Television review: 24 #809: '12.00am - 1.00am'

809: '12.00am - 1.00am'

Teleplay: Chip Johannessen & Patrick Harbinson
Story: Alex Gansa
Dr: Brad Turner

Synopsis: As Farhad Hassan and Josef Bazhaev prepare to complete the Uranium transaction, Rob Weiss suggests that Renee Walker be blamed for the terrorists getting ahold of the weapons. Jack races to help Renee escape from CTU.

Review: Welcome to the wonderful, wacky world of 24 where high-ranking government officials in highly important and risk-heavy jobs are able to bunk off work in order to smite their illicit ex-lovers, with whom they committed criminal acts that were conveniently glossed over in their job applications. Where the current lovers of said individuals, who work within the same department and arguably have even more important jobs, can abandon their posts under the flimsy excuse of 'following a lead' in order to track down their partner and engage them in an emotional showdown, forgetting all about the pesky little matter of a nation-wide terrorist threat. Where supposedly competent staff writers and experienced executive producers actually seem to believe that this sort of pointless, unbelievable and excrutatingly abysmal storyline is the stuff of good drama; so much so, in fact, that they devote an entire final act, arguably the most important segment of the episode (if you want to maintain your viewing audience, at any rate), to its resolution. It's really hard to believe after eight years and 177 hours, but what do you know, Alex Gansa, Chip Johnnassen and Patrick Harbinson all seem to believe that this is what we need; that we're all just dying to see how Kevin, Dana and Cole are going to get out of this week's crazy scrape.

Well frankly, they're stark raving bonkers. There isn't a single shred of enjoyment to be derived from even a milisecond of this hopeless narrative; its continued presence merely amplifies an already substantial level of irritation, distracting the viewer from the central plot and sending the momentum screeching to an almighty, indignant halt. The only saving grace at close of play here is that both Kevin and his ridiculously incompetent and patently unrealistic cohort (oh yes, I know what to do now that we've been rumbled... stab my mate in cold blood and attempt to shoot the highly skilled, bad ass CTU agent(s) while drunk and most probably high! Makes perfect sense, no?) are dead as doornails, but sadly, it doesn't seem likely that this signals the end of the story. We have the small matter of Cole's repugnance to pay-off; he certainly isn't happy with Jenny's behaviour (and nor should he be) and given the prominence that this intrapersonal aspect has already been granted, it seems almost a given that this will be explored further in the coming weeks. We'll probably see some tired, woeful arc in which he calls off the wedding, decides never to speak to her again (except when forced to work with her, natch), this will come back to bite them both in the ass when it begins affecting their job performance and Hunchback Hastings notices, someone will discover the bodies, despite Cole and Dana burying/dumping them somewhere, and through the Miracle Technology available in 24 world, will connect them to the CTU agents, and then they'll be forced to face the possibility of one or both winding up behind bars. Which will probably bring them back together again. Or something. Whatever happens, there is no trajectory that would be even remotely rewarding, other than to completely brush the story aside and enable them to concentrate on the terrorist threat... which, you know, isn't exactly outside the realms of possibility given that all of this occurs within a single day. The likelihood of this occurring, unfortunately, is about as great as Queen Elizabeth showing up at my door tomorrow morning with a selection of sex aids; no, this is going to drag on and on, filling in more time while the actual suspenseful elements of the plot take a back seat. Hell, now that the evil Iranians (sorry, Kamistanis) have decided to change tactics and denotate Rod Stewart on American soil, they need a few hours to acquire all the necessary materials... so we'll need to fill the episodes out with more extraneous incident! Hooray!

