Cutting Jack some slack

The new issue of The New Yorker has a charming, surprisingly accurate article on the popular success of the terrorist-killin’ television bonanza, 24, a show that’s clearly very close to my heart. Writer Nancy Franklin delivers a zesty rundown of some of the show’s serious and seriously silly pleasures, with kind words for the great cast of character actors in the series' supporting roles as well as a pleasantly apolitical take on the show’s torture-lust and a near-perfect description of Kiefer Sutherland’s weary, grizzled performance as the show’s lead:

Kiefer Sutherland, who at thirty-nine looks both boyish and mature, is terrific in “24”; as he himself has said, it’s the role of a lifetime. Torn between duty to his country and duty to his family, he’s focussed and always on the move, trying to shake the cloud of existential doom that hangs over him. Like most of the actors in “24,” he does a lot with little dialogue. Having found some measure of happiness with a new woman after leaving the unit, he’s pulled back in because he’s needed: no one else gets the job done the way Jack does. You can actually see the moment when he realizes that his new relationship is going to fail because of his work; he’s just driving his car—nothing is said—and if you turn away for a second you miss the look on his face. It’s lonely and desolate, sort of the way Los Angeles itself is in the show.

Even better, she nails the way the show's fans obsess over not just that they watch, but how they watch:

People I know talk about this show more than any other, and they don’t just tell me that they watch it; they tell me how they watch it. One friend has seen every episode as it aired—which in the days of DVDs and video-ondemand and DVRs bespeaks an adherence to the old ways of viewing that is almost freakish. Some people didn’t watch it at all until they happened to rent the DVDs of the first season and found themselves watching the whole thing in one weekend. (In DVD form, the series could be called “17,” since that’s how many hours a season runs without commercials; still, that’s a lot of couch time for a weekend.) One friend’s next-door neighbor calls her the second the show is over to discuss it. Couples make dates to watch it together.

I’d never thought of this before, but, of course, it’s remarkably true. I rarely share my enthusiasm for the show to someone new without mentioning that I discovered it by browsing through a roommate’s DVD collection during a long break, popped in the first disk expecting to dismiss it, and suddenly found myself in Jack Bauer’s vigorously patriotic, stop-at-nothing, hacksaw-needing grip. I watched 9 episodes in a row before I finally tore myself away. The first season, especially, really is that good.

I mention the show’s early greatness, also, because the new season is a marked improvement over the last season’s nebulous, ever-changing threats and long forays into interminable, C-plot family traumas. The show always works best under two conditions: when the multitudinous plotlines are somehow related, and when the focus is firmly on Jack Bauer whomping terrorist ass. This season’s first six episodes were some of the best since season 2: no Kim, no annoying/psychotic/needy CTU employee family members, and a whole lot of Jack running, shooting, fighting, kicking, and threatening to gouge out the eyes of the President’s Chief of Staff. Sure, the moppy-haired trailer kid (one of my friends took to referring to him as “Nirvana”) was a bore, and the President’s unstable wife was a total joke, but at least both storylines tied directly to the central Jack action, which was expectedly awesome.

But the last two episodes have been a pretty severe letdown. CTU’s new Hobbit-boy director, sent down from that mysterious higher authority known only as “Division,” gets inexplicably mugged by his druggie sister’s man friend (annoying/needy relatives? check). The First Lady’s assistant whines and bitches in a way that’s utterly absurd even if you don’t know a bunch of mid-20s administration staffers (Disconcerting implausibility? check). Everyone is actively relieved when terrorists kill a only a dozen people in a mall, as if that’s just an average day in 24-world (OK, it is. But still.). And Jack has to act like a little bitch to hide from the terrorists; the best he can do is plant a good sweep kick when they try to kill a mall full of bystanders. This is not the death-defying, chop-the-arm-off-my-partner Jack that I know.