‘24’: Cut to the chase

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

With only one more episode to go in “24’s” uneven sixth season, it’s tempting to start the post-mortem early. Besides tying up loose ends and leaving us with the traditional season-ending cliffhanger, there’s not much one episode can do to reshape how the previous 20 played out. But since there are sure to be some surprises in next week’s two-hour finale -– and perhaps some hint at the new direction producers are planning to take the series next year -- we’ll look at the one element the series is still delivering just as effectively as ever: action.

After last week’s mini-version of “Die Hard,” this week brought a three-way struggle against the invading Chinese agents that finally allowed Nadia (Marisol Nichols) and Morris (Carlo Rota) to demonstrate that in CTU, even the office drones get hand-to-hand combat training. That was followed by a chase up to the roof of some sort of factory, in which Jack Bauer finally got his nephew (Evan Ellingson) back before being handed over to Jack’s dad, the eternally evil and scheming Phillip Bauer (James Cromwell).

In “24” terms, this was the equivalent of a summer blockbuster thrill ride. For all the talk of TV surpassing film in quality of characters and storytelling, one arena where the big screen purportedly still holds an edge is in big action spectacle. With its budget limitations and pacing considerations for commercials, nothing on network TV has approached the visual or technical complexity of, say, an extended Michael Bay car chase.

But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “24” may take liberties with the realism of how its government agents operate and just how much travel across Los Angeles freeways is possible during the length of a commercial break, but somehow the action feels just right. When violence happens, it happens quickly, is over more quickly and is usually punctuated by a whole lot of talking. It’s as if real-life criminals and cops learned their trade by watching it all on TV.

But a series doesn’t survive on action alone. While Jack was doing his thing over at CTU, acting President Daniels (Powers Boothe) was pacing around the Oval Office while his advisor Tom Lennox (Peter MacNicol) was out in the field, doing his best Jack Bauer impression by setting up Daniels’ chief of staff (Kari Matchett) for a sting on a Russian agent.

Boothe and MacNicol are great actors, and they’ve both had some fine moments this season, but sometimes the plot demands stretch their credibility to the breaking point. Take for instance the scene late in Monday’s episode in which Daniels, Lennox and another advisor take a break from a meeting of the Joint Chiefs to bat around a theory that Russia’s military generals are forcing their country into a war with the U.S. and then somehow take their late-night theory and turn it into the basis for policy.

It’s absurd to think that the President and a couple of advisors would get together and, without bothering to double check their conjectures, move forward with a plan of action. When the U.S. went to war in Iraq, there was careful … Well, maybe that’s another thing that “24” gets right, after all.

(Photo courtesy Fox)