Episode 6.3, "8:00 A.M. - 9:00 A.M."
Episode 6.4, "9:00 A.M. - 10:00 A.M."
Airdate: Sunday, Monday 15th, 2007

Every once in a while, my television does something that actually SHOCKS me.

Perhaps the most memorable shock I've ever gotten from the TV was when Buffy the Vampire Slayer actually DIED. There I was, sitting on the couch and expecting the usual--Buffy quips her way to saving the world, I chuckle and cheer inwardly, then I cry myself to sleep knowing I will never feel the gentle loving touch of Freddie Prinze, Jr. upon my cheek.

Instead of all that, at the end of season five, Buffy DIED. (Well, the crying to sleep still happened.) She saved the day, of course, and she quipped plenty. But she also leapt headlong into this giant scary energy vortex thing that threatened to tear our dimension to shreds. She was buried beneath a gravestone that read, "She saved the world. A lot."

Jack Bauer has also saved the world. A lot. And the other night on his TV show, a dirty nuke went off in Los Angeles.

The loss of life, factoring in the radiation poisoning, will be in the hundreds of thousands. The war against terrorism, previously a series of tiny skirmishes by comparison, now has its Hiroshima.

And the writers just freakin' DID it. They didn't just give us the THREAT of nuclear holocaust on American shores; they went whole hog.

This is what happens when a dream team of high-level TV producers sit in a room and conspire. Joel Surnow, Robert Cochran, Michael Loceff, Howard Gordon, David Fury, Manny Coto--these are names that have earned legendary status, for not just their work on 24 but for their contributions to countless other shows.

24 seems to have become some kind of insane brilliant synthesis of all their gifts into one massive wacky package. They are pushing the limits of excitement and event television to new heights of madness. For example, Gordon served on The X-Files, the classic example of a show where things happen but nothing REALLY happens.

How cathartic must it have been for him to sit in a writers room where they plotted the DEVASTATION OF LOS ANGELES UNDER NUCLEAR WINTER, and then actually DID it. No "Oh gosh, this could happen, we have to stop it!" or "If we don't figure out this impenetrable conspiracy that will change every other week, this scary thing could happen!"

Scary thing is threatned. Scary thing actually HAPPENS. And we're only in episode FOUR of the season.

That's the meat. Here's the gravy: Characters like Assad, who bring a totally unexpected texture to the series. When I started watching 24, I never imagined we'd get the spice of complex characterization along with the pulse-pounding plots. I assumed the characters would turn out to be cardboard cutouts, easily inserted into whatever machinations the writers needed the plots to do.

Not so at all. Of course, Jack Bauer himself is the most complicated character on the show--driven to save the country, over and over again...but driven by what? And toward what end? His work only seems to bring him more and more pain; it has separated him from the people he loves, and it has killed his wife. Finally, in season six, Jack Bauer seems to have hit a wall--he collapses after killing his friend Curtis in an attempt to protect the aforementioned Assad.

Assad is a terrorist. He has killed hundreds, if not thousands, in pursuit of his fanatical cause. And yet, he has decided he wants peace, so Jack makes the bold decision to work with this man and defend him from hatred, even though he is a murderer many times over.

As he moves through the story, Assad becomes a quick partner to Jack in attempting to track down Fayed, the true mastermind behind the terrorist attacks. As viewers, it becomes easy to accept his role in the plot. Yet he's a cold-blooded killer. Not even an anti-hero, nor a villain--a zealot, a man of war seeking peace, but still someone capable of snuffing out a life for the sake of a greater good.

Rich stuff, that. And you still get to see LA nuked. That, friends, is why I love 24. You get the meat AND the gravy.

iTunes Links

24 - Series
24 - Season 6
"8:00 A.M. - 9:00 A.M."
"9:00 A.M. - 10:00 A.M."