At almost the halfway mark through season six, I'm at a bit of a loss as to explain why this season of "24" isn't quite firing as well as it should. On a structural level, it's more robustly built season than the one that came before it. There's a better collective sense of the world the season created by the writers: all the way up to a governmental level, people are fatigued by being besieged by domestic terrorism, Jack merely functioning perfunctory at his job, etc.
In this episode, Buchanan tells that forensic evidence indicates that Jack was likely responsible for his brother's death from his evasive interrogation. Morris feels guilt, regret from arming the suitcase nukes while under Fayed's control. Tom Lennox (Peter MacNicol) receives information concerning an assassination attempt on President Palmer and reluctantly feeds information to Reed Pollock (Chad Lowe). Marilyn Bauer (Rena Sofer) gives Jack a lead concerning a rogue Russian Cold War general (Rade Serbedzija) and they follow up on it. However, Phillip Bauer (James Cromwell) finds out and uses Josh as a pawn to manipulate her to mislead CTU.
Beside the stories with Jack and Morris, these story lines work in theory more so than in practice. Yet even those aforementioned plots, the writers are committing to them, without really committing to them. The fault in them is that 24 played these cards better before and season six hasn't shown any way to differentiate and/or improve them from the past.
And even worse, none of the reliable cast of villains bolster the proceedings. After a promising entrance, Adoni Maropis doesn't have any good material to play as Fayed by the writers, and as result, he is flat-lining at an accelerated rate. Rade Serbedzija as Gredenko might be substantially worse.
He uses Fayed as a pawn for retribution against a lack of mutually assured destruction during the Cold War. This, he explains, will give him plausible deniability to prevent blame being pointed at them. Like most others terrorists on this show, they under-appreciate the governments ability to uncover their involvement with the terrorists in fairly short order.
The writers continue to play this season safe. Sure, it has had risks, but virtually nothing it cannot backtrack. Think about where we started with Jack Bauer at the start of the season and where we are now, is he all that different from Episode 23 of Season 5 from where he is at Episode 9 of Season 6?
Just shy of a complete overhaul in the second half of the season, I dunno what can salvage this season of familiarity.
In this episode, Buchanan tells that forensic evidence indicates that Jack was likely responsible for his brother's death from his evasive interrogation. Morris feels guilt, regret from arming the suitcase nukes while under Fayed's control. Tom Lennox (Peter MacNicol) receives information concerning an assassination attempt on President Palmer and reluctantly feeds information to Reed Pollock (Chad Lowe). Marilyn Bauer (Rena Sofer) gives Jack a lead concerning a rogue Russian Cold War general (Rade Serbedzija) and they follow up on it. However, Phillip Bauer (James Cromwell) finds out and uses Josh as a pawn to manipulate her to mislead CTU.
Beside the stories with Jack and Morris, these story lines work in theory more so than in practice. Yet even those aforementioned plots, the writers are committing to them, without really committing to them. The fault in them is that 24 played these cards better before and season six hasn't shown any way to differentiate and/or improve them from the past.
And even worse, none of the reliable cast of villains bolster the proceedings. After a promising entrance, Adoni Maropis doesn't have any good material to play as Fayed by the writers, and as result, he is flat-lining at an accelerated rate. Rade Serbedzija as Gredenko might be substantially worse.
He uses Fayed as a pawn for retribution against a lack of mutually assured destruction during the Cold War. This, he explains, will give him plausible deniability to prevent blame being pointed at them. Like most others terrorists on this show, they under-appreciate the governments ability to uncover their involvement with the terrorists in fairly short order.
The writers continue to play this season safe. Sure, it has had risks, but virtually nothing it cannot backtrack. Think about where we started with Jack Bauer at the start of the season and where we are now, is he all that different from Episode 23 of Season 5 from where he is at Episode 9 of Season 6?
Just shy of a complete overhaul in the second half of the season, I dunno what can salvage this season of familiarity.