#810: '1am - 2am'
Wr: Manny Coto & Brannon Braga
Dr: Brad Turner
Synopsis: Jack prepares to go to Farhad Hassan's last known location to rescue him and stop an impending terrorist attack on New York City. His other endgame is to clear Renee from taking the fall if the operation fails. President Taylor warns President Omar Hassan that if the attack is successful, she will have no choice but to declare war on his country. Cole and Dana have to figure out how to solve the aftermath of the confrontation with Kevin and Nick.
Review: I do enjoy a healthy slice of constructive criticism every now and again, so I was most delighted last week when a gentleman (actually, that's a presumption on my part) by the name of HTEflseGODS took it upon himself to compose a 'review' of 24's '12am - 1am' that consisted entirely of a series of observations on my analysis of the episode. Mr. Gods suggested that perhaps I was only 'just now figuring... out' that the show 'is so mindless' and that as a result, I should stop watching 'b/cuz [sic] (I'll) just end up going bats**t'. An astute piece of psychoanalysis there, I'm sure you'll agree. However, this wasn't all. Not by a long shot. While acknowledging that 'they go off on some of the most rediculouse [sic] side stories ever', HTE, if I may call him that, argued that this is 'the fun of the show' and that I should simply 'take it for what it is' ('mindless fun dressed up as intellagent [sic] espianoge [sic] action', in case you were wondering). Gods believes that I should not take anything that 24 throws up 'too seriously' because, well, at the end of the day, 'the clock is counting 4 [me] too' and presumably, by composing a review that's significantly critical of the subject matter, I am exponentially reducing my life span. It's all the stress and the strain on my psyche, you see. What I need to do is switch off, let it all wash over me, 'enjoy the ride', so to speak, and, to quote Gods again, 'stop the endless ranting', if for no other reason than as he so eloquently points out, 'nobody reads that' anyway.
And he's probably right. Who in their right mind wants to sit and pore through a right load of old whinging, eh? Who really wants to read a review that actually picks apart the minutiae of the episode and challenges the quality of the production? Who's bothered if the critic actually uses the full range of marks and delivers scores that are representative of their opinions? Certainly no self-respecting reader that I can think of, that's for sure. No, what we want, nay what we need, is for everyone to have a good chuckle about how daft television shows are, to excuse the lazy writing, poor plotting and wanting production because that's 'the fun of it' isn't it... that way, we'll live in a land of comfortable 9.5s where everything is hunky-dory and everyone is footloose, fancy-free and happy as a pig in shit. Or something. I really don't want to be the one to hinder the onset of this incandescent utopia so, with that in mind, I'm going to take Mr. Gods's sage advice and turn off my hypercritical and over-cynical mental faculties for this one. Yup, it's your lucky day '1am - 2am', because screenagedkicks is ready to sit back, relax and let your crap wash right over him.
Except it doesn't quite turn out that way. As if in defiance of my determination to simply become a mindless automaton for a week, 24 actually went and did the unthinkable with the tenth hour of its eighth season and delivered something genuinely good. Not 'turn off your brain good' (if ever there were such a thing), you understand, but critically good, measuring up to the sort of standards that we have justifiably come to expect from the programme after many years of solid writing and production. Braga and Coto's script defies all the odds and manages to create a substantially engaging hour of entertainment, keeping suspense levels high by maintaining a healthy pace and steady momentum to that most important of storylines: the core terrorist threat. Yes, would you believe it, '1am - 2am' actually spends a large amount of time dealing with the small matter of The Rod Stewart Affair, and allows most of the extraneous narratives to have a sit down on the sidewalk and ruminate over their general rubbishness. In fact, what's even more impressive is that the Rod Stewarts barely feature in the episode at all, save for a cameo appearance (support slot? To continue the pun... type... thing? No?) while Marcos is calling his dear, sweet, innocent mother (nice scene by the way, grounding events in a solid emotional base); instead, the writers manufacture tension from a perfectly logical off-shoot of the terrorist activity, taking the time to delineate consequence and demonstrate how the IKK rebels' 'plans' are loosely woven together and highly organic.
This sets the arc story at a distinct advantage; without a set of 'rules' (peeling away the layers to reveal plan-upon-counterplan-upon-counterplan, all concocted by shady businessmen), there is the sense that the narrative could essentially go anywhere, making its teleology decidedly unpredictable. This is exactly the sort of format that 24 should be adopting, since in a show with a 'real time' backbone, significant foreshadowing often feels like unnecessarily premature revelation. Furthermore, it proves that the drive does not always have to be towards the actualisation or heroic prevention of the proposed threat; it can be just as successful (if not more so) when it is a self-contained tangent, a small piece of a far larger mosaic. CTU's duplicitous attempt to capture one of the operatives for interrogation by lying about Farhad's status and leaking it to the press (all Jack's idea, note, and one that, as well as making perfect sense, has rarely been done in the show in the past... we'll just forget about the 'Palmer survived' thang in late season one, shall we?) makes for wonderfully dramatic viewing, and while it is arguably a foregone conclusion that Marcos will not detonate the bomb when Jack Bauer's in the general vicinity, Braga and Coto circumnavigate the problem of assurity by having the young, inexperienced and distinctly nervous Owen be the one to accompany him to the treacherous Hassan. We experience events predominantly through his perspective, and his jittery uncertainty transposes onto the viewer, such that we're frightened by the instability of the whole situation. Owen's mid-card status also renders him expendable, so the possibility of an untimely death and early grave is always on the cards, adding just that extra nugget of tension to proceedings.
