Hold the tomatoes - I think if Jack Bauer ever cashes 'em in - his heir appearent could be Ricky Schroeder. I'd watch...

I think this season of 24 is as good as the previous. I'll even give it an extra point because I agree with Dennis Haysbert that the the way season 5 opened was a bad idea. These characters are fascinating to watch because they are more complex and their arcs have been much better thought out than anything in the first four seasons. I don't like Powers Booth's Veep but he's in a tough situation and I don't know what he's going to do next. Schroeder is also excellent and Mike's motivations seem to to from the inside. He doesn't come across as simply a pawn of plot contrivences. Chloe's bickering with ape boy has been more comical than anything and the problem could be easily solved by not allowing people in a relationship to work together at CTU but even there the writers seem to have something planned.

Scanning some other sites I get the impression that the kids unhappy with this season spend a lot more time playing video games than reading novels. With this level of writing and direction (and editing and acting...) I would have no problem with Jack's story coming to a conclusion so we could follow new characters but there's no question that a chunk of the audience who tune in to see Our Hero punch a terrorist in the nuts and little else would disappear.

While I admit I was getting disappointed with this season*, I really think the last couple episodes have been a definite turn in the right direction, and agree with Chris re: Schroeder- he's terrific. I hope he stays on in future seasons, with or without Jack.

Vincent

* Although I will give the entire run another watch when the DVD set comes out, and my opinion at that point may change.

Yeah, it may be time to transfer 24 over to a new face and so far Schroeder plays the only existing character who could work without completely rethinking the show.

I didn't much like the start of Season 5 either but think that from a story viewpoint it was necessary. It removed the familiar support that had carried Jack through previous seasons so he was put into an unfamiliar zone. And while it would have accomplished the same thing to have just put most of them out of LA (on vacation perhaps) 24 is nothing if not predictable in its supposed shock-value deaths.

They could conceivably have Jack and Audrey MIA with Schroeder only 24 hours to find (and of course rescue) them while rescuing - natch - the world from some parallel disaster...

This way Sutherland could pretty much take the day off...

Do you guys really think anyone would watch a 24 with Ricky Schroeder? For better or for worse, Jack Bauer is 24. I do agree that the series got very lazy this year, and I can't believe they didn't do the smart thing and set this season in China with Bauer escaping from his captors and getting involved in a crisis there. One of 24's many problems this season is that all the good supporting characters (outside of Chloe) are dead, leaving us nobody to give a damn about when Bauer's offscreen. Who cares about Morris' alcoholism or Milo's crush? We have no personal attachment to these characters, so we have no interest in their problems or personality conflicts. Casting Marisol Nichols as an authority figure and Eric Balfour in anything is always a terrible idea. And James Morrison is such a wooden actor that it's difficult to get wrapped up in him, even though I like his straight-arrow character.

And Syd Barrett was Pink Floyd, and David Caruso was NYPD BLUE...

Again, I agree with other in this thread that Schroeder has been a terrific addition this season. I want to see a lot more of him in future seasons. A "replacement" for Jack? Not sure, but I certainly wouldn't rule it out.

And as for Morris, he's pretty much my favorite peripheral character this season. I want to see more of him in future "days" of 24, too.

Vincent

I'm assuming that Morris will have to give his life to make up for arming those nuclear weapons -- and to win back Chloe's respect.

If Chloe is even still alive. Remember not long after Morris broke it off with her in the last episode- "Has anybody seen Chloe? Where is she? Why isn't she at her station?"- which was quickly overlooked and forgotten when it became clear Jack had escaped with Audrey, but still-

Where IS Chloe, who we last saw so broken and crying right after Morris told her it was all over?

I suspect the Chinese may well kidnap Morris and try and make him break the code of the chip they have, and he'll redeem himself by not doing so, but I hope he doesn't die.

Vincent

He has had the best terrible line of dialogue so far this season:

"I did not metabolize!"

Not the same thing.

I took the whole "where's Chloe?" thing to mean that she was still off crying somewhere (out of the public eye), and not in any particular peril -- although I may be mixing up the order of events.

I'll give you 5 to 1 that Morris doesn't survive.

Yes on Schroeder - he's developed into a really good TV actor without the baggage of child stardom. He looks older than he is, wisened with craggy face, etc. He was excellent in NYPD BLUE btw.

Plus he's a man of action in the Bauer mold. I'm not saying kill Jack - but push Schroeder's character of Mike Doyle to the forefront, turn the focus toward him and develop him into a character we care about and root for (with flaws and all). You can subtly move Bauer out of the picture over the next season or two...

I really believe 24 can be a show that isn't necessarily focused solely on Bauer - he's good but he shouldn't be a super hero. Let's see somebody else try to fill his shoes...and I think Schroeder could probably do it...

