Stand By Your Man.

Last night in 24land, Karen Hayes stood by her man. Unfortunately for her husband, CTU chief Bill Buchanan, her man turns out to be the comatose President, not her husband. Enjoy your retirement in the federal pen, Bill.

The good news is Buchanan's departure means Secret Agent Hottie Pants, the sexy Muslim, Nadia, now heads CTU. Yes!

In related news, yesterday The San Diego Union Tribune devoted an entire page to profiling the Presidents of the United States of 24land since "24" first aired. (Here.) Jack Bauer's country has careened from one crisis to another. It's a wonder 24land hasn't already gone to full-scale war.

Which brings us to the other good news. Finally somebody worthy of wearing the Imperial Purple, Vice-President Powers Booth, is acting as President. Let's get ready to rumble!

-tdr

Technorati: 24

Jack Bauer's Black Sheep: Baa Baa Humbug.

Okay, 24 is now officially a joke.

The Cyborg Master of 24, who's been pulling major strings as a bad guy for two seasons now, turns out to be Jack's brother. The brother's wife still loves Jack. Her son is probably not her husband's but is instead her love child with Jack. As if these family dysfunctions weren't enough, Jack's estranged dad may be helping the terrorists.

Meanwhile, back at the White House, the President is in way over his head and his advisors spout insufferable speechettes that sound as if they were written by high school political science students.

On the plus side, Jack is completely out of control this season, and the Islamist Jihadis still have several nukes left and 19 hours left to blow them up real good.

-tdr

Technorati: 24.

TV Is King.

The new television season is starting up strong.

24 got things off to a fantastic start last week with four hours of non-stop action and thrills. In a concession to the real world this season's terrorists are Islamist Arabs, including a sleeper terrorist. Not to worry, however, previews for tomorrow's episode showed Jack pushing around one of the Cyborg Masters (sans bluetooth earpiece) from last season. The real villians of 24 may yet turn out to be white international businessmen pushing pawns around for megabucks.

And tonight, Battlestar Galactica returned. For the first time in a long while, the producers dropped their artistic and social commentary pretensions to give us a straightforward science fiction TV show about humans far away from Earth in great big cool spaceships fleeing from killer androids and robots. Thank the gods!

-tdr

The Jack Bauer Neck Pinch.

Of all the ways 24's writers have devised for Jack Bauer to kill bad guys, tonight's Dracula imitation is the funniest. It was laugh out loud funny when Bauer, all tied up, strapped to a chair, and helpless, leaned over, bit a hapless terrorist in the neck, lifted a key from the guard's dead body, and freed himself. Bauer's escape was truly worthy of 24's status as an adult version of the old Saturday morning serial.

-tdr

Technorati: 24.

Christmas Film Favorites

Now that the Christmas season has officially begun with Black Friday's celebration of shopping, it's time to list Mister Americano's favorite Christmas movies.

A Christmas Story, naturally. Mister Americano is proud to say he first saw this movie when it had just come out and he has subjected his family to watching it every year since, even when it was still only available on VHS. We've upgraded to DVD but we still watch it more than once every Christmas season. Whether we want to or not!

Bad Santa, with Billy Bob Thornton as a drunk, fornicating department store Santa, is uproariously funny. The movie pushes good taste to its breaking point but still displays some Christmas spirit. It does have a kid in it. A pathetic loser of a kid, but still a kid. If Bad Santa ever replaces A Christmas Story or It's A Wonderful Life as the most overplayed Christmas movie on cable television, you'll know that America has moved past the point of no return on its slide into cultural degradation.

-tdr

Honorable Mention: It's A Wonderful Life, of course. What would the Christmas season be without George Bailey? And all the South Park Christmas episodes. Hi de ho!

Wish List: A very Jack Bauer Christmas. 24 hours in the life of Fox's super-violent, counter-terrorism agent: 8 AM December 24th to 8 AM December 25th. Watch Jack punch and shoot his way through one shopping mall after another in a desperate last minute shopping spree that culminates in a cliffhanging opening of the gifts on Christmas morning. The final episode will be followed by a rare look at Jack's life 24 hours later as he coerces store clerks to accept returns without proper receipts. Or else.

Technorati: Christmas, Movies., 24.

An Atheist World At War

One of the myths atheists like to believe is that the world would be a better and more peaceful place without religion. You'd think the 20th Century would have put a end to that one. That atheists still believe the myth is proof that they believe in fairy tales just as much as religious people do.

