Dammit! TV Guilty Pleasure: 24

Jack Bauer’s having another (7th) awful day. What keeps me coming back? Just the right mix of characters and action. There are weak spots, sure, but the ever present ticking clock means something exciting is always coming.

That’s right, I still enjoy the gimmick almost as much as in the first season. For those not familiar, the premise is for 24 hour long episodes we’re following (mostly) Jack Bauer, a government agent with a knack for getting into trouble with large, multi-pronged, terrorist groups involving one or more corrupt politicians, rogue agents, agency moles, and lots and lots of backstabbing. Jack, played masterfully by Kiefer Sutherland, is a former special forces super-agent who can’t help but punch, kick, throttle, knife, shoot, drive, choke, stab, electrocute, suffocate, or otherwise just stare at and intimidate his way out of a situation. The show is done in “real time” so events are occurring simultaneously though usually usually serially enough for you to tell what’s going on. An hour of show time is supposedly an hour of real time, and a clock ticks continuously and is shown occasionally to let everyone get their bearings. Often the seconds click off and camera angles are added to the screen very dramatically.

Not a lot of liberties are taken with time, though driving from place to place probably happens a lot faster than it really does. The grossest (and I will emphasize gross) problem is apparently nobody goes to the bathroom. I suppose it’s possible that happens off camera as we’re following someone else, and honestly very few plot points probably come from bathroom conversations, so it’s a forgivable omission.

I like 24 because for the most part the characters are very well defined. There’s always some new ones that take a little to suss out and the writers sometimes have a field day flipping sides with some folks to expose some hidden agenda, but for the most part it’s easy to get invested in the characters pretty early because of the simultaneous storytelling. It’s apparent very early whether to like them or hate them enough their storylines matter. The annoying characters even get theirs once in a while. There seem to be a lot of stray bullets and errant dirty bombs to make it a serious occupational hazard for even the lowliest temp worker. This is only a problem when they decide to get rid of someone genuinely likable which usually happens at least once a season. A heroic death often feeds the flames.

The pacing of the show is my favorite thing. Even in a slow show, a lot happens. More happens in a normal episode of 24 than in a season finale of a normal action tv show. When 24 premieres or starts ramping up for its finale, the show is in rare form. I like action in TV shows. The taut storytelling of 24 gives a lot of good tension to punctuate the fighting, shooting, driving, and general beat-em-up sequences. It’s not to say that people can’t resolve their problems without resorting to violence, but …well… it’s TV. Sometimes you want them to resort to violence. Especially when lines are pretty clear about goodguys and badguys. I think 24 appeals to our sense of fair play and does its best to set Jack up as a one-man-show dispensary of justice against the backdrop of corrupt politics, global terrorism, and polarization of good and bad. And it makes for good escapist entertainment.