Working Overtime, ‘24’ Ticks Down

Attention, “24” watchers awaiting Tuesday’s first-season finale.

Is this Fox series created by Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran taking itself seriously or what? The show’s writers have issued a document resembling a diplomatic white paper, replete with bullet points explaining in detail “why Nina is the mole.”

Not needed. As if even huge fans--including your hopelessly addicted humble servant--were expecting logic from “24,” whose entire season is supposed to occur during a 24-hour period, with each episode an hour in the volcanic lives of its Los Angeles characters.

For you non-viewers, Nina Myers (Sarah Clarke) has been the most trusted subordinate of protagonist Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) at the government’s Counter Terrorist Unit he heads. She’s also his former lover.

Intimacy, shmintimacy. I had her picked out as the mole working for Serbian war criminal Victor Drazen (Dennis Hopper) long before she was outed at the end of last week’s episode when speaking Serbian to him on a cell phone.

Had I played super detective and meticulously revisited her behavior since the series premiered? Get serious.

Then what tipped me off? Only instinct. Beyond some early murkiness about a stolen key card, Nina’s loyalty to Jack was beyond reproach. That made her the least likely CTU operative to be a traitor since double-dealing agent Jamey Farrell (Karina Arroyave) turned up dead earlier in the season.

Least likely equals most likely in a series with this many hairpin curves.

District Director George Mason (Xander Berkeley) the mole? That was too obvious. He hates Jack, especially after Jack put him out with a tranquilizer gun in the premiere. Nina’s present lover, Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard)? Again too obvious. He looks shifty and, to confuse matters, did a noble deed late in the series. Jamey’s replacement, Milo Pressman (Eric Balfour)? Get out! Naming him Milo (making viewers think Milosevic) had to be a red herring.

That left only Nina, whose integrity and loyalty were guilt giveaways to the astute (blush) viewer. And if it turns out that last week’s episode was more plot misdirection from the writers, and Nina isn’t the mole, I’ll be very angry.

Not that I won’t return to “24” next season, even though it became about the most illogical drama in prime time after those tight early scripts that drew me in irrevocably. Wouldn’t think of missing it.

But it’s made no sense at all.

For one thing, after going without sleep all season, no one here seems even drowsy.

And take Jack’s wife, Teri. She’s played by Leslie Hope, who deserves an Emmy if only for keeping a straight face as her character endures one upheaval after another.

Let’s review this poor woman’s melodrama during just 23 hours:

Teri’s daughter Kim (Elisha Cuthbert) disappears. Teri escapes a killer working for Drazen--a man she thought was helping her retrieve Kim--after clunking him on the head with a rock and tying him to a tree with a belt and jumper cables.

She is captured by Drazen’s terrorists, then reunited with Kim, who earlier was taken prisoner by Drazen’s boys. She and Kim are taken outside and ordered to kneel beside open graves as guns are aimed at their heads for an apparent execution.

They survive that, but Teri is raped. She kills a terrorist guard. She has unbearable pain in her side. She and Kim are rescued by Jack. They are cut off from Jack. They are re-rescued by Jack in a chopper. When they arrive at a hospital to be checked out, Teri learns she has a bursting ovarian cyst. Teri and Kim are brought to a CTU safe house, where she learns from a home pregnancy test that she’s expecting. She learns Jack has slept with Nina.

The safe house is attacked by terrorists. Teri and Kim escape in a car. Teri parks the car on the side of a mountain, leaving Kim inside while checking to see if they lost their pursuers. When she returns to the car, it topples over the side of the mountain. As the car explodes in flames, Teri faints. When she come to, she has ...

AMNESIA!

Helped by an old friend, Dr. Phil Parslow (Vincent Angell), Teri makes her way home, where she is attacked by an assassin who wounds Dr. Phil. The assassin puts a gun to Teri’s head, demanding to know the whereabouts of Kim. Teri can’t say because (amnesia, remember?) she doesn’t know she has a daughter. About to kill Teri, the assassin is shot in the back by Tony of CTU. Recovering her memory, Teri arrives at CTU. Unaware that Kim somehow escaped the car before it exploded, Teri thinks Kim is dead. She learns Kim is alive and apparently safe. She learns that Jack has been captured by Drazen. She learns that Kim has been recaptured by Drazen.

That about brings Teri up to date. I don’t know what’s ahead for her Tuesday, but don’t rule out ninja warriors.

Teri doesn’t know that Kim escaped Drazen by jumping into San Pedro Bay, untying her bonds under water and swimming away.

Of course, the Bauers aren’t alone in leading active lives on “24.” The family’s perils are closely tied to Drazen’s plot to murder Sen. David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert), a leading presidential candidate whose son Keith (Vicellous Shannon), has killed his sister’s rapist, and whose ruthless wife, Sherry (Penny Johnson Jerald), has spent the season trying to manipulate her husband.

That includes persuading campaign aide Patty Brooks (Tanya Wright) to spy on him by becoming his lover. It didn’t work, but there’s always next season.

Fox has decided to renew “24” despite its soft ratings and the show’s burden of maintaining its present serial format and story line. One character I lost track of was Mandy (Mia Kirshner), the cute little bisexual terrorist who had a hot tryst in the bathroom with another passenger before planting a bomb on a jet and parachuting to safety seconds before it exploded over L.A.

Why not bring Mandy back next season as Nina’s replacement at CTU? It would work if everyone else gets amnesia.

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“24” airs Tuesday night at 10 on Fox. The network has rated the final episode TV-14-V (may be unsuitable for children under 14, with an advisory for violence).

Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted at howard.rosenberg@latimes.com.