Think of the longevity potential - Schroeder's character gets the focus for a while (a season or two), then, when he gets over his head, Bauer comes back...

Marty, you think the writers got lazy this year? I think that with seasons five and six thay finally started concentrating. Don't get me started on the pitiful season 3 which was centered around a dozen ideas far worse than any stalking mountain lion, let's look at the greatly improved season 4. The Aruz family were intruiging at first but there was no plan for where they were headed. At mid-season we are treated to a series of tedious and absurd skirmishes with them trying to kill each other and finally the kid just disappears and I was quite unsatisfied. Much more forethought has gone into this current story and I may be proven wrong but I believe we will get a more cohesive overall story this time.

It is true that we all cared more about Tony, Michelle and President Palmer than we do about this current bunch and that's why the opening of season 5 was so shortsighted.

Jack in China? Yeah, the thought crossed my mind too but let's be realistic. 24 will always take place in LA becuse no TV show can spend an extensive period of time in another part of the world, at least not convincingly. (The Unit globetrots, but for brief periods in very non-distinctive locales.) Would most of the characters be subtitled? Would Jack be incommunicodo with CTU till episode 19?

This is the predicament that all TV shows find themselves in after a few years. Theres only so much room to manuver. You either tell the same story ("Been there, done that") or change things up ("This isn't the show I fell in love with"). The 24 writers decided to tty a more deliberate, measured pace this year and after the success of last year probibly thought they had built up enough fan loyalty to get away with it. Ratings are down so I guess thay were wrong. I suppose that with some of my favorite shows I can be loyal to a fault but it is disappointing that some are so quick to move on when something newer and hipper comes along. (I give Heroes three seasons tops. Something newer and hipper will come along.)

Best episode ever??


SPOILER FOR TONIGHT'S EPISODE




Balfour finally dies! My two friends and I were literally cheering with joy when his jackass character took a bullet in the head.

It wasn't like he was responsible for that dialog he had to read before his big moment but I guess he was responsible for the way he read it. It is Nadia's trial by fire that's become the real story for me and I think the actress is doing a fine job. Once again the staging and the editing were as good as it gets.

Hah, my stupid idea that the terrorists were trying to start an earthquake doesn't seem so stupid now that we've suffered through this season, does it? I'm hoping the end of the final episode is Jack coming out of the shower and the past season was all a dream. (Actually a possible final line of the season may or may not have been leaked. It has nothing to do with the plot but is still a spoiler and I actually think it's promising. Check out http://www.buddytv.com/articles/24/24-majo...-326-5367.aspx)

I'd love to check it out, but that page cannot be found.

Vincent

The closing parenthesis was apparently inadvertently included in the hyperlink. Just copy-and-past the URL, but leave off the parenthesis.

Done, thanks...

As for the speculation who the "dead" character who might be the one who comes back, I wouldn't be surprised if RoboCop made another appearance. After all, Jack gave him his word, and Jack never goes back on his word...

Vincent

Certainly NYPD had Dennis Franz, who is a better actor and had a more interesting character than Caruso's, in the wings...and Pink Floyd had Roger Waters and David Gilmour...who is there should Jack no longer be involved in 24?

But the formula is bound to get repetitive, so they will have to do SOMETHING to keep it fresh and free of utter self-parody...

Maybe SPOILERS: In announcing its fall schedule yesterday, Fox noted its displeasure with both 24's ratings and storyline this year, and promised the big shake-up. Moving the show to another city for a season is a good idea, if that is to happen.

NYT on 24, Fox schedule

I'm glad it's staying in place on the schedyle, one of TV's few old faithfuls where scheduling is concerned. But the show, alas, has been staying in place storywise, too.

For once I agree with the suits. I think this is the dullest, most one-dimensional season ever, to the point where you can tune in during the last 10-15 minutes and really not miss much, save a surprise killing of a not-very-interesting character that everyone mourns for two minutes. If I were an Islamist terrorist, I'd complain that the show relegated me to a patsy, as the Russians and Chinese resume Cold War-era war games that pretty much ended in the real world 20 years ago. The new actors are weak (Jack's sister-in-law and nephew are terrible), with illogical motivations--Doyle and Natalie making little goo-goo eyes at each other a few episodes after he tortured her? The 6' 7" and now strangely mulleted James Cromwell planning to escape into China with his platinum-blond grandson, where they will stick out like sore thumbs, for a life of anonymity? No sale. The Profumo intrigue that Powers Boothe was caught up in lacked spark. Even Chloe is a drag at this point. Why do any of these people keep working at CTU, where for at least one day a year they're all a hairsbreadth away from certain death?

