Sunday, February 17th, 2008

I’ve decided to watch the second season of 24 in 24 hours. And for your pleasure (or displeasure), I will be posting a running diary of this experience.

Now, obviously this is not the most original idea in the world. I’m sure lots of guys who are way weirder than me (yes, it is actually possible for a person to be weirder than me (like Tom Cruise or the Home Remedies They Don’t Want You To Know About guy)) that have done this. And the running diary is about as unoriginal as it gets (see Bill Simmons’s ESPN column for many examples of this). And this is not the sanest idea in the world either. I could end up completely losing my mind. But I don’t care. I’m doing it anyway. I don’t know why this idea, in all of it’s unoriginal glory, appeals to me, but it really does.

So without further ado…

6:10pm:

So apparently this season starts at 8:ooam. Maybe I should have started watching at 8:00am this morning. Hmmm. Oh well. Regrets, regrets.

Mentally I think I’m ready for this. I warmed up by reading for two hours this morning. Kurt Vonnegut. I also ran for 40 minutes this afternoon.

6:13:

It is confirmed…Jack Bauer’s daughter is still hot. And apparently she has a kid? What? What’s going on here? Nope…not her kid. False alarm.

Holy shit! Darlene from Roseanne is on this show? Bringing out all the stars for this season! It is confirmed…she is still not hot. But oddly attractive. Between Darlene and Becky (on Roseanne), I always thought Becky was hotter but Darlene would be much funner to date. Question: who’s hotter…Darlene or Blossom? Tough one for sure.

6:20

Pedro Cerrano from Major League got elected president!

“If you don’t help me with foreign policy now, I say fuck you Jo Boo. I do it myself.” Hilarious. Seriously though, Dennis Haysbert (the guy who plays President Palmer on this show (and Pedro Cerrano)) has one of the absolute coolest voices in the history of Hollywood. I would love him to be the one who marries my wife and I someday.

“Do you, Nick, take _______ to be your lawful, wedded wife?”

“I do.”

“It is very bad to steal Jo Boo’s rum. It is very bad.”

6:25

Nuclear bomb in America! AHHHHHH!!! Quick, duck under your desks!!!!

6:31

Jack Bauer has a cool, totally depressed guy beard. Looks like the last couple years have been rough on old Jack. And it appears his daughter isn’t too happy to see him. Maybe it has something to do with the two times she got kidnapped, the 50 billion times she almost got killed by terrorists, and the fact her mom died because Jack didn’t figure it all out in time in season one. Hmmm.

6:35

Jack is so torn about whether or not to get back on the horse! Will he do it? Will he fight terrorism again? Come on, Jack! For the love of your country! For freedom!!!

Note: Jack Bauer’s home phone is right out of 1988.

6:38

Jack’s daughter is a nanny or something for an extremely attractive couple. Something mysterious is going on at the house though…

I feel a kidnapping coming on…

6:40

The bomb is somewhere in LA!! Jack! We need you!

6:45

I did some research on Keifer Sutherland. His full name is Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland. No joke. That’s really his full name. Why would he shorten it? I would love to see that on any opening credits sequence.

It’s interesting that nowadays he most well known for being a bad ass action hero when the majority of his past film roles were creepy murderous racists whackos. Or vampires.

In real life he’s a big time party guy who just got finished serving 48 days in prison for a dui. Why does this make me like him more?

Top 5 Keifer Sutherland roles:

5) Crazy scientist in Flatliners

4) Fish out of water cowboy in The Cowboy Way

3) That vampire in The Lost Boys

2) Jack Bauer

1) Mean to the point of being evil ’50’s bully Ace in Stand By Me

6:50

Jack Bauer returns to the Counter Terrorism Unit! He’s back! What a twist!

I wonder if he’s going to find time to shave today.

6:55

I’m not going to lie. This season has not started out as promising as the last one. This might be a loooong night/day.
6:59

Jack just shaved! That’s how they ended the episode! Now the real all-American action can begin! Whooo!!

7:20

This episode is much better than the last one. My outlook is not as bleak. They’ve raised viewer anxiety by walloping us with the one two punch of Jack going undercover and Kim (and the child she nannies for) evading a kidnapping. This show feeds off of anxiety. In fact, don’t all shows these days feed off of anxiety?