Leave it to the South Park guys to take a whack at the peace-loving atheism myth. Last weeks's episode saw Cartman frozen in suspended animation and awakened 500 years later into a world without religion where three atheist factions are at war with each other. (Here.)

The South Park writers are smarter than atheists. They know that the problem is within us no matter what our beliefs or nonbeliefs. Humans have a will to power that will always result in warfare somewhere. As Kyle said at the end of another great South Park episode, "war is the natural order of life." (Here.)

-tdr

Technorati: South Park, Religion, Atheism, War.

Battlestar Galactica Finds Earth.

Battlestar Galactica's two hour episode last night struck very close to home. After a year of occupation by their Cylon overlords the human insurgency is now resorting to suicide bombers, blowing up police graduation ceremonies, and targeting civilians. The Cylons are rounding up suspected insurgents, transporting the "detainees" in shackles and canvas hoods, and torturing them in prison while the human puppet president denies it happens.

Hmmmm. Does any of that sound familiar?

BSG, or the best show on TV, as we fans refer to it, has flirted with contemporary wartime events over the past two seasons. This was successful in the past because the writing hinted at current events more than paralelling them. With this new season it looks like the writers may have decided to tell stories "ripped from today's headlines" as those awful unoriginal shows on broadcast television do.

It's too soon to tell from one episode whether the show will turn preachy and convey an overt message about the war. To date the show has avoided that temptation and that's one reason it is so good. Good fiction doesn't preach. Good fiction tells stories that let the viewers or readers come to their own moral conclusions. Time will tell if the writers remain committed to producing good fiction or if they have decided to produce sermons.

-tdr

Technorati: Battlestar Galactica, Science Fiction, war.

Note: This post is duplicated on Tales of the Heliosphere, my blog on science fiction and present space policy.

You Are Not Jack Bauer.

According to Timothy Carney writing at National Review Online (here), Jack Bauer is Everyman. Carney comes close when he puts Bauer in a line of heroes that stretches back to the Old West:

The American hero is the cowboy: He is Maverick, he is Han Solo, he is Batman (though, when Batman is in trouble, he turns on the Jack Bauer signal), he is the rag-tag minuteman fighting the well-trained Lobsterbacks.

So Jack Bauer is not Big Brother, and he is not the establishment. Jack Bauer was expelled from CTU and he disobeys orders. He does what needs to be done and he does it in his own way. (Jack Bauer once played Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun, and won.) He is the fitting heir to Rambo and Maverick.

And like Rambo and Maverick, Bauer’s inhuman excellence (Jack Bauer, for example, could strangle you with a cordless phone) still doesn’t keep us from identifying with him. “Jack Bauer is an everyman,” Writer and Executive Producer Howard Gordon said on Friday, “he is the guy who stands for that American, can-do thing.”

Let's leave Rambo out of it, shall we? That dude is just messed up.

Jack Bauer is a contemporary version of an Old West hero but not the ordinary cowboy hero who fights to defend himself and what's his as best he can. No, Bauer is too expert a killer to be a modern version of the cowboy, an Everyman.

Instead Bauer is the gunslinger who fights for the good guys. Like the gunslinger before him Bauer is a professional who fights with expert skills to protect other people who are less able to protect themselves.

We mortals may admire Bauer and be inspired by him to fight as well, but we can never be him. He's too professional, and he's too much an outsider for the ordinary person to be like him.

As we put it before, Jack Bauer is Shane. (Here.) Like Shane Bauer is a professional killer who operates outside the law to protect civilization because sometimes that's what civilization needs to protect itself. The problem for heroes like that is they have no place in civilization when the fighting stops. That's why Shane has to ride away at the end of his movie, and that's why Jack Bauer's personal life is always in such turmoil. In fact, some say that Shane is dying from his wounds as he rides away. Bauer probably has a bullet waiting for him in his future too.

Sorry, Audrey. When all this is over, Jack won't be hanging up his guns and settling down to a lifetime of domestic bliss. No, he'll be getting the hell out of Dodge. Maybe not because he wants to, but because he has to.

-tdr

Technorati: 24, Jack Bauer.

The Vengeance Of Jack Bauer.

Tonight on 24 Jack plays the role of Inigo Montoya of The Princess Bride. My name is Jack Bauer. You killed my friends. Prepare to die.

First on the list: Henderson aka Evil Mr. Robocop, shot dead on the deck of the Russian submarine. Peter Weller's character was as competent a bad guy as Keifer Sutherland's Jack Bauer is as a good guy. Henderson died defeated but unbowed. When it was clear that Jack intended to kill him, his last words weren't a sniveling plea for life. No, instead he answered Jack's accusation that he killed Jack's friends with a contemptuous sneer, "that's the way it's done, Jack." Defiant to the last.

