Monday March 16, 2009
7AFF14
Jack seeks Senator Mayer's help to help discover the connection between Juma and the company that hired the man who killed Burnett.
In an effort to track down Jack, Larry recruits Morris O'Brian in exchange for Chloe's immunity.
Ethan becomes suspicious of Olivia when a reporter obtains leaked information about the internal affairs of the White House after Juma's attack.
This episode doesn´t present anything new: Jack running and being pursued, but at least, this brings a nice fight, a new lead, a great interaction and some setups. hide show
Presentation Phase - » (8/10). Ok, Jack is trouble with the Law again, this is nothing new, he have to ask for help, and the person who helps him or will be detained or killed, this time is both.
Complication Phase - » (8/10)*3. Jack running and being pursued, the fight was nice, I reality, this is hard to make. The end of the episode, a new complication appears.
Time and Scene Management - » (9/10). This time was hard to me to notice fillers.
Plot Details/Holes- » (10/10). Nothing here that I can point.
Suspense/Tension - » (8/10). The tension played better in the end, when the fight was happening.
Drama - » (9/10)*2. Senator Myer and Jack interaction was spectacular, different point of views debated. Chloe appeared here to have her light drama, Olivia plot continues to be annoying and Ethan is her next victim.
Action - » (9/10). I liked the fight.
What I liked -» Senator Myer and Jack interaction. Chloe is free.
What I Didn´t Liked -» Larry and Olivia performance.
This episode doesn´t present anything new: Jack running and being pursued, but at least, this brings a nice fight, a new lead, a great interaction and some setups.
underrated but brilliant, season 1, 2 and 3 worthy hide show
This episode had little action in it and slowed down the pace slightly but it was surprisingly one of my favourite eps of the whole entire season. It is underrated and maintains tensions with a bad vibe acting as an undercurrent throughout the whole episode. The ending with Jack knocking over the cabin was pure genius and Mayers deaths, completely unexpected. They finally give the character some depth and make him support Jack like David Palmer used to and then when you think the FBI have caught up with Jack, he gets shot and dies...completely unexpected, brilliant ep, strangely eerie, perfect.
Oh look... everyone's chasing Jack again! Well, there's a turn up for the books, eh? hide show
Oh look... everyone's chasing Jack again! Well, there's a turn up for the books, eh? While I have bleated on and on in previous reviews about the necessity of suspending your disbelief when watching 24, this is about seventeen steps too far. Come on guys, are we really supposed to accept that every single person in the FBI, never mind the White House, actually believes that Bauer, the man who has saved America and the entire world countless times in the last ten or so years (that's show chronology, by the way) and has halted TWO terrorist attacks on the country in the last fourteen hours, would just abandon his MO and start ruthlessly killing valuable suspects and, even worse, a perfectly innocent United States Senator? Give over. Every time Jack's loyalty is called into question, he proves it. Every time someone questions one of his decisions, they are ultimately shown to be wrong and he is right. President Taylor would know this by now. Larry Moss would know this by now. Hell, the entire population of the Northern Hemisphere knows this by now. I cannot buy a single second of the clambering to accuse him of the deaths and while, yes, they sensibly have him contact the FBI and profess his innocence, the ease with which everyone jumps to the conclusion that Jack is a killer is just laughable and, above all else, bloody annoying. Presumably, the writers orchestrate this in the belief that it will create engaging conflict. Actually guys, it's about as engaging as watching twenty kids drag their nails down a chalkboard. While screaming. Get the analogy? If you can put all this aside, '9pm - 10pm' is actually quite enjoyable, however, and it's largely down to some stellar writing and acting in Bauer and Mayer's sequences together. There's a real believability to their conversation and the pair come across as actual flawed human beings rather than two dimensional ciphers for opposite sides of a political debate. Jon Voight's scenes continue to delight in their screwball lunacy, Carlo Rota actually gets something decent to do as the doting Miles O'Brien, completely owning Larry and Janis in the scene where he helps them, and Ethan looks like he's about to unravel after the revelation that his (supposed) misstep has led to a potentially crippling situation for the White House. Good to see this excellent actor getting something he can really sink his teeth into. Oh, and then there's that lovely trick with the screwdriver that Kiefer pulls off at episode's end. Now if only they could do all this without resorting to the frankly tired 'Jack vs. the world' motif. Sigh.
Quinn not so bad after all hide show
A lot happened in the episode. A manhunt for Jack Bauer ensues. Jack finds the name of man and who he is that kill Burnett. Larry seeks the help of Morris O'Brien to find Jack Bauer; in return Cloe is given full immunity for tampering with data in the previous episode. Renee Walker gets put on suspension, then gets put in a holding room for help Jack. Jack goes to Senator Mayer for help in finding out who is behind the attacks and is killed by Quinn in the process, but while researching Jack finds the connection between Sangala and the group responsible for the attacks. Quinn chases Jack to kill him, but Jack outsmarts him and ends up killing Quinn.
A busy episode, not quite as good as the last one but still a 10. Jack has a long road to haul.
An almost disappointing follow-up to last week's Hour 13. hide show
I had a feeling this week's episode, Hour 14 of Day 7, wouldn't live up to the ending of last week's episode (which I thought was the best episode so far of Day 7). The episode didn't really come alive until the second half hour. And even then it didn't get interesting until around 9.40 pm - 9.45 pm.
What saved the episode for me was the last 15 minutes, especially the last 5-10 minutes. Why couldn't 24's makers have done what they did in the last 5-10 minutes for the rest of this hour and the first 13 hours of this season? Can they do the frenetic pace they had in the last 5-10 minutes of this hour for the remaining 10 hours of Day 7? I hope they can. This hour felt like another one of those setting up episodes.
In my review of Hour 13 last week I said that Chloe was at the safe house. I'd forgot that she had been detained in the FBI's headquarters.
Again this week Larry was annoying. When will he finally admit that Jack has been helping him and the FBI? That's hard for me to say though because I've found Jack to be an arrogant person this season. The start of his scene with Kurtwood Smith's character at his house was an example. Also Jack isn't always right but he hardly ever admits this, he always gets the better of any villain he fights and he always gets there in time to stop something bad happening.
I can see it happening in the next episode. Jack will get to the port (not the drink, port) in time, meet Tony, and they will stop the Jonas Hodges's shipment from either arriving at the port or from getting to Hodges's units.
It all seems to be going against Jack, with Larry saying he is responsible for killing Senator Mayer, along with Burnett, and issuing the 'shoot to kill' order just before the clock hit 10:00 pm (or 22:00 pm/hours). The picture on the first page of TV.com which has been on there for the past few days (including today) gave me the impression that Jack was going to be caught before the clock hit 10 pm. So I thought I had been spoilt and that it would be another one of those "24" traditional episodes - the one where Jack races to find information about the latest threat before he is caught (either when he knows he is being or isn't being hunted after).
The sound effects used in the last 5-10 minutes were very good, especially with the split-screen quadrants after the last ad-break, when the focus was on Jack being chased by Quinn. That was a classic end to the hour, just like last week's episode.
Now if that is followed through into next week's episode and the whole of the hour, it could be a brilliant episode, fingers-crossed.
teknodave
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