24 – Down The Rabbit Hole

Back in 2001 I started watching a show that was already gathering buzz. TIME Magazine had an article on it even. The show’s name was “24.” The pilot shocked me by featuring an airplane bombing after 9-11 and entertained me. By the second, fantastic episode I was completely hooked. FOX had decided to give the show a chance and I’m glad that they never canceled it. They actually are bringing it back next year after it has been off the air since closing its 8 year run in 2010. I’m excited because this one of my favorite shows and love how its fast paced and thrilling.

Kiefer Sutherland had a successful career going when he was cast as “24’s” main character, Jack Bauer. Bauer works for CTU-Counter Terrorism Unit-based in Los Angeles, California. Each of the seasons center around one chaotic day, where Jack is forced to deal with a crisis and must act to protect the country and LA from terrorism. Nothing ends up being that simple and politics always play a heavy part in each season. This is one of the reasons why the show ended up becoming popular by Season 4-it was rather topical and smartly focused on real world events, although of course the show itself ventured into fantasy and made up story lines. I will forever remain amused that every season a huge terrorist plot threatened the country at one point or another, just because it seems rather outlandish.

Oh and the show has a fantastic cast, with great guest stars in every season. Sutherland is amazing as Bauer, while Carlos Bernard rules in playing his friend and co-worker Tony Almeida. You have Elisha Cuthbert as Bauer’s daughter Kim, Sarah Clarke as Nina Myers, who is another co-worker of Jack’s, Dennis Haysbert as David Palmer, a presidential candidate in Season 1 who is my favorite character, and many others who round out the show. My favorite guest star is probably Arnold Vosloo from Season 4, who myself and other fans often referred to as the “Evil Version of Jack Bauer.” The show also is rather consistent in terms of quality: Season 6 is the only really bad/mediocre season, while Seasons 1-2, 4 and 5 are great. I really liked Seasons 3, 7-8 and I thought the show had a fine series finale that although now temporary had me on the edge of my seat.

I didn’t even mention the show’s amazing display of state of the art technological devices, or how it is very 21st century in its depiction of how much the spy business has become dependent on new gadgets to stay ahead of the enemies in the field. I also like how much cell phones play a major role in the show from the first season to the very last one. There will never be a show quite like 24 ever again, and I don’t mind because its wonderful unique qualities and high level of entertainment value make it one of my all time favorite TV shows. I’m glad that FOX decided to leave it on the air for 8 seasons, and I look forward to the new episodes if and when they do air.

Or basically how I stopped hating and learned to love the hashtag. Still I’m wondering how some of my all time favorite shows would have fared in the era of Twitter. 24 would have made for some fun statuses, but I’m glad that while waiting to watch an episode at times all I had to do was avoid RT when it came to spoilers. Which is funny considering that Fox is considering bringing the show back. I would have had to skip all social media on the night Lost aired, because it was bad enough that some people on RT would spoiler the show so easily-Twitter would have made things worse. However there are some upsides to Twitter that I find handy.

Namely that you can live tweet your thoughts to the cast of the show you are watching as it airs. I actually got Yvette Nicole Brown to respond to and favor one of my tweets this year as I viewed an episode of Community Season 4, which was really cool. That’s always fun to get a famous person to like what you are saying about the show they’re putting their full efforts into. Not to mention the amount of Twitter accounts for TV shows is numerous. Doctor Who has several and I decided to follow only two of them just so I could keep track.

Since Twitter isn’t going anywhere (or Facebook for that matter) I suppose utilizing them to promote TV shows and share your fandom is the only way to go. That said, please go easy on the spoilers. In this day and age its easier to use DVR and the Internet to keep up with TV than viewing it live.

Tag: 24

Shows Finished:

The Jack Bauer Power Hour

Social Media Is a Funny Thing