As a result of this, you can bet your bottom dollar that we're going to see more of the depressingly familiar bueracracy storyline as Hastings will be forced to answer for the fact that he's made a duplicituous deal to get Renee off the hook. Yes, one-dimensional cardboard politician Rob Weiss will bear down on the one-dimensional cardboard head of CTU in the least exciting clash of wills in television history. Honestly, a single plank of wood could probably out-act both of these two; how awful is their telephone conversation? Weiss is just far too obvious, outlining the fact that his plan is duplicitous without so much as the tiniest of reservations, and uttering woefully cringeworthy lines like "you're my guy!" in the least organic manner possible. Honestly, who talks like that?! The less seen of these two the better really but it doesn't look like the story is going to go away any time soon. And while Annie Wersching continues to put in a stellar performance as the emotionally broken and battered Renee (how good is she while being interrogated and also in her gentle moment with Jack?), the idea of 'sending someone over from Justice' - in five minutes, natch! - to get in the way of necessary plot progression naturally does nothing other than infuriate the viewer. We don't want to see the individuals who are so obviously the key protagonists, the story's heroes, thrown obstacle after obstacle and forced to jump through a series of well-worn, tiresome hoops. Why does anyone have to 'take the blame' for the failure to retrieve the rods after all of two hours anyway? How about we just chalk it up to a poor set of circumstances? Being out of everyone's control? There's still plenty time to acquire them yet... nothing's bleeding well happened! But no, we need to inject some forced, grafted-on drama into proceedings in order to beef up the narrative. Oh, and to fulfil the perceived need for emotional gravitas since it allows Jack to swoop in and save his damsel in distress, demonstrating just how attached and devoted he is to the woman despite having only ever spent time with her for less than two days. Still, he attempts to choke the buerecrat, which we'd all like to do to be honest, and goes batshit crazy on the poor, unsuspecting security guard for the first time in nine episodes. Look, he's so honourably bad ass! He'll do anything for his woman! It's something of a groan-enducer this, although arguably worth it for the brilliant "son, you're gonna get hurt" and the subsequent tasering that Bauer's subjected to, knocking him down a peg. Nice.

When '12am - 1am' gets round to the business of dealing with the actual plot, things improve somewhat. There are a number of pleasingly unexpected twists peppered throughout the hour that lift the quality of the storyline: poor David Anders's summary execution comes out of left field, especially given that he seemed to be ready to step up to the plate at the end of the last hour and that he's one of the finest actors currently working on the show. Still, what he does get here is rather enjoyable: having Bauer and Sergei be upfront with Josef is a nice angle and leads to some enjoyably realistic exchanges between father and son. It's also completely logical for the kid to decide to let CTU bring him in, rather than espouse some worthless cause... just as Farhad unexpectedly does later in the episode. I gotta say, I didn't see this one coming at all. Kudos to the production crew for framing the plot in such a way as to cause the viewer to infer that the Evil Generic Kamistanis are going to do away with Farhad (the look between the leader and the guy that walks him off is conventionally telling), and then taking completely the opposite route. Again, the guy's reluctance to be involved in a patently terrorist act is completely in line with his character and adds a greater level of complexity, and tension, to events. It's refreshing to see bad guys who aren't simply indicative of the traditional 'we hate America!' paradigm, although this does seem to be where the story's headed in future episodes. It's worth noting too that the music and cinematography are excellent throughout these sequences, particularly as the Rod Stewarts are being unloaded. Unfortunately, a number of frustrating niggles remain, although they aren't anywhere near as objectionable as certain other aspects of the narrative. The ease with which Farhad is able to contact CTU seems a bit ludicrous, given that they're supposed to be a fortified, top secret (well, ish) organisation; what, does he just have Chloe's direct line on speed dial? Then there's the ease with which CTU are able to acquire a 'voice match' for Farhad... it takes ten seconds, for God's sake! Why must all technology be ludicrously advanced on this show? Why must the solutions be this easy? And why must villains be so stupid as to answer their private mobile telephones, on which they are doing duplicitous business, with the name of their benefactors when they don't even know who it is that's calling? Josef assumes Farhad is the guy ringing him at the opening of the episode and answers, 'Farhad, you're late', only to find his dad on the other end! Surely, if there was no name, a simple 'hello' would suffice? Ack!

Still, at least these are gripes rather than grievances, small problems rather than huge gaffes. For the most part, the progression of the central plot point, the presence of nuclear rods on US soil, is solid and engaging, containing a number of surprising twists that keep us all hooked and on the edge of our seats. It's a pity, then, that everything else pretty much makes us get out of them and stick the kettle on. There's simply far too much extraneous incident in '12am - 1am' for the episode to prove rewarding; the script spends a great deal of its time pissing around with utterly redundant storylines that do nothing of any consequence and go absolutely nowhere of any interest. The involvement of a buerecrat from the White House is the sort of worn out trope that should've been consigned to the scrapheap six seasons ago, serving to do nothing other than irritate. Worse still is the Kevin/Dana/Cole garbage which, frankly, nobody gives a flying frack about because a) we haven't spent enough time with the characters for it to have any impact and b) it slows the momentum down to a snail's pace, failing to generate any suspense whatsoever by virtue of its appalling execution and scripting. As Kevin goes all Forrest Gump and cries "JENNNYYYYYYY!!" in his final moments, it's hard not to laugh at how patently ludicrous this whole sorry scenario is. And don't fool yourself into thinking it's over now that the bad guys are dead; this is going to linger and linger, like that rash you never got treated years ago, sucking the life and soul out of the show until someone catches a clue and shoots all parties involved. But hell, at least no cougars showed up out of those woods, eh? 5.1