7:33

A kidnapping! AHHHH!!!

8:35

I’m now knee deep in episode three. I just ate a sandwich and a cookie. I feel fantastic!

As I watch the seemingly unbeatable scenario the 24 writers team has trapped Jack into (involving explosives and four guys dressed as cable company dudes), I’m still thinking about the mixture of entertainment and anxiety. I love horror movies and I love suspenseful TV shows like this one. But why? It would suck to deal with the shit Jack Bauer deals with every hour (unless you’re an ex-green beret or whatever like Jack), and I would definitely hate to be chased down the street by a legion of zombies. But cinematically, fear makes for a great viewing experience. I’m sure there’s all kinds of psychological research that has been done on this subject that I don’t know about. I wonder what their findings were because I am fascinated by it.

I’m also fascinated by the dramatic dialogue Darlene just delivered in the bathroom of the CTU.

“It’s just that…I grew up in LA…my whole family lives here, my friends are here. So if this bomb goes off what does that mean that all of a sudden everyone’s just going to die?”

She’s still got it.

8:40

I think that if you interviewed the creators of this show, they’d have to mention MacGuyver as a major influence on them. This show is just a slicker, better acted MacGuyver. This will be the happiest night of my life if Richard Dean Anderson pops up as a guest star.

8:53

Poor President Palmer, he’s always surrounded by a bunch of douchebag advisors. Where did he find these people? Red Herring Hiring Services?

Speaking of…

Looks like Darlene could be a bad guy.

8:59

Oh shit! CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) just done got blown to bits!

This season has improved drastically during the past two episodes. Phew!!

9:08

There is an interesting subplot going on that I have yet to mention. A beautiful rich blonde with a beautiful blonde sister is getting married to a beautiful middle eastern man. The beautiful blonde sister suspects he’s not the man that he seems and has someone do a super secret background check. She finds he could be linked to terrorists. One thing this show does really well is setting up character situations where you could either trust or distrust them. You really don’t know, and they do a good job of keeping it all way up in the air. So do we trust that this guy is not a terrorist and that the sister is a crazy white racial profiler? Or will he actually end up being one? The 24 writing team is really trying to tap into America’s post 9/11 racial issues. Seems a little forced by 2008 standards, but was probably cutting edge at the time.

9:29

Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite (John Gries) just appeared in this episode as a major bad guy. One of the most underrated character actors of all time. One of those guys we’ve all seen millions of time, but we don’t know who he is. According to IMDB.com, he’s been in 85 films/TV shows. Whoa. This is the second thing I’ve watched that he’s popped up in today. This and Men In Black. Yeah. I was watching Men In Black.

What is wrong with my life?!!!

10:05

Darlene is dying! She got crushed in the explosion. I’m sorry I said she wasn’t as hot as Becky. I’m sorry! I take it back! She is hot. She is!!! Oh cruel fate!!!

10:07

Darlene is dead. She gave CTU a bunch of codes right before she died in one of those “I’m dying but I’m going to tough it out for just enough time to give you these…codes…hechhhheehh….” scenes. Wow. Amazing drama. Why she didn’t get an Emmy for these five episodes is just beyond me.

Note: She did get nominated for an Emmy twice for playing Darlene. Never won, though.

Goodbye, Darlene. Rest in peace.

10:17

I’m getting into a groove now. I’m starting to enjoy this idiotic endeavor. I’m awake and motivated to carry on through. I only have 20.5 episodes left!

10:21

Watching this is making me reminisce. The early 00’s. Remember those years? Remember when almost every day there was a bomb that was going to go off in a major city or truckloads of anthrax were going to be spread all over the country? Those days seem so long gone to me now. Crazy. There was just a scene where Jack told his daughter to flee the city to San Jose because of the nuke that was going to be detonated. It reminded me of a news report that LA was going to get hit by a major attack.

The early 00’s were strange days indeed.

11:19

Just finished sixth episode. Things are really heating up. The surprise ending insider from season one (Nina Meyers) came back. She’s involved now. The wedding/possible middle eastern terrorist investigation at the rich sisters’ house has taken a turn for the worse as it’s revealed…the girls father may be funding the terrorists. And he’s a white guy! Whoa! Also, this season, instead of getting kidnapped over and over again, Jack’s daughter is attempting to save a little girl from domestic abuse. This show is really getting to the core of some major modern issues!

