808: '11.00pm - 12.00am'
Wr: David Fury
Dr: Milan Cheylov
Synopsis: Jack tries to convince Sergei that he is willing to broker a deal with him in exchange for the Uranium rods. Dana is being blackmailed by Kevin Wade and his partner for services to rip off more jobs. Hastings has Chloe get a statement from Renee, then have her get a psychological evaluation.
Review: It seems almost redundant to say it at this point but 24 really isn't what it used to be. Somewhere down the line, probably around two or three years ago, the writing staff decided to take their feet off the accelerator, prop them up on the dashboard and rest comfortably on their laurels, setting the narrative to auto-pilot while they whipped out their cuban cigars and had a cosy tet a tet. Fortunately for the poor, discerning public, the writers' strike happened, swiftly kicking the lot of them up their respective backsides and prompting an upsurge in creativity. Sadly, however, now that things have quietened down and the production crew have been able to relax their troubled selves a little, the momentum has waned once again . The writing process has transformed from determining how change can be made to ticking a series of perceptibly mandatory boxes, ensuring that every episode is little more than a series of well-worn narrative tropes strung together by the most depressingly bog-standard of stories. Jack demonstrates superhuman-like powers when attempting to escape from the bad guys? Check. There's a mole in CTU? Double check. No one believes Bauer, Chloe and just everybody else that's saved the world twenty times over in the last ten years when they claim that they're misinterpreting information? So checked, you could probably buy it in Topman. These concepts may have captivated and enthralled when they were first trundled out in 2001 (yes, it's been that long) but by now, it certainly isn't too much to ask that they're firmly put to bed.
Instead, of course, they're paraded in front of our eyes as if they're the most innovatively creative ideas this side of a Charlie Kauffman movie. Oh my God, Sergei's asked for immunity? Well I never! Would you Adam and Eve it? I just can't begin to get my brain around such a complex and radical concept! You would think, by now, that the poor guys at CTU would, at the very least, roll their eyes and exhale in frustration, if not have regulations in place that prevent the implementation of such deals. How many times have reprehensible criminals managed to escape the claws of the American justice system because they're able to broker a deal that sets them up with 'a very big house in the country'? "Oh yes Mr. Bauer, I know a great deal about generic terrorist threat x because, obviously, it doesn't stop with me, oh no, there's a greater conspiracy afoot, so if you spare me from being strung up by my pinky toes and sodomised for eternity, I'll divulge everything." And lo, in order to move the plot forward, the villain gets his wish, spills the beans and no one ever pays. It's far, far too easy a fix for the narrative and it's one that the writers resort to over and over and over and over, like a bloody monkey with a minature cymbal. Is it so difficult to find new ways of moving things forward? To come up with something a little less frustrating? Oh wait, this is 24. It has a formula to stick to, a recipe to concoct. To deviate would be sacrilege; there was no way Jack could escape the clutches of Faceless Torturer #746 (whose 'fun with electricity' was a little too reminiscent of the antics Bauer was subjected to in the later stages of season two) without introducing the most over-the-top and patently ludicrous developments known to man, was there? Clearly, the knife to the throat in '10pm - 11pm' wasn't enough for the production crew. David Fury plays a game of oneupmanship here and has Jack crawling along a pipe, which just so happens to be leaking, by the way, and then knocking the bad guy unconscious by wrapping his legs around him. Uh huh. Frankly, it looks ridiculous. For all it may paint Bauer as a 'bad-ass' (or some other such psuedo-masculine rubbish), it's so unbelievable that it's impossible to invest in it. And just to compound the problem, Fury also injures the man here, having him shot in the arm and also wounding his foot but no, it's okay, he won't need to go to hospital, just have it wrapped up a little. He'll be up and about in, oh, ninety seconds, acting like nothing ever happened... just like last week, when Renee brutally stabbed him in the stomach! Are we really supposed to accept this crap? Really?
Well, given that this is the show that just will not let up with the inclusion of utterly pointless, extraneous narrative strands, yeah, I guess we are. So the Kevin and Dana saga continues for the umpteenth week in a row, sucking the life and soul out of the plot and insulting the audience's intelligence about twenty times over in the process. There are so many objectionable elements to this story that you wonder exactly how the writers can rationalise it during the creative process and expect that any sane individual would ever derive enjoyment from it. About three or four episodes ago, it became depressingly evident that Kevin would never leave Dana alone, despite his claims that he would 'be through' with her once she completed her task, and that subsequently, we wouldn't be treated to the quick resolution that we so desperately want. Honestly, it's tempting to take a sledgehammer to the screen to stop this wanton waste of time from going on any longer. But still you watch, sucked in by the misguidedly optimistic notion that things can only get better, only to find that no, they really, really don't.