Second on the list: Bad President, who got some action with the First Lady in the hour before his downfall. She hated him by then so presumably she laid back and thought of the Constitution while Bad President was going at it. To get to Bad President, Jack commandeered Marine One and kidnapped him. Jack looked Dukakis-like wearing the helicopter pilot helmet and a bit like Rick Moranis's character in Spaceballs, Dark Helmet. Bad President performed pretty well when Jack put a gun to his head, but he just wasn't as smart as he thought he was, and certainly not smart enough to beat Jack Bauer, especially when Jack is helped by cyberspy extraordinaire Chloe.

It's a real shame that Bad President got caught. He grew into his role as a bad guy and was showing real potential by the finale. This season he acted "for the good of the country." It would have been interesting to see an entire season of him acting without restraint, trying to take over the country, and make himself the first American emperor, acting without pretense .

Instead, this season's bad guys get rolled up and the prospects of a sophisticated political thriller next season vanish. Jack gets kidnapped and beaten by the Chinese, who want him for killing their consul last season. So the producers end the season with a standard cliffhanger and Jack is on his way to China on a freighter named "Shanghai." Get it? Maybe Jackie Chan will rescue him. We can hope.

Frankly, 24 is becoming a bit of a joke. Cyberspy Chloe can do anything by pushing a few buttons on her magic computer. Jack's exploits in the field are starting to resemble those of Saturday serial action heroes who escape every week from impossible situations.

And yet. And yet. It's going to be a long wait until next season.

-tdr

Technorati: 24.

Cyborg Masters Of 24

Well, in last night's 24 the writers revealed a little bit more of the terrorist conspiracy. President Logan is seen reporting by phone to a bald man wearing a bluetooth earpiece. Bald bluetooth man turns out to have three cohorts; all of them bluetooth bejeweled as well. Is this the Borg Collective? The conspiracy calling the shots this season turns out to be cyborgs.

Or are the bluetooth boys really the masterminds? Maybe it's Peter Weller's character, Henderson, aka Evil Mr. Robocop. Not coincidentally, Robocop was a cyborg too. Hey, it really is a cyborg conspiracy. We can only hope.

More next week.

-tdr

Technorati: 24.

24 And United 93

After watching tonight's episode of 24 you've got to wonder if President Logan is the real villain of this season's terrorist plot. His attempted justification to the Secretary of Defense for his involvement in the plot was pretty pathetic. His whining explanation that he cooperated with terrorists to secure oil from Central Asia in order to stop oil prices from going over $100 a barrel is too lame to be believed.

Maybe that's what the writers expect us to believe, however. They seem to be enamored of the idea that American corporate and big government criminals will do anything to get oil, especially from Central Asia. This is not the first time in the show that Americans have resorted to terrorism against their own government to secure an oil supply from that region. In a prior season the oil executives behind a terrorist plot were motivated by a desire to secure oil contracts from the Caspian Sea.

Yawn. This is tiresome.

How much more interesting it would be if President Logan were motivated by a more basic reason: pure, unadulterated, raw ambition. The kind of ambition that seeks total power and control over government. The kind of ambition that would lead a politician to do whatever it takes to get what he wants, including the assassination of political enemies, declaration of martial law, unleashing a nerve-gas attack on his own country. The kind of ambition that would lead a President to believe he should be an emperor and that the country would be better off as an empire and not a republic.

The idea that the President would play the lethal politics he's unleashed this season over cheap oil is just lazy writing. It's a throw-away explanation tossed into the story so the show can get back to its real strength: tense, fast-paced, action.

Two ads caught Mister Americano's eye while watching 24 tonight. The local news showed a teaser about an upcoming movie version of 24. The TV show is great entertainment. The real time restriction the producers impose on themselves works very well. There haven't been too many movies made using the real-time constraint. You've got to wonder if it will work in a two-hour movie. And what will the movie be called? 2? 120? On the other hand, an epic 24 hour-long movie would be groundbreaking cinema.

The other ad was the trailer for United 93. It's hard to understand the controversy over whether America is ready to see a movie about 9/11. There have been two docudramas on cable about the flight and neither generated an outcry against them.

More important, the United States is involved in a long and hard war against terrorism that is going to demand a lot more from Americans than being able to watch a two hour movie based on the events of 9/11. If Americans aren't ready to see a movie that shows the one victory we achieved on that day, we might as well just surrender now.

