After writing about days 1-7, I know that the formula will have me frustrated. There is still so much time left. Most of this episode deals with the brother's death and what is done as a result of that. The business in the swamp with the two criminals and Dana is fun but goes nowhere. What we have a new boring thing that will go on forever. Hassan's daughter and the security guard. Get rid of them. Right now, other than making Hassan more angry, they are adding nothing to the plot.
2 Reviews
I wanted to like this episode, but...
Zokas2 March 2010
Warning: Spoilers
So I was actually quite looking forward to this episode in the hope that the plot might start to pick up now there's a definite threat in New York. And it does, but unfortunately not in any way that I was satisfied with.
Despite Tarran and Kayla's characters just being thrown into the story without knowing much about them, I quite enjoyed the plan to free Tarran and its execution. I'm really hoping the writers don't pull a rug out and have Tarran turn out to be bad, because I could learn to like him as a character, that is if they decide to keep him around long enough.
It was also cool to see Hastings get back at Rob Weiss, despite how cheesy it was. I hope to see Hasting's character progress further before the end of the day.
OK, now for one of the most contrived bits of TV I've seen - Farhad can't take the stress any longer and decides to make a run for it from the shooter tracking him. Instantly he's shot twice and literally TWO SECONDS later CTU turns up. Hilariously contrived!
I was willing to forgive them when Jack explains his plan to lure the terrorists to finish Farhad off, and it set up some great drama and/or action to follow. Unfortunately, we get a guy from an elite government agency who looks like he should be waiting tables rather than protecting his country with lethal force. He's a field agent who's nervous to the point of Jack having to tell him it'll be alright. I remember Jack saying this to a civilian in Season 7, but now CTU agents are so incapable that he has to comfort them as well...and this guy was the ranking officer after Cole...wow...
OK, so the big setup with Farhad's body is...(and this is a government agency that is signing off on this, mind you, so imagine the outcry if this went wrong) to lure a terrorist inside a hospital wearing an ARMED BOMB. WHAT?! I threw my arms up in exasperation. This completely ruined the episode for me. Sure there are things in 24 that aren't likely, but this enters a whole new skewed reality. The terrorist is holding the detonator in his hand! Judging by how jumpy both he and the CTU agent look, any false move would blow them and any innocent patients & doctors to smithereens.
My other major gripe with this sequence is CTU's technology, and their reliance on technology as a whole. Instantly they can access facial recognition software, and it seems unless they got lucky, which they did, they could have spent hours going through every person at the hospital and seeing if they match with Hassan's IRK member list. Then, it's all up to Chloe, who didn't know her way around anything several hours before, to find what sort of bomb the guy's carrying and Arlo then has to remotely defuse it. It seems so illogical to lean against technology to this extent, when really all they needed was a competent field officer who could simply disarm the terrorist of the detonator at the hospital entrance and problem solved, without any risk of killing civilians!
I would LOVE to see 24 return to being able to be exciting AND intelligent, but this season truly seems to be the worst case of writing it as they go along. They wasted Bazhaev, they wasted his son, now they've wasted Farhad and the bad guy now is just some low-level terrorist whose name I can't recall, that's if he has one!
Despite Tarran and Kayla's characters just being thrown into the story without knowing much about them, I quite enjoyed the plan to free Tarran and its execution. I'm really hoping the writers don't pull a rug out and have Tarran turn out to be bad, because I could learn to like him as a character, that is if they decide to keep him around long enough.
It was also cool to see Hastings get back at Rob Weiss, despite how cheesy it was. I hope to see Hasting's character progress further before the end of the day.
OK, now for one of the most contrived bits of TV I've seen - Farhad can't take the stress any longer and decides to make a run for it from the shooter tracking him. Instantly he's shot twice and literally TWO SECONDS later CTU turns up. Hilariously contrived!
I was willing to forgive them when Jack explains his plan to lure the terrorists to finish Farhad off, and it set up some great drama and/or action to follow. Unfortunately, we get a guy from an elite government agency who looks like he should be waiting tables rather than protecting his country with lethal force. He's a field agent who's nervous to the point of Jack having to tell him it'll be alright. I remember Jack saying this to a civilian in Season 7, but now CTU agents are so incapable that he has to comfort them as well...and this guy was the ranking officer after Cole...wow...
OK, so the big setup with Farhad's body is...(and this is a government agency that is signing off on this, mind you, so imagine the outcry if this went wrong) to lure a terrorist inside a hospital wearing an ARMED BOMB. WHAT?! I threw my arms up in exasperation. This completely ruined the episode for me. Sure there are things in 24 that aren't likely, but this enters a whole new skewed reality. The terrorist is holding the detonator in his hand! Judging by how jumpy both he and the CTU agent look, any false move would blow them and any innocent patients & doctors to smithereens.
My other major gripe with this sequence is CTU's technology, and their reliance on technology as a whole. Instantly they can access facial recognition software, and it seems unless they got lucky, which they did, they could have spent hours going through every person at the hospital and seeing if they match with Hassan's IRK member list. Then, it's all up to Chloe, who didn't know her way around anything several hours before, to find what sort of bomb the guy's carrying and Arlo then has to remotely defuse it. It seems so illogical to lean against technology to this extent, when really all they needed was a competent field officer who could simply disarm the terrorist of the detonator at the hospital entrance and problem solved, without any risk of killing civilians!
I would LOVE to see 24 return to being able to be exciting AND intelligent, but this season truly seems to be the worst case of writing it as they go along. They wasted Bazhaev, they wasted his son, now they've wasted Farhad and the bad guy now is just some low-level terrorist whose name I can't recall, that's if he has one!
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
