Okay, I love the show ‘24′. I’ll admit I got into it a bit late in the game but when I started watching it I got sucked in big time. I obsessively watched through the first 4 or 5 seasons in only a matter of weeks, and while I continue to enjoy the show to this day (and so far, through this current season), I’m certainly not one to say the series is perfect. It’s not. The main fault of ‘24′ is that it’s becoming incredibly predictable. Every season follows the same basic formula and to be honest things are getting a bit stale. With the announcement that the current season, season 8, will be the last for ‘24′, I thought it may be therapeutic for me to run down some of the overdone elements that comprise any season of the show, swearing a lot while doing so. So I did. And now you get to read it. Yay!
CTU Has a Mole!
Holy christ, just how flawed can one government agency’s employee screening process be?! Nearly every season of ‘24′ features at least one mole working from inside CTU to completely dismantle their efforts to stop whatever terrorist plot may be going down in any particular episode. Fans know this is coming. We all instinctively take mental note of the new CTU employees and start guessing who the mole will be from the season premiere on. Who’s going to pick up the phone at the end of some random episode and start talking to the terrorist mastermind, telling him “everything is going as planned”? Who’s going to upload the system-crippling trojan backdoor worm virus? Who’s going to turn off the satellite tracking at the exact right moment? Who?! Oh, him? Yeah, figured.
CTU Gets Attacked!
Computer Virus? EMP?! C4?!! Mercenaries?!!! Poison gas?!!!! Holy hell, CTU is one of the most dangerous work environment for a computer tech imaginable. The guys on the Geek Squad don’t have to worry about being gassed to death or getting shot in the fucking forehead while installing Spybot, but it seems CTU techs don’t have that same peace of mind. With every season of ‘24′, you can count on something going horribly wrong at CTU, usually resulting in the terrorists sneaking through our defenses with their weapon of mass destruction of choice in tow. But fear not loyal fan. As long as Chloe reformats the master server drives through an encrypted socket (wait, huh?), they’ll be back online and ready to feed Jack intel!
The President Gets Betrayed!
Right after CTU, no other group of people can be less trusted than those associated with the President of the United States of America. Countless times we’ve seen the President’s own people disobey orders, backstab, betray and commit downright treason. Whether it be trying to remove the President from power, tossing each other down stairs or going against presidential orders to execute secret (and often illegal) missions, crazy shit is happening in the White House constantly. If I ever find out our actual government is just as disjointed and fucked up as the government in the world of ‘24′, I may just have to get my ass over our Northern border. Through if the events in season 8 are any indication of what’s what, other countries may just have the same issues with disloyal government officials as we do. Yeah, we’re pretty much all fucked. Let’s get drunk.
Initiate Plan B! And Plan C! And Plan D! And Plan E!!
SHIT! The terrorists are threatening to kill a government official at an important rally! No wait, that was a distraction so they could break into a secret lab and steal a super virus! Oh fuck, they unleashed the virus on the White House to gain access to the hidden security lab inside to steal the plans for a government-funded super weapon! Oh no, they slipped through the perimeter with the plans for the weapon!! CHRIST, that entire mission was a distraction so the terrorists could set off an EMP in Washington so they could steal a stealth fighter and shoot down Air Force One and steal the nuclear codes so they could blackmail the government to obtain the secret recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken so they can use it to bribe the FUUUUCKKKK! Fucking enough already! With every new season, the plot gets increasingly bogged down with asinine side stories that lead nowhere and countless retarded plot twists. At this point, any fan of the show knows from the start that whoever the villain is in the first episode isn’t really the person pulling the strings, and chances are neither is the next guy, or the next guy, or the guy after that. Much like the twist at the end of any M. Night Shyamalan movie*, fans are simply not surprised anymore. It’s old and and it’s busted. Enough.
Chloe. Goddamn Chloe.
This isn’t so much a plot element as it is something I can’t stand about the show anymore. FUCK Chloe. Seriously. Chloe O’Brian is one of the most annoying characters on television. If I see her roll her eyes and make that slackjawed, exasperated “gawd” face one more time, I may just hurl my cat through my fucking TV. Yeah, sure, she’s some kind of computer genius. Opening “sockets”, sending 3D schematics to Palm Pilots and tapping into trunk lines to abacadabramagically repair EMP-fried computer circuitry aren’t skills one learns at DeVry. She must be some kind of dark wizard! If that’s the case, we should be burning her at the stake instead of inflicting another head of CTU to her constant moping and backtalk.
The entire series is becoming so incredibly formulaic and predictable it’s not even remotely surprising anymore. Sure, now and then the writers may throw the death of a well-established character in for shocks and few leaked tears (Mason, Edgar, Buchanan) but we can see the betrayals, moles, villain change-ups and tired old plot devices coming every time. What was once an imaginative, groundbreaking show is becoming stale. Hell, even Jack is looking worn out… he just doesn’t have that same Bauer gusto while screaming “there’s no time!” and “who are you working for?!” these days. Man, he probably can’t wait for some time off from saving the world at the end of this season. After all, he doesn’t work for the government anymore you know.
* It’s the plants. The fucking plants are making everyone kill themselves in “The Happening”. There, I saved you 2 hours and the worst movie watching experience of your fucking life. You’re welcome.
March 31st, 2010 @ 3:54 pm
You forgot the overgeneric term for what the terrorists want.
This season it is “the rods”
There has been “the football”, “the gas”, “the circuit board”
March 31st, 2010 @ 3:56 pm
The Dobson Override Device!!
April 1st, 2010 @ 10:08 am
First season didn’t have Chloe! It had some badass hacker dude Milo who came back later and kicked some ass on the field.