The story of Flight 93 is an inspirational tale of heroism. The passengers of Flight 93 sacrificed their lives to give America their only victory on September 11, 2001. This is a war in which America's enemy tries to make civilians into victims. The passengers of Flight 93 refused to die as victims. Instead they fought back and died as heroes.

The war we fight today against Islamist terrorists is the war the passengers of Flight 93 began. We owe it to them to win what they started.

-tdr

Technorati: 24, United 93, Terrorism, War.

South Park Heroes Fight Terrorism While Comedy Central Surrenders.

The South Park heroes tried to strike a blow against terrorism in their recent episode by showing an animated image of Mohammed. Comedy Central censored the image and a black screen with an explanatory message was shown instead. The South Park heroes then drove their point home with an over-the-top scene showing an animated President Bush and Jesus pooping all over the American flag.

South Park can't be accused of subtlety. But it's one of the best satirical shows on television and the bravest.

Not everybody thinks so.

A frequent "South Park" critic, William Donohue of the anti-defamation group Catholic League, called on Parker and Stone to resign out of principle for being censored.

"The ultimate hypocrite is not Comedy Central — that's their decision not to show the image of Muhammad or not — it's Parker and Stone," he said. "Like little whores, they'll sit there and grab the bucks. They'll sit there and they'll whine and they'll take their shot at Jesus. That's their stock in trade." (Here.)

What aembarrassingng remark. First, perhaps somebody needs to treat hookers better. Second, Donohue represents a religious organization. You'd think he'd hold himself to a higher standard and use some other term than "whores" to describe Parker and Stone. Hembarrasseses himself and his organization by resorting to that vulgarity. It doesn't matter that South Park goes even lower. That show makes no pretense of speaking for God or religion. Donohue does. He doesn't speak for this Catholic, however. Third, he just doesn't get it. Parker and Stone didn't take any shots at Jesus in the Mohammed episodes. Showing Jesus pooping all over the American flag was pretty obviously a swipe at our owhypocriticalal and cowardly media culture which allows for offensive representations of Christianity, American leaders, and American symbols, but not Islam. Finally, he probably doesn't recognize the irony but his own whining comment about what the South Park heroes ought to do is just the sort of thing Cartman would say.

-tdr

Technorati: South Park.

The Music Of 24

Mister Americano was at the office until 930 tonight and so missed most of his second favorite live-actor television show, 24.* Did get home in time to see the last 15 minutes and hear the guitar-dominated music playing during the action in the bank. The show's music this year is superior. Sean Callery (here) deserves yet another Emmy.

-tdr

* Number 1 is Battlestar Galactica. And numbers 1 and 2 on the animation hit parade are South Park and The Simpsons. Those South Park guys are American heroes in Mister Americano's book.

Errata: Okay, the guitar music wasn't only played during the bank scene it was also played during the satellite surveillance scenes at CTU. Mea culpa.

Technorati: 24

Et Tu, President Logan?

It's Monday night so it's another night of 24 in the Mister Americano household. Tonight's episode uncovered the real villain and it turns out to be President Logan. That's right. The spineless President who has bumbled his way through every crisis turns out to be an evil mastermind.

Upon reflection, his actions make more sense viewed as part of an evil design on total power than as the bumbling actions of a weak fool. The President is more believable this way. His bumbling and weakness were hard to believe in a politician who had reached so high in American politics.

This season of 24 may turn out to be as much fun as the season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer when the mayor was the nemesis.

If only tomorrow were next Monday already.

-tdr

Technorati: 24.

Is 24 Doing The Roman Empire?

America as the new Roman Empire is a meme in contemporary culture. Usually the idea is played out in the international arena with the United States portrayed as an empire meddling in the affairs of other nations to advance its own imperialist agenda.

Rarely is the idea of America as Rome played out in a domestic setting. But 24 seems to be doing it this season. If Americans played politics like the Romans, it would look like this season's 24.

There's the President acting like an emperor making ad hoc decisions with minimal consultation; there's the political attempt to send the President's wife away to a mental hospital; there are the government officials secretly conspiring with terrorists; there's the official who gets caught and then commits suicide under suspicious circumstances; there's the obviously ambitious Vice-President who manipulates the President into declaring martial law; there are the troops on the street; there's the political violence with the murder of President Palmer; there's tonight's attack on Palmer's brother apparently with the involvement of the Vice-President; there's the Department of Homeland Security trying to take control of CTU. It goes on and on.

There is a conspiracy at high levels of the American government. It's not completely clear yet what the conspirators are up to and how high the conspiracy goes, but the Vice-President's manipulation of the President into imposing martial law seems like a big hint.