Maybe that's it. Scrap CTU. Burn it down. No need to kill off the support staff but let them all go, save for guest shots (well, ice Audrey, who's pretty bad, too). Let Jack go rogue, without the crutch of CTU, on his next adventure. Get writers who do humor and nuance--the show only comes alive when if it goes off-book from all the tedious war games and exposition--and actors who can safely play more than half of one emotion. Something if the show is to go on for another couple of seasons. (But keep Jack; I think the show would go into complete freefall, ratings-wise, if he were bumped off or kept sidelined for too long.)

I thought 24 was going to change gears this season, and I was highly looking forward to it. They gave themselves a terrific setup--Bauer is kidnapped and hauled off to a Chinese prison--and then completely wasted it, as Episode 1 hit the Reset button and brought Jack back to L.A., hardly the worse for wear. I was looking forward to seeing Jack run around China this season, having escaped his captors and forced into another seemingly impossible mission, one step ahead of them. The show had already killed off every other character (except Chloe) that any of us gave a damn about, so there seemed little need to return to CTU this season.

For Marty to say this indicates a show in real trouble with its core...I thought for sure he would take me out to the metaphorical woodshed for a hiding. I stress that I am a fan, but tough love is required to win me back next season. A reboot is in order, and overdue. A strong season ender can only do so much at this point.

SPOILERS:

Yep, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and even bought into the "Jack is a man at his lowest point who has to rebuild himself" claims before the season started even though it seemed unlikely to work and had in any case been done with Tony earlier. But the death of Curtis was badly botched and then the whole show has been going downhill until a few weeks ago I literally couldn't remember what Jack & crew were supposed to be trying to stop. Oh yeah, Cheng has a chip. And why did we care? Oh yeah, a war. Or something. And when that "not-very-interesting character" (you're being too kind) was killed it's hard not to go all MST3K and ask that the bad guys please shoot the rest of the supporting cast as well.

I think it all comes down to the writers because you can get away with plot retreads and quasi-competent actors as long as there's a bit of life to the dialogue and at least some novel combinations of those plot retreads. When Schroeder gave that "I've read the Bible, I've read the Koran but haven't found my answers" speech you have to wonder if these people even bothered to read their scripts out loud. & how hard can it be to give Papa Bauer some kind of remotely comprehensible motivation?

In my dreams, I imagine this same season but done quasi-documentary style, with overlapping dialogue, with digressions, with just a sense of texture. Not counting commercials & credits there's somewhere around 15-16 hours of actual show so why not a brief pan across what the CTU folk have on their desks, a quick shot of Secret Service agents trying look impassive as politicians argue in front of them, Jack stopping to grab a snack, bad guys who crack some kind of joke, etc.

But then 24 has always been so plot-focused that the writers generally ignore any kind of character-based complication. Last season I had so hoped that when the Peter Green character was introduced as possibly incorrectly accused that he and Jack would have to team while never being entirely sure about Green's motives but that got tossed aside very quickly. Or this season if the stuff about Curtis had been brought out earlier then you had the same kind of ambiguity (think The Naked Spur).

Well it turned out that the "leaked" final line wasn't true. Wonder if it was something actually scripted or filmed that was cut? Too bad because I kinda liked it & it didn't lock in anything really for the next season.

Will also have to say that the final two hours were back to the old 24 I got hooked on.

Was it ever mentioned anywhere who allegedly spoke the rumored final line?

One of the strangest moments I've ever seen on 24 was the brief appearance of Milo's brother. What the hell was all that about? A random guy, perhaps a winner of a local Christian Bale lookalike contest, shows up at CTU, apparently unmolested by security. "Who's that guy?" "Stewart Pressman, Milo's brother." Who apparently got out of bed at 4:00am to clean out his dead brother's locker! For what purpose, narratively or dramatically? Hell if I know.

I'm trying to imagine getting that call from my brother's workplace: "You need to get down here right now and clean the deodorant and extra shirts from your brother's locker."

Was he called down there specifically to clean out his brother's locker? I thought his line of dialogue was that he had to come down there before they'd release the body. In any case, I don't think it's a big stretch that if one was to get a phone call that their brother had just been murdered, they'd get up and do whatever was necessary, regardless of the time of day. I sincerely doubt you'd look at the clock and say, "Shit, it's 3-4 AM- I needs me some more shut eye, dead brother be damned!"

Vincent

I had no problem with the brother coming down to claim the body, but I couldn't figure why they made him mysteriously vanish when Nadia turned her back.

SPOILERS...

What's all this about a final line? It did seem as if something was left hanging in the air. Was it something like, "Are the writers just gonna leave me standing here for eight months?"

Perhaps Milo's mysterious brother will have something to do with next season? Nothing dealing with the real world last season made any sense; surely all of LA would be under tight curfew after a nuclear attack, and not just for two or three hours following the disaster. No one would be going anywhere, least of all to be claiming personal effects at 4am.

