let the person die once then it could happen again.
Its an idea that seems to be gaining some momentum, Lost last year killed off a character in a very similar way. Began with an eye rolling cliche that you've seen over and over again we all have the script memorized, and just as you're pulling out the check list to follow along, oh my gods did they just fucking kill her??? I told my mother a few days back that was my favorite moment from last year, she called me a heartless monster at first but, after my explaining why I liked it, wonder of wonders she seemed to understand my reasoning. I hope this trend spreads further and continues for decades to come, after all suspense is only suspenseful when you're not certain of the outcome, and it can't be maintained when these scenarios always work out for the best.
After so many years of getting it mostly right, its painful to see what 24 has been reduced to. This was a show that should have gone out with a bang, not this pathetic sickly whimper.
This makes me sad. This used to be my favorite show, one of the few I really looked forward to seeing every week; nothing will interrupt my viewing of it, I don't care if you're on fire you can wait until ten o'clock. While season one and season five were in my opinion the best of the bunch, the others were still good, still entertaining, still able to capture your attention long before the point we're at now. The suspense is at a bare minimum and I don't really care about any of these new people (which is not usually the problem here that it is on other shows, they kill people off on such a regular basis you don't get attached to many of them) or anything that is going on. Crashing planes at a great distance is not exciting, the new president is really not doing it for me, the bad guys are boring, and oh my gods I fucking hate that female FBI agent that always looks like she's about to burst into tears can we put a bullet in her brain already?
It used to know how to do suspense well (the occasional stupid subplot aside, but hey all shows have those). It was a violent show, after the first year you could expect to see at least one fairly graphic torture scene per season (why yes, I do consider that a plus), but the best part was the way the show would regularly prune the cast in sometimes unexpected ways. They did manage to create an atmosphere where few people seemed safe and thing don't always turn out the way you think they would. The deaths of Terry Bauer in season one and Ryan Chappell in season three were the best examples of how that show could take a scenario that you've seen so many times its no longer even remotely suspenseful because it always works out for the best however it looks, and then completely shatter that sense of safety by actually doing what no one else is ever willing to do, let the hero not be able to save the day, let the captive innocent die. By doing so, they add some long lost excitement back into the genre and into certain scenes that have long since been empty; next time you see that situation come up you'll remember this and you can't be a hundred percent relaxed that everyone will be saved, after all if these writers let the person die once then it could happen again.
Its an idea that seems to be gaining some momentum, Lost last year killed off a character in a very similar way. Began with an eye rolling cliche that you've seen over and over again we all have the script memorized, and just as you're pulling out the check list to follow along, oh my gods did they just fucking kill her??? I told my mother a few days back that was my favorite moment from last year, she called me a heartless monster at first but, after my explaining why I liked it, wonder of wonders she seemed to understand my reasoning. I hope this trend spreads further and continues for decades to come, after all suspense is only suspenseful when you're not certain of the outcome, and it can't be maintained when these scenarios always work out for the best.
After so many years of getting it mostly right, its painful to see what 24 has been reduced to. This was a show that should have gone out with a bang, not this pathetic sickly whimper.