I was delighted as the next person to have 24 return to our TV sets last night, although being aware of the mighty-righty blowhards’ proclivity to the show, I could never really achieve full-drama-immersion status with last night’s 2-hour special the way I could with Last Enemy, a much finer-tuned thriller/mini-series sharing an inordinate amount of bad-guy cast members with 24, yet trumping 24 in intrigue, intelligence, suspense and chills. (But not explosions.)
Reason being, I was often mentally interrupted throughout last night’s 24 special with visions of Erick Erickson as Jack Bauer, leading a pack of lost boys out of violence-plagued Clayton County, Georgia. With Dick Williams in the role of trusted side-kick, sacrificing himself for the sake of the innocents on a landmine that, conveniently, took out not only himself, but Brian Nichols at the same time. Clayton Commissioner Eldrin Bell had a bit part as a bandaged-up woman fleeing yet another superfluous explosion of hardware. Jason Pye, alas, had his scene left on the cutting room floor.
As if any Georgia mighty-righty would ever be caught doing anything more than wringing their hands over fussy old-man issues such as who gets to marry whom because Jesus told him so.
If anyone is interested in (media for instance) real stories of real “lost boys” from the Sudan, All Saints’ church here in downtown Atlanta was instrumental in relieving and re-locating actual children from their war zones.
Mostly Media 
I was distinctly underwhelmed by 24: Redemption. Having Jack doing humanitarian work before being dragged back into battle against his will felt more like a Rambo movie plot than 24. The unfamiliar setting and all the new characters were jarring. I can see how they were trying to do something fresh in a different format…but I’m quite attached to all the ritual 24 kabuki: The big attack, the setting-up of hard perimeters, Jack butting heads with authorities, playing “Spot The CTU Mole” (Hint: It’s never the rat-faced jerk with the bad attitude who’s acting outwardly mole-y), Chloe hard-wiring a Commodore-64 to interface with Jack’s PDA, the clunky exposition, “Who are you working for?”…all that stuff. We’ll probably get all that in January, but the movie last night actually had me looking checking the clock a couple of times. That never happens when I’m watching 24. It felt like one of those seven-minute between-seasons bonus features that are included on the DVD sets stretched out to two hours.
And, just for the cherry on top (for me, anyway), it had a “children in peril” main plot. Not a big fan of those. Still, the previews at the end for the upcoming season looked promising. 24’s got such a long line of credit with me that a clunky season and a somewhat forgettable TV-movie won’t deter me from coming back in January.
LikeLike
It’s little wonder everyone fell asleep during Redemption. It lacked Chloe scenes – a huge part of what makes 24 so watchable. (If there were Chloe scenes, they must have occurred when I was putting kid to bed. And I don’t have TiVo to fact check that possible gross omission.) 24 without a Chloe is like a pool with no water. Or a Peach Pundit with no SpaceyG. (Sorry, couldn’t resist saying that.)
LikeLike