Why do good TV shows all go bad?

[nostrademons]

I used to like 24. It's a good show. But it's really hard to overlook the fact that Jack Bauer is evil. Really, why do they have to glorify the bad guys and broadcast their warped sense morality to the whole country? Can't he be wrong once in a while

Comments

[jpallan]

Read the Television Without Pity recaps for a very amusing take on it.

Spawn of Kiefer is, in fact, in an SUV with a girlfriend of hers. Friend of Spawn of Kiefer (FOSOK) is a poor man's Mena Suvari from American Beauty - tarty but stiff. They're on their way to one of those proverbial double dates with a couple of college guys. Like, doesn't anyone know that the college guy/high school girl double date never happens anymore? If a high school girl wants to get date raped by a college boy these days, she's got to team up with a girlfriend or two and sneak into a keg party as a free agent.

After she gets off the phone, she's accosted by the inappropriately dressed spunky Latina spitfire that no office is complete without. Okay, remember Vasquez from Aliens? She was the butch Latina marine who, although she didn't understand all of Sigourney Weaver's scientific explanations for things and all those big words, just wanted to find those muthafuckin' aliens and blow them sky-high. And she loved Bill Paxton, her homophobic, racist, sexist compadre, although she didn't let on until they were about to blow up together. Well, imagine a slightly less butch version of Vasquez, but with Baby Spice's haircut.

Now this place that Kiefer works for, it's an agency, right? More like an ad agency. I have never seen a government bureau housed in a loft-like space complete with exposed wooden beams, aluminum wall dividers, Hold Everything desk accessories, and, yes, glass walls veiled with cream-colored diaphanous floor-length curtains. Since when do Philippe Starck or Andre Putman apply for government contracts? I guess it's important, when fighting the war on terrorism, to let Usama bin Laden know that the U.S.A.'s top intelligence agents read Italian interior design magazines. 'Cause if we just furnish our offices with stuff from Office Depot, they've won, okay?

Pretty much everyone I know agrees that 24 is just over. All plot twists are now pointless. They have to stretch out the action to 24 episodes, so no matter what, you know that Kiefer survives the car chase scene in Episode 7 because of a powerful god known as Full Season Contract. And you stop giving a rat's ass.

For even more amusement, although crschmidt doesn't find it nearly as rib-tickling as I do, read McSweeney's, "The family of a henchman killed by Jack Bauer on 24 remembers".
We always knew he was different, of course. To begin with, no one in the family remembers how he came to live with us in the first place. Was he born to us? Did he wander into the house one day? And when did that happen? Was he a baby or a teenager or what? There was no backstory, no compelling episode or development. He was just sort of there. In the flesh but not fleshed out. Does that make sense?

[nostrademons]

It's sad. It was a good show once, even despite the lack of character development.

I think it just never changed with the zeitgeist. People don't want action shows with buff superguys beating up terrorists anymore. Hits a little too close to home.

Heroes unfortunately is getting kinda bad too, but not as quickly (well, except for season 2). It seems like that's the fate of every TV show. Well, except that House got much better (IMHO) come season 4 when they mixed it up. And my friends all rave about BSG, but alas, I just started and it's ending in 3 weeks.