Farhad's final twenty minutes on Earth are also notably well handled, largely because, by virtue of the juxtaposition between scripted events and the ever ticking clock, the viewer is constantly aware that 'time is running out', so to speak, that the window of opportunity for CTU to rescue the man is narrowing by the second. Importantly, the outcome is never telegraphed. It really feels, at every point until Farhad gets up and runs (not objectionable in itself due to the proximity of the shooter, but did he really have to do it so blatantly? Why not just wave your arms around and shout, "I'm here!" too?), like the narrative could go either way, which is certainly encouraging. It is also a rather interesting idea to have the members of Farhad's 'posse', so to speak, be members of Omar's trusted elite. While this ties in with his suspicions in the wake of his brother's betrayal, it also provides the opportunity to explore some suitably murky political ground, and Coto and Braga rise to the challenge exceptionally well. For all its relative brevity, the sequence between Taylor and Hassan is simply superb, a wonderfully executed scene in all its aspects. The discussion that they have is distinctly realistic and works well to sell the roles themselves, while the dilemma that it postulates enriches the substance of the narrative, since it's brilliantly oblique and without any evident 'right' or 'wrong' resolution. Everything is excellently shot too, and wonderfully soundtracked (Sean Callery, ye be a genius), to convey the right level of gravitas and give a simple set of impassioned talking points real weight and foreboding.
Of course, this being 24, not everything in '1am - 2am' is quite so pleasantly surprising. No, there are elements of the episode that I would perhaps have described, in weeks past, as being somewhat lacking; in fact, I probably would have lambasted their patently ridiculous and pathetic nature... but no more! Mr. Gods has made me see the light and now I love every one of these kooky fun-fests... so much so, in fact, that I just can't wait to see more in the hours to come. Hunchback Hastings and his battle of wills with I-Don't-Get-My-Way-So-I'll-Throw-A-Hissyfit-And-Maybe-Break-A-Telephone-Or-Two (or Wah Wah for short)-Weiss? It doesn't matter if Weiss cares about this whole thing far more than he should... I just can't get enough of their woodenness! Seriously, that hammy delivery, those weird pensive pauses and smirks that Williamson does... the stuff of dreams, man. Hell, they make me feel better about my own lacklustre acting skills. And when Hastings utters the immortal line, 'you wanna replace me as head of CTU?', it just fills me with an overwhelming sense of delight at the possibility that we might have another revolving door of bureaucrats who do their absolute best to hinder everything beneficial that happens within the investigation. These writers are too good to us, really.
They do give us more extraneous interpersonal gumf, after all. Honestly, I find myself having to contain my excitement at all of this, just in case the sort of hyperactive gleeful gesticulation that it is known to induce actually causes me to have a hernia. I don't know about you, but whenever Hassan's daughter appears on screen, running after her potentially dastardly boyfriend (oh yeah, don't tell me you haven't clocked those dodgy looks that Tarin keeps shooting everyone - the guys in the car especially - and honestly, where else is this story going to go? We're probably due a predictable mole around about now anyway), I find myself thinking that this is the sort of thing I want to see on my TV screen, wishing that more programmes could feature such riveting and potentially revolutionary storylines... and sparkling dialogue, for that matter. 'This is such a terrible situation and yet I've never felt so happy'? That's deep, man. That's the sort of thing that stays with you, that touches the very depths of your soul. That's the stuff Emmys are made of. All of this makes me care so much about these characters; almost as much, in fact, as I care about Cole and Dana, whose initiation of Kevin's Voyage to the Bottom of the Swamp might be 'rediculouse', in Gods's words, but by golly, was it heart wrenching. Katie Sackhoff's wistful, 'complex' gaze, her tears, Freddie Prinze Jnr.'s confusion and his... um... confusion. Man, I was choking up. It's just a shame that the writers spend so little time on them this week; the show could do with more drama that's completely unrelated to any of the central motifs. Still, at least it doesn't seem like it's going to go away any time soon. Yup, we really can all sleep soundly at night knowing that we're gonna get to see the fall-out of this water cooler-worthy storyline. What else? Oh yes, there's the possibility that Jack and Renee are gonna get it awn which gets my vote frankly, since the very definition of 'fun', in my book, is knowing someone for a day and a half and then agreeing to spend all your time with them romantically. The rather spurious technology's also good for a laugh (bring up the hospital security feed instaneously, acquiring results of facial recognition within seconds, remotely disarming the bomb from a ludicrous amount of miles away) and how about that Cisco product placement, huh? 'The telepresence conference is about to begin'... in the 'Cisco Telepresence Suite'! Oh 24, you are such a cad, but we love you for it.
You know Mr. Gods, I think that's much better. Having embraced your philosophy and allowed myself to bypass everything that it's in the very fibre of my being to criticise, it really has improved both my state of mind and my enjoyment of writing this review. Granted, a significant proportion of '1am - 2am' is a decided improvement on weeks past anyway, featuring a much welcome focus on the terrorist threat and generating a substantial amount of suspense, but those parts that are extraneous, I no longer feel inclined to whine about. Nope, I don't feel even the slightest bit frustrated at the fact that 24 is able to provide us with far better, as it has done in the past. I'm quite happy to coast along with you on auto-pilot, letting everything go in one ear and out the other, never objecting that perhaps, just perhaps, we deserve better. As that wise scholar Andrew W.K. once said, 'we want fun', after all. Thanks ever so much 24 for giving it to us. 10*
* 7.8 really. Couldn't keep up the facade any longer.
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