Okay, I'm three quarters of the way through the four-hour, two-day premiere of 24, and -- as much as I like the adrenaline rush this show gives me, there are parts that are simply hit-the-pause-button-and pick-your-jaw-off-the-floor stupid. Case in point: In hour three, the head of CTU says "It'll take days to review [the secretary of defense's son Richard's] phone records"... and tacitly authorizes an agent to torture him to get the information.
Okay, toss aside the political ramifications of torturing the defense secretary's son. Forget that.
Doesn't CTU have at least ONE skilled interrogator, so they don't have to go to code red on everyone with the sense to keep his mouth shut? An agent said that what was probably keeping him mum was pride, rather than complicity in the crime. That shouldn't be TOO hard to break, to anyone with decent training. Anyone -- and I mean ANYONE, even Beau -- on Homicide could have gotten this kid to mention who he’s spoken to about his dad’s visit. But he wouldn’t talk to the folks at CTU, who are actively trying to help him? I’m sorry, I so don’t buy that. I used to say Vic Mackey could retitle 24 to One and a Half. But Frank Pembleton or Kay Howard could make it Point Five, giving us enough time for some wacky escapades at the bar.
But the best part was: "It'll take days to review his phone records." Izzat so? The personnel at CTU can’t call up Verizon and get his records, cross-referenced with the names of the people on the other line, in less then five minutes? These people who reroute satellites? “Oh, that’ll take days. Just torture him.”
That’s bunk. I hate it when they make the rest of CTU look like morons just to make Jack look good, and with him out of the organization altogether, it looks like that’s the new protocol.
Rob
Thursday, January 13, 2005
24: Can Someone Call Ma Bell?
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7 comments:
Don't forget the West Wing episode where Hoynes resigns over an affair. Matthew Perry's character not only got the relevent phone records, he had mark the key entries with a highlighter.
Interestingly I just finished writing a small program to record phone log data from our office phone system. In includes a web page with up-to-the-minute reports of incoming and outgoing calls, complete with caller ID. It's running on an old laptop we had laying around.
Take a look at Gustave's recaps of 24 on Television Without Pity. He ragged on the show even when it was good. His synopses are hilarious.
http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show.cgi?show=73
It looks like they've got a new guy doing the recaps this year, but still very funny. During the second season, the only reason why we kept watching the show was so we could understand the recaps.
Amendment: This new recapper (M. Giant) is just as funny as Gustave.
Those "hit-the-pause-button-and-pick-your-jaw-off-the-floor stupid" moments are why we just couldn't keep up with 24 after a while. We loved it in the beginning and you could just look past those bits because the roller coaster ride was so much fun, and in most forms of entertainment you have to forgive a little in the interest of plot development. But, the really reaching moments started to come a little too often for me to care after a while. I heard it got really good again after I stopped watching it- is this the way it is now or was this an isolated incident?
I would never work at CTU. Since I'm not Jack, I could die at any moment.
Only on certain days. "My name is random CTU guy. And this is literally the shortest day of my life."
Well, I'm certain there's still plenty of things to to make a tech-savvy guy like Andrew do a spit-take that sail right by me. Other than the general incompetence of anyone who we'd expect to be among the best in their field, I'm usually able to dismiss the stupid stuff. But man, that telephone thing really bugged me. I'm sure more will come to me later.
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