Television review: 24 #812: '3am - 4am'

812: '3am - 4am'

Wr: Chip Johannessen & Patrick Harbinson
Dr: Nelson McCormick

Synopsis: While Jack and Cole team up in the field to shield New York from the calamitous threat, a hostage situation has CTU completely stressed out. Meanwhile, unrelenting parole officer Prady presses on in his investigation, and unexpected developments send the Hassan family into a major tailspin.

Review: Well. Can you say schizophrenic, much? After last week's truly abominable '2am - 3am', an episode virtually bereft of any redeeming features whatsoever, it's difficult to believe that this is even the same show, let alone the same season. To say that Chip Johannessen and Patrick Harbinson's script is an improvement is the equivalent of suggesting that it's 'a bit hot' at the equator. This is so much better, in every possible way, that you have to question how it is that dross like the previous instalment is able to make it past the storyboard stage without someone noticing that, you know, it's a right load of old cack. Of course, this being contemporary 24, '3am - 4am' certainly isn't without its problems. In fact, there are a considerable number of dubious narrative decisions and hokey extraneous incidents that impact upon the all-important dramatic drive of the episode, but at least they don't encompass the entire hour. Where last week, barely a beat went by without the viewer wanting to lobotomise themselves with an icepick, here, the bulk of the script is concerned with the furtherance of the central narrative, and thankfully, for the most part, it does a fairly good job of it. It's just a bit troublesome that the programme can oscillate so dramatically across both ends of the spectrum because, ultimately, it's this sort of inconsistency that begets frustration... and we all know where that leads, don't we boys and girls?

Still, to the appraisal. '3am - 4am' succeeds largely as a result of the predominance of the terrorist threat. For the first time in one hell of a while, the script feels like it has focus and isn't scrambling around trying to fill time between dramatic developments. Johannessen and Harbinson channel the majority of the loose narrative strands into the kidnapping of Hassan's daughter, which has the dual effect of concentrating the viewer's attentions and amplifying the impact and importance of the IRK's actions. While the revelation that Tarin is actually a mole is distinctly disappointing, since it's probably the most predictable plot development this side of an episode of Days of our Lives, the script doesn't spend too much time dwelling on the issue and is able to disguise its regrettable nature to a certain extent through the injection of a substantial amount of tension. As soon as Tarin drops the act and begins marshaling his lover towards her fate, things become a whole heck of a lot more interesting. The car chase sequence is fairly well handled, with the use of multiple perspectives via the ever-reliable 'visual boxes' serving to intensify levels of suspense, and it's good to see everyone's emotional investment contribute to the scene. Naturally, Sutherland and Prinze are excellent as the driven, determined agents, but credit must certainly go to Kapoor and Zadagen, whose successful portrayal of a mother and father whose world is effectively falling down around them leads to a number of very strong sequences, the most notable of which are their confrontation with Bauer and Cole when they reveal that they failed in their mission, and everything that follows once Kaila is ransomed by the IRK. It is a bit disappointing that the outcome of the car chase is a foregone conclusion before it even begins (as soon as that underpass rolls around, everyone with a functioning frontal lobe knows that the good guys will lose them in it... gah, what a cliche!), and that CTU's efforts to rescue Kaila from the hotel are hampered by a ludicrously one-dimensional rogue police officer who seems to think that he knows better than the bloody uber-trained terrorism experts (talk about your one-dimensional ciphers, jeez... and did anyone else think his name was Sergeant Anus? No? Oh well), but on the whole, this is pretty entertaining stuff. Hell, I'll take it over The Dana Walsh Hour any day.

Things only get better once the aforementioned ransoming begins. The visual orchestration of this sequence is expertly handled, first-time director Nelson McCormick doing a top notch job of marrying stark, harrowing verisimilitude with powerful emotional gravitas. It's encouraging that 24 refuses to shy away from the horror of the situation, presenting us with a rather bleak representation of Kaila's ordeal. The actress is very good here, conveying the character's desperation and turmoil with a degree of temperance so that things don't descend into the hyperbolic, while the simple decision to pop a balaclava over the head of the 'head goon' works wonders for the impact of the scene, magnifying its eeriness and making the threat seem all the more palpable. Hell, he even gets a plastic bag out and starts suffocating the poor gal which, while hardly likely to signify the end of her character, makes for a powerful moment nonetheless. Harbinson and Johannessen are particularly adept at manufacturing intrigue here, largely thanks to the addition of a number of either unexplained or unpredictable diversions. First, we have the incorporation of the rather ominous 'File 33' which, having never previously been a factor in the story, certainly piques the viewer's interest. Its ultimate purpose is also somewhat refreshing; I, for one, believed it would be some sort of proposal for a nuclear weapons programme (thereby tying this into the core motifs of the season) but surprisingly, the script actually avoids the predictable. Who would've thunk, eh?