Kevin's already atrocious dialogue actually manages to get worse now that's drunk off his tits (and how exactly did that happen in, like, twenty minutes, huh? Has he been necking straight vodka?) Arlo gets even more irritating now that he's given an increased amount of screentime, poking his nose into what he believes are extra-marital activities and being eye-gougingly smarmy, Dana almost, but not quite, tells Cole everything but, naturally, someone interrupts just at the crucial moment and curses, she's not able to take this storyline in the only direction that might demonstrate any semblance of potential! Instead, from a conversation in which Ortiz basically tells her that he'll love her no matter what (not actually realising what that entails, in his future bride's case), she decides to take matters into her own hands, stalk Kevin by having a drink in a nightclub (um, WTF?) and brandish a gun about, presumably because she intends to put a bullet in his brain. Yes, because that won't get her into any more trouble, right? What better way to fix the fact that you've committed a heinous crime than to commit an even more heinous one? Agh! What part of any of this is even remotely entertaining? Evidently, it's supposed to create some form of suspense but it's all so sodding artificial that it's just plain boring. Oh, and how many times is this woman going to pop out of CTU for some pathetically transparent reason before Hastings catches a clue? Before people stop simply stroking their chins and realise that actually, employees can't just walk out without asking their superiors first? This entire narrative is absolutely, unequivocably abysmal and really impacts on the quality of the episode as a whole, removing any semblance of suspense from the story for very significant periods of time.
Unfortunately, at certain points, the remaining plot strands have the same result. The final five minutes of the hour are evidently supposed to be a veritable smogasbord of dramatic tension as the retrieval of the nuclear Rod Stewarts nears what we are supposed to believe is its conclusion. Except that there isn't a single viewer in the land who would buy that for one second. We're eight episodes into the season; to allow CTU to achieve their objective at this point would require a complete 180 degree turn in the narrative, wherein the emphasis would shift entirely. Yes, perhaps this would be a possibility if we were fifteen or sixteen hours in, but this early? No way. It is depressingly obvious that an obstacle will arise and furthermore, that said obstacle will be the intervention of the supposedly dutiful son. Given recent developments, wherein David Anders hasn't exactly been the happiest of chappies now that his brother has snuffed it at the hands of Daddy dearest, the trajectory of the narrative is hopelessly telegraphed. Consequently, this takes the wind out of the sails during the final stretch, robbing the ramp up to the cliffhanger of its desired dramatic effect. With the outcome as such a foregone conclusion, it really is hard to care about what's going on. Certain underwhelming acting choices don't help matters either. Hassan's daughter is resolutely unconvincing, delivering each line like she can't get her mouth around the words. Her story plays out exactly as predicted in weeks past, too: Hassan objects to her relationship with the required amount of knee-jerk callousness to make him feel really bad when she ultimately wanders blindly into danger in the coming weeks (yes, it will happen). And while Hastings actually gets some decent dialogue for once, the actor just can't make any of it convincing. His cadence is all wrong and, for whatever reason, he continues to walk around his offices like he's the freaking Hunchback of Notre Dame. Wassupwitdat? Oh, if only we had Annie Werschung to save us... but sadly, Renee's being debriefed and looked down upon at CTU so she's depressingly underused. Sigh.
There are a few positives to be found, however. This being a David Fury script, it's the little details that are the most pleasing - Ortiz adjusting the scared agent's gear, the inclusion of a nightclub, which is something we've never seen in eight years of 24 (or at least rarely: just hedging my bets there), Sergei cooking while plotting the sale of nuclear materials, Jack cutting his foot as he succeeds in his escape and so on. These minor doses of realism are most welcome as they enable us to buy into the story. There are even some priceless moments of black humour too, most notably as Bauer announces to Sergei that he's on the line with the President of the United States, prompting one of the finest and most perturbed looks in the show's history, and also as the dastardly Russian breaks down in front of Jack, confessing that he murdered his own son and our hero clearly has no idea what to do or say. In general, these two seem to play well off each other and now that Kensei has betrayed him, it looks like we might get to see a little more interaction between them in the weeks to come. And it's worth noting that the sequences in which Bauer and the Russians creep through the darkened house looking for one another are superbly executed, with Cheylov utilising a combination of slow shots, muted chiaroscuro and Sean Callery's pitch perfect underscore to create a truly tense atmosphere.
Sadly, however, these less objectionable elements are insufficient to salvage the episode. Fury's script places far too great an emphasis on unnecessarily extraneous plot developments, concentrating heavily on the car crash of a narrative that is Kevin and Dana Do D.C., which promptly sucks the life and soul out of the show. Just to make matters worse, generally, the remaining strands are lazily written, proving depressingly predictable and relying to a great extent on tropes and paradigms that became cliches, within the show's framework at any rate, years ago. It really is difficult to drum up any interest in the vast majority of what we're given here and as a result, watching 24 is becoming far more of a chore than a joy. Wake up guys, your show's sinking. Get your feet back on the accelerator before it's too late. 4.0
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