To ponder: Why go through all that Oedipal sturm-und-drang if the show was just going to throw it off as largely incosequential? ("My father was dead to me a long time ago"). You don't feel anything about the death of the father. Is Chloe's baby (talk about a soap-opera warhorse, introduced very conveniently, and as if she would ever return to the mega-stress CTU after having it) Morris' or Milo's? What about the fate of the president? You'd think he'd have gotten at least one look in during two hours. The fate of the ex-president? Isn't Peter MacNicol's character still pretty much a traitor, even if he did break ranks with Chad Lowe's conspirator before the hit? (not that I think he'll be around again for us to find out.) Do Bill and Karen look like Vermont country home retirees to you? (Surely they'll be back.) And I can only guess that Doyle's blindness is transient and that he will be back as backup muscle for the show.

About all I can say is...anyone who cram-watches 24 on DVD should prepare to be disappointed when Season Six is released. Maybe Season Seven will take a page from DALLAS and begin with Jack in the shower, as Audrey realizes it was all just a mediocre dream... :)

That was Vancouver actor Chris Kramer, who starred in the genre series THE COLLECTOR. Yet another Canadian in 24's woodwork.

The inclusion of that scene was strange and pointless, unless there's an intent to bring back the character next season. He just sort of vanished from the locker room.

Along similar lines, a character called 'Connell Johnson' (played by Canadian actor JR Bourne) turned up at around 8.30, had a big disagreement with Doyle and then receded back into the shadows. I've been waiting for 9 episodes for the scene to make some sense.

Then again, I'm still waiting for Gene Hackman to find the hidden beer bottle in THE FIRM.

Weren't they also hinting that Josh was actually Jack's son?

I thought that was a given - he didn't look too much like the "I like it!" Robocop guy, did he?

And speaking of loose ends...President Palmer, anyone?

I don't know if they were hinting at it so much as viewers taking that leap by virtue of the fact that the actor playing Josh looks almost exactly like Elisha Cuthbert. Whether that was an intentional decision by the casting director, who knows?

President Palmer? I'm still wondering whether President Logan died from his stab wound! For that matter, I'm still waiting to find out what the hell Naked Mandy did to President David Palmer when she burned his hand in the final seconds of Day 2! What seemed like a wild cliffhanger has been completely ignored since then, except for a couple of brief glances at Palmer's scarred hand. How, what and why, producers?

Am I sensing a pattern where every third day of 24 is a let-down? I remember when day 4 arrived, there was lots of talk about how it was a big "comeback" after a disappointing day 3. Now, day 6 has been roundly criticized after a bangin' day 5. So will day 7 be good, day 8 be REALLY good, and day 9 stink? Hmmmmm...

Vincent

I really think that halfway through the season the writers just threw up their hands and just did anything half-heartedly to bring it to a close. One of the producers already admitted they didn't have any grand design. That would be why there's so much recycled from earlier seasons, why characters and storylines appear and disappear and why even for a show where none of us cares that it's "realistic" they really stretched what can be considered acceptable.

For for example: Were we ever told why Papa Bauer had President Logan on the phone? Considering that Jack, his brother, his sister-in-law and his father are all key characters why was there hardly any mention of Kim? You'd think the Chinese would have kidnapped her too. Why would any agency that's already been attacked twice have a few security guards instead of armed troops? Was Secretary Heller's house within walking distance of the oil rigs? Did the writers have any point to wrapping up the bomb threat before the end or was that just a miscalculation? Who could ever have thought that little sting operation with Lisa and the Russian agent workable? Did Doyle just happen to come back to CTU when it was being held or did he interpret Nadia's "Michael" instead of "Mike" as a distress call? Military units such as the Russian take days to move not just a few hours. Didn't the Chinese have any better way to acquire the info on the chip (just think if that story had been introduced earlier so that CTU was competing with the Chinese to locate the bombs). And on and on.

My two favorites, though: Milo's brother who shows up unescorted in a top-secret agency in the middle of a major crisis. Apart from how unlikely it would be that he would ever be allowed in at any time didn't they learn anything from Season Three from Gael's wife or for that matter from Papa Bauer a few hours earlier? And as other posters noted, the brother almost literally vanished after having served his function of letting Nadia impassively call Milo brave.

And then the investigators "from Division" who appear in the third-from-last episode, make ominous statements and then also vanish from the story. Huh?

I'd love to see the spinoff series 24: DIVISION. I wonder what goes on at "Division" or even what the hell it actually is.

Milo's brother showing up in the middle of the night was the Amnesia/Cougar/Chase's Baby moment of this past season.

I think Division is sort of like Management from Carnivale.