24 skidoo
So, who else watched this season of 24 through to the end? How many were increasingly disappointed, step by step, with (at least) the final hour? A stealthed nuclear missile has been flying from the midwest towards a coastal target, and is shot down over Los Angeles with no release of radiation? Okay... alright. I can almost buy it. Safety protcols would keep it from the carefully-controlled detonation sequence until it officially reached its target; it isn't as if the warhead's filled with nitro. I would still expect a crude "dirty bomb" release as the payload was blown apart in the air.
But to layer on this Jack Bauer evading being turned over to the Chinese by faking his death? Are the Chinese this dim? I guess we're supposed to believe that after being so dogged in their pursuit, that all they really wanted was a little attention. And at least we know that Jack was willing to go through it, and only ran - with former-presidential permission, no less - after he found out that he was to be killed by a shadow operative of the current administration. (Okay, at least that last part's very believable.)
Before all this... oh, who cares? There were problems left and right. It's probably just best to approach it with the thought that Tim Tjarks offered early in the season: Jack Bauer is Batman. We're supposed to just watch him as a juggernaut of justice and not fret about the details.
I know the ending, with "Jack Bauer" officially dead and the man he was, out walking and hitchiking his way along the road, struck more than just me with flashbacks of Bill Bixby from those Incredible Hulk shows -- I know it because someone who dropped me an email immediately afterwards said the same thing. It's a good thing, though, because I needed a little joke at the end to lighten the mood so I wouldn't dwell on the time I'd wasted following this mess. Back in January for the next season? Hey, good luke Ja-- er.. whoever you are now. Hopefully I'll find something better to do.
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