The same could be said for the trajectory of the kidnapping itself; the decision to allow Kaila and Tarin to escape initially comes across as a rather unusual one, especially given that other developments seem to point towards the intervention of CTU (more on that later) and that the 'File 33' strand could have led to a decidedly intriguing tangent of its own. It's different but plausible and is executed particularly well; it's just unfortunate that the writers choose to perform another U-turn and manufacture an ancillary twist that isn't as successful. The revelation that Tarin is still alive and that Kaila was set up is frankly groan-inducing, feeling far too artificial to be of any real value. It's another example of the kind of overboard oneupmanship that's plagued 24 since day one, wherein the impact of a twist is considered to be of more importance than the actual logic behind its implementation. Granted, yes, we can hardly have the good guys save the day with half of the season left to go, but at least have the decency to make these things feel like less of a cheat. And I'm reserving judgment on what they've used Kaila for: for all McCormick's orchestration of the CTU 'blackout' is highly effective and somewhat original (well, for this show at least), the viewer is certainly forgiven for feeling rather tired of the beat itself. Honestly, how many seasons has the Counter Terrorist Unit been subject to attack now? Do we really need to see it again? "Ah, but it's an EMP!", I hear you cry, "They've never done that before!" And sure, I'll give you that. Hell, I'll even acknowledge that such a development may have potential; if we can get rid of the magic technology that enables Chloe And The Gang to resolve every problem within minutes, we could have a rather refreshing show on our hands. But do you really hold out hope? Really? Is it not far likelier that Jack and his buds will just use all the even-more-hyper-advanced-super-tech housed at the NSA, thereby rendering this whole plotline utterly worthless? What do you think, gentle viewer?

To be honest, however brief a stop-gap this technological impedance proves to be, it couldn't have come at a better time. The amount of patently unbelievable uses for the CTU systems in this episode is enough to give your average engineer a few brain hemorrhages. Once again, every security feed in the land proves to be subject to the whim of Chloe O'Brien, whose magical ability to 'tap into' just about anything (hospital cameras, traffic cams, your Fujifilm 200) is trotted out for the umpteenth infuriating time; the 'quick fix' drones are provided with their most prominent showcase to date, popping all over the place in an attempt to amplify the tension of the car chase sequence, but actually just serving to mildly distract the viewer with their eerie 'Jesus-eye' perspectives (credit, for the second week running, to the excellent 2guystalking podcast for that one); but perhaps the most offensive of the lot is the patently ridiculous load of garbage that flows freely from Arlo's mouth when he comes up with a way to locate Kaila and her kidnappers. He 'isolated a subway noise and is cross referencing with train positions'? Oh come on! 1. Is it even likely that there would be any cars running at 3.30 in the morning? 2. If there are are passenger services, couldn't it also be possible that a freight train/cleaning vehicle is being used while the place is shut? And if so, cross-referencing with timetables would be insufficient... a whole process of acquiring information would need to begin, and third and most important, how is he able to 'isolate a subway noise' anyway? How ludicrously vague is that? Why can't we have something more realistic and less half-baked? Is it too much to ask?

Well, at least it isn't My Name is Dana, eh? To be fair to 24, we don't get a great deal of it this week but sadly, what we do get continues to significantly sub par. First, there's the continuation of the irritatingly irrelevant inter-office paradigm shift, wherein Arlo, quite logically actually, asks Chloe whom he is required to report to following Dana's demotion. Instead of simply giving him a straightforward answer, she puts her petulant head on, pouts and starts moaning about how 'we're in the middle of a crisis' and that Arlo effectively shouldn't be bothering her. The problem here, as with Cole's rebuke of Jenny in the lift last week, is that by referencing the fact that something is extraneous, the writers draw the viewer's attention to it and therefore amplify its impact. Yeah great, you should get on with it! And now! Stop harping on about it! Worse still, obviously, is the furtherance of the Kevin Wade plot. Yup, the parole officer arrives at CTU at 3.15 in the morning, desperate to find out what happened to the man he's been charged with, despite the fact that he has free will and can pretty much do what he wants. And okay, okay, so perhaps the Nick thing is a fairly logical way of explaining his presence but to be honest, no one actually gives a shit. Stephen Root may be a solid actor, and his portrayal may actually be moderately enjoyable, but the whole strand is so categorically objectionable that it doesn't matter. Every time Dana's blonde locks cascade over the screen, the dramatic momentum grinds to an unforgivable halt, removing the viewer from his or her engagement with the narrative and negating our enjoyment of the episode. Kill. This. Story. Dead. Now. There's plenty decent story to go round.

It's something of a relief that '3am - 4am' is a substantial improvement on Evan Katz and David Fury's preceding effort. Last week's hour was so unequivocally bad that it's unsurprising that 24 is losing viewers in droves, and any further slide down this slippery slope could have resulted in a truly sorry state of affairs for the show. Thankfully, Johannessen and Harbinson's script rectifies some of the problems that dogged '2am - 3am', concentrating squarely on the central terrorist threat and doing so with impressive gusto, providing a dramatic development that concentrates the focus of the story and provides a palpable and enjoyable level of tension and suspense. It isn't without its problems, of course; once again, we simply cannot get rid of The Dana Walsh Show, and every scene in which she appears seems to obliterate the episode's momentum, and some of the other dramatic decisions are distinctly questionable. Still, at least things appear to be on the up. Let's just hope that, as currently appears to be the trend, 24 doesn't pull a fast one on us and unleash its worst ever hour next week. Fingers crossed guys, fingers crossed. 7.2