The terrorists from the unidentified former Soviet Republic running around the streets of Los Angeles with nerve gas probably aren't the real threat to Jack Bauer's America. The season looks like it might be about an attempted coup that will make the United States an empire at home not just abroad.

-tdr

Technorati: 24.

The 24 SciFi Actor Filmfest.

Mister Americano finally got around to watching this week's two-episode showing of 24. It was sad to see Edgar go. He was such a vulnerable guy working in a high-risk occupation. It's sadder to see somebody like him die than it would be to see a field agent go. They get paid the bucks to take the risks that Edgar didn't.

An online article said Edgar's being killed off showed that anything can happen on 24. Presumably next week Jack Bauer, who really does take all the risks and who barely avoids death every week will die soon. Right, that'll happen for sure. Then again, maybe not everything is possible on the show.

This week's episodes were a big improvement. The producers are really pushing the incompetence of the President to the maximum. And now that he's got his equally incompetent and equally weird Vice-President by his side, we can look forward to even more stupid decisions coming from the Western White House. Watching the two of them plan emergency operations was like watching a couple of kids playing army. Scary and weird.

But the best thing about the show now is that it is littered with actors from favorite scifi and horror movies.

There's Ray Wise, as the Vice-President, who was great as the possessed and tormented serial killer in Twin Peaks and who played a thug in Robocop.

Next is Peter Weller, Robocop himself, who also played Buckaroo Banzai in fabulously oddball movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension.

Sean Astin is in the mix too, the great and loyal hobbit from the LOTR trilogy. Astin deserved an award for his work in that series.

The most recent addition is the one and only C. Thomas Howell, star of countless straight to video scifi movies, and also star of the best War of the Worlds movie made last year. Speilberg's version with Tom Cruise was crap. Just plain crap lacking any justification for its having been made. The version with Howell, however, is worthy and Howell is a much better lead than Cruise ever could hope to be. It's called H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Check out its IMDB webpage here.

And finally, there's Jack Bauer himself. Keifer Sutherland has appeared in science fiction, notably Dark City, where he busted out with an odd Peter Lorre-like portrayal of a scientist forced to work for aliens experimenting on humans.

The casting honchos on 24 deserve a big round of thank-yous for putting these actors together.

-tdr

Technorati: 24, science fiction, scifi, movies.

24 Becomes Farce And Risks Jumping The Shark

"Pray with me, Mike," says the President to his closest advisor in tonight's episode. This imitates an infamous episode in Richard Nixon's career when he supposedly asked Henry Kissinger to do the same. The moment in 24 felt wrong. Very wrong. Laughably wrong, even.

This entire season has teetered on the verge of the ridiculous. We've seen the President who just signed an anti-terrorism treaty agree to allowing two attacks by terrorists on the Los Angeles area. Both within one morning. The character of the President is a weak-willed man but his actions strain all credibility.

24 has always made it a point to portray Americans at the highest levels of government, business, and the military as conspiring with terrorists to carry out attacks against the United States. This year the writers have gone all the way and made the President a co-conspirator. Unwilling and coerced but a co-conspirator nonetheless.

The show has always required some suspension of disbelief but the events this season are pushing the limits. Even the show's trademark cliffhanger episode endings are starting to wear thin. It's beginning to remind a bit too much of an old-time Saturday serial ala The Purple Monster Strikes or Flash Gordon.

It's nice to see Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller) acting again, however.

-tdr

Technorati:
24
Jump the shark

Nice Tribute to UC Berkeley On Tonight's 24

In tonight's episode the terrorists from the unidentified former Soviet republic had to call a nerve gas expert. CTU monitored the call and a photo and bio of the expert flashed on a computer monitor. Not for long, but long enough to see that he graduated from UC Berkeley in 1970. The headquarters of 60s radicalism. A nice little touch by the producers.

-tdr

Technorati: 24

Jack Bauer's Going Problem. A Growing Problem?

In last night's episode of 24 Jack Bauer didn't kill anybody. He came close to putting somebody's eye out, but he didn't kill anybody. Perhaps because he
was always going. All night he was telling the women he loves "i'm sorry, but i have to go."

He really had a going problem. Does he have a bladder? Did he drink too much coffee? Or does he have a growing problem? There's medication for that now. (Here.)

-tdr

Let Us Count The Ways Jack Bauer Kills Bad Guys.

It's only the fifth hour of Jack Bauer's day and already he's killed people with a gun, a knife, a cellphone, and, now, a pair of surgical scissors. He's a regular MacGyver of death.

-tdr