24 - Season 8

Unfortunately, 24's 8th season couldn't reverse the trend of the last couple, bringing the series to a disappointing end. The plot was a string of nonsense and tricks the show has already played before, and when you've killed almost every interesting character and fail to create any new ones, you're flirting with disaster. Seriously, without Jack Bauer, this would have been a total train wreck. And with him, it's merely pretty bad.

I wonder for how long the writers knew this was the end of the show. If you guess that they knew before we did, then you might think that the last third of the season was actually going somewhere interesting, because it shows Jack spiraling out of control in a pit of despair and revenge, which could easily culminate with him and a dozen hours lying dead in a pool of blood. Go out with a bang, you know? But they chicken out, and it ends the same way every other season seemed to end. Nothing new to see, nothing they can't write themselves out of despite how crazy he seemed to go near the end there.

The show pretends to have balls but it really doesn't. They pull the same tricks repeatedly and expect us to still care and be surprised. Wait, you're saying that you picked a good guy out of a hat to secretly have been a mole the whole time? Hold on, the bad guys for the first 15 hours were actually being assisted by someone higher up, who doesn't want people to know about it? I mean... okay, spoilers but no one cares, Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar Galactica is a mole. A hardened double agent looking for a paycheck, doesn't care who gets hurt. So... why does she let herself get pushed around and intimidated by a small time crook ex-boyfriend for the first half of the season? Because the writers just make shit up and don't care if it makes no sense in retrospect.

I don't even care how everyone seems to be able to drive across a major city in the span of a commercial break. You have to make a couple concessions for the show's admittedly interesting real time conceit to work. But when you can pick apart pretty much everything that happens it gets sad. So, this sniper is supposed to kill Jack and his lady friend. Why does he wait until they're done having sex and Jack leaves the room to shoot at them? Sure makes the job a lot harder. Would have been a piece of cake when they were still in the bed. Bad move dude. Now Jack's going to torture you to death in a few hours. How did a car manage to get out of a parking garage with a bad guy in the trunk when both exits were being watched by armed agents? What, as soon as that car went off the roof you just cleared the perimeter? Seems like bad procedure.

And why is Russia so significant? The main plot in the season is about a peace treaty between a fictional Islamic country and the Western world, and for some reason, the Russians are absolutely essential to the process. Without them at the table, the deal won't work. Uh... what? Did the fall of the USSR not happen in this universe and no one told me? Russia's what, the fourth biggest power on the planet now? And they don't want this treaty anyway, for some reason never explained. They orchestrated the terror attacks to prevent it from happening, and the President finds out about this, and STILL WANTS TO GO THROUGH WITH THE TREATY AT ANY COST KNOWING THAT IT'S MEANINGLESS BECAUSE THE RUSSIANS ARE BEING BLACKMAILED INTO SIGNING. How in the hell will this accomplish anything? I... I just... it's sad. We deserve better than this. If they do end up making a movie, I might see it, but I sure won't pay money.