TV Review 24 Season 8 3am-4am

Television:

TV Review: 24 - SEASON EIGHT - 3 a.m. to 4 a.m.

Finally, this mediocre season begins to turn the corner to salvage itself

Grade: B
Stars: Kiefer Sutherland, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Annie Wersching, Freddie Prinze Jr., Cherry Jones, Katee Sackhoff
Release Date: March 15, 2010

By EMERSON PARKER, Contributing Writer

Published 3/16/2010

Now we are getting somewhere on 24!

Any time CTU is attacked, it always amps up the overall season. Luckily, every season CTU gets attacked so in some way you’d think they would see it coming. I only wish that President Hassan’s (Anil Kapoor) daughter, Kayala (Nazneed Contractor), would have died in the process.

While some of the non-major characters have been taken out back and put down this year – Hassan’s brother, Bazhaev’s sons, and Vladimir – we have had a severe lack of shocking deaths from some of the other characters on the show. Another reason that this season has been sub par. Usually we have a definitive bad guy (as we are missing like I pointed out last week), surprising deaths among the cast, some pretty good twists and turns, and CTU always gets attacked.

Well, at least we got the last one this week. The thing I don’t get is how Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) is always the dude that knows what’s happening despite the fact all of these people are supposedly government anti-terrorist members. Not only did Jack fish out that Kayla was transporting some sort of a bomb into CTU but he also was able to sniff out that Tarin, the former head of security to President Hassan, was pulling a switch by impersonating a police officer.

And why don’t these people ever follow Jack’s instructions. Do they not know who they are talking about? This is Jack freaking Bauer here people. Jack is always right. Not following Jack’s orders always equals death and that’s what the cops found out after not listening to him.

The reason for this attack on CTU and the kidnapping of Kayla was to grab hold of Hassan’s dirty little secret he has been keeping. He’s been gathering information on all of America’s nuclear facilities and areas of the country that are more susceptible to a terrorist attack. Of course, that’s why the terrorists want that information from Hassan in return for his daughter’s life. Luckily, Jack and CTU arrive before the terrorist call and they cannot allow that to happen because it would be giving them a free pass to bringing the uranium rods right into New York and detonating them.

While this was all good stuff considering how lame the season has been so far with the cold Russian winter we had to wade through and the lack of a definitive bad guy or any real end game we know about at this point, we still have to deal with the lamest plotline in the history of 24 in Dana Walsh (Katee Sackhoff).

She just won’t go away and neither will this incredibly terrible plotline with her and her former boyfriend that Ortiz (Freddie Prinze Jr.) killed. Now we have the inclusion of perhaps the most aggressive parole officer in history. He has a feeling that Dana isn’t telling him the whole truth and is on her like white on rice. Luckily, when the EMP hits it may give her a chance to somehow get out of it but that may also mean her doing some dastardly deed.

All I know is, I just want this storyline to be done with so we can forget it ever happened.

Source: IFMagazine