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24
(If you’ve taped, TiVoed it or are waiting for a rerun on FX then skip this.)

I watched the season premiere of 24 tonight, and while I’ll watch it through to the last of the hours – I almost always finish even bad books once I’ve started them – and it seems terribly slanted towards promoting an awful cultural mindset. Still, it’s only two hours into twenty four, and so much of this is still set up. Hopefully more nuances to the positions will come out as it unfolds. I know from the previous seasons that one periodically has to turn off a bit of the old gray matter during one of these seasons and accept that we’re going to be blatantly manipulated -- and that’s okay providing they deliver enough.

I’m not sure they’ll deliver enough – this online, live-broadcast Islamic trial gimmick introduced at the end of the second hour is weak. I presume it isn’t as if they’re going to be entertaining phone-in counsel for the defense, and webcasting from a location is only going to potentially open them to being traced and located. Holding and recording the kangaroo court makes sense, but showing it live makes little. Ah, well, I’ll see what they have for us.

But, hoo boy… has William Devane (this is just a stock credit link to him; I don’t have a screen capture from the show) aged horribly or what? He’s not even 65. The close-up profile of him, early in the episode, his profile reminded me of Yoda’s. His agent should have insisted on letting him keep the blindfold-cum- neckerchief on for the rest of the show once he was abducted. He better wear turtleneck sweaters around Thanksgiving.

Oh, yes. I do know that tonight's also the debut of the second season of the uneven and badly in need of a god of plotting practice Carnivale over on HBO, but I'm paying for digital cable and this is one of those cases where I'll use it to watch it when I want. That's where I finally watched the the first season start to finish over the Christmas/New Year's holidays. Besides, if I'm still up at midnight (and given my newly re-whacked sleeping schedule, that's likely) I can catch it when they run it for the West coast if I wish.

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