24: Live Another Day

[Zeus]

In case you all (probably) missed it, tonight was the season finale of a half season (Season 9, technically) of 24.

Anyone here care?

[Shrinweck]

I watched the first couple episodes since I was a fan of (a great deal) of the original nine seasons. I couldn't get into it enough to watch it week to week. I'll probably get to watching it at some point.

[Zeus]

Original 8 seasons :-)

If you're a fan of the original, they did a pretty good job with this half season. And being only 12 eps, it was actually a lot more compact of a storyline. I was pretty impressed, I hope they do this 12 ep thing every year

[Blotus]

I was pretty impressed, I hope they do this 12 ep thing every year

I took a swing and a miss in my assumption that this half season was going to set up Yvonne Strahovski's character as the new Jack for any future seasons. That's certainly how it felt early on, but by the end I was relieved that this was not the obvious outcome. As much as I loved her in Chuck (and just love looking at her in general), I wasn't feeling her performance as the series went on... spoilers

Spoiler: show

Especially not during Audrey's death

. Also, her partner (guy who played Chris Partlow on The Wire) did not turn in a good performance at all.

It was entertaining enough, but instead of its presumed intent of making me want more 24, I just wanted closure for Jack.

[Zeus]

I'd be happy if they made more half seasons of this quality. Still better than the vast majority of things out there....and anything from AMC.

And yeah, I luvs Strahovski, although my exposure to her is Dexter. But her character was just kinda there, a device to move the plot along. All of London CTU, including Benjiman Bratt, was pretty meh.

Speaking of The Wire, I just finished re-watching it with a bud of mine. Man, going through it again after going to so many so-called "great" shows over the last few years, you begin to appreciate what an incredibly well-done show it really was. Second season was a bit of a hiccup but not bad by any means. Other than that, it's as strong as any show HBO has put out and easily the best cop show by a long shot (The Shield is #2 IMO, but WAY behind). I couldn't believe the sheer volume of characters on that show (you'd be keeping track of 12-15 regulars and at least that many secondary per season and across seasons) and how many had real, sustained depth over the course of multiple seasons (Omar and Bubbles being the best, IMO). And it had the second-best ending of all time behind Six Feet Under. Too bad they didn't keep that show going another season or two, it really was amazing. Only thing right now that holds a candle to it (and Sopranos and Six Feet) is Boardwalk.

[Blotus]

I totally forgot about her on Dexter. Insanely hot.

You're right on The Wire. I watched it again last month for the third time and there really is nothing better in the history of TV drama. I bristle a bit when you and others refer to it as a 'cop show' because it's so much more, but I understand the need for classification and wouldn't know how else to describe it without reaching for something dumb like 'an examination of urban decline.'

Nice dig on AMC; I knew you'd take your shot somewhere in this thread!

[Zeus]

Oh, for sure it's a lot more than a "cop show". It's really more of a character drama with a police setting as it's so much more about the characters than the plot, that's where the real depth of The Wire is. But if you had to categorize it, you gotta put it under "cop show". But that's like saying Six Feet is a "TV drama" or Boardwalk Empire is a "historical drama". The great HBO/cable shows (as all of these are) are always multi-genre shows with far more depth than network TV.

24 to me is kind of in the middle. It's not "down" to the quality of a network TV show but it's not quite up to the level of the great cable shows. It's more of the level of a very good cable show, so it lumps up there with ones like Defiance or Helix but not quite as good as the ones I mentioned above or Sopranos or Battlestar. But it's still a jump up from network TV. And I'm including more recent shows I've seen like The Blacklist as more recent network TV shows have shown the ability to increase their quality from what we saw in the 90s. 24 is still pretty damned good, even 8 1/2 seasons (and one movie) in.