Oh yeah, and Kim Bauer’s hot Emo boyfriend…knows martial arts!!

Let episode seven begin!

11:30

I’m starting to wonder how I’m going to be feeling early tomorrow morning…when I’m still watching this show. Will I be into it? Will I be bored with it? Will I be going completely nuts? Like Ed Norton at the end of Fight Club? Only time will tell…

Tick…tick….tick…tick…

11:56

For those of you who have not watched the first season of this show, President Palmer’s wife Sherry is one of the most manipulative, bitchy, irritating characters in the history of television. He dumped her in one of the season’s most punch packing scenes. Now…they’ve brought her back!! And she’s as evil as ever! I hope she get’s assassinated. That can be her only redeeming moment.

12:01

I miss Darlene. That was a tough loss to cope with. I’m getting counseling after this is all over.

Well, for that and a lot of other things!

12:05

This show makes me think of what I was doing when this show first came on the air and I wasn’t watching it. I was working as a land surveyor for CDS Engineering with Tom Donnelly. He came up with a list that all movies ever made fall into. And I kind of believe him. The categories are…

1) Revenge movies

2) Good vs. Evil movies

3) Chicks making out movies

4) Freddie Prinze Jr. movies

These categories are air tight.

12:51

I just want to take this opportunity to express how ecstatic I am to live a lifestyle that allows me to stay up all night on a Sunday to watch 24 in 24 hours.

12:55

Uh-oh. Jack’s daughter is getting arrested…for murder! After her karate expert Jake Gyllenhal lookalike boyfriend beat up the abusive father and they stole his car, a cop pulled them over outside of LA and found his dead wife in the trunk. Now she’s dangerously close to telling a cop there’s a bomb in the city. We are on the brink of major mass hysteria!

1:00

This subplot with Palmer’s ex-wife (super bag of bitch) is ridiculous. He’s bringing her in to help uncover a possible conspiracy against him within his own administration. Why would a president ever do that? Why couldn’t they just leave her out of it? Why was her character ever written?! In a world?!!! Right now she’s persuading a reporter to keep a lid on the possible nuclear threat he’s been poking his head into. Why would Palmer ever trust her to do this? Good God!!

Just when I think the writers of this show are totally incompetent, they redeem themselves by having the van housing terrorists and their nuke blow a tire next to a park. And they can’t get their jack to work! And some goofy fat white guy offers to help! I love it, I really do. I’m starting to think being a writer for 24 must be the funnest job of all time. Well, second funnest. Writing for “Lost” would be slightly more fun.

“So let’s say they run into the jungle and…they…uh…see a…polar bear!”

“Shit yeah! A polar bear, shit yeah!”

“A polar bear! They see a fucking polar bear on an island!!”

“This island is so crazy! Yeah!”

“Are we all out of coke? “

“Do you think J.J. Abrams will ever let us out of our cage?”

1:24

Jack’s daughter just told a cop about the nuke. It’s panic time! I, meanwhile, just finished my first cup of coffee. I despised the beverage until a few months ago. As cliche as it sounds to say I moved to Seattle and started drinking coffee, I did move to Seattle and started drinking coffee. But I will never go to a coffee shop and order a drink that takes five minutes to order. A man has to have standards. If you can call me a man…

2:06

No mass hysteria yet.

But I’m starting to fade a bit. Bad sign considering I have a long way to go. I’ll make it, though. I’ll make it. If Jack Bauer can survive a plane crash, and manage to shoot 7-8 bad guys in the span of 5 minutes, I can stay awake and watch this show. I can do this!

2:15

I can’t fucking do this.

2:25

So super villain Nina Meyers has Jack held hostage. She knows where the bomb is and told the president in exchange for an advance pardon for the murder of Jack Bauer.

“This isn’t how you thought it would end, is it Jack?”

“This isn’t over yet.”

You gotta love this show.

3:05

I’m still standing! I’m still standing! I’m sitting, actually, but you get the idea.

3:48

There’s a running theme in this show. Every time a promising suspect or person who could supply a breakthrough of information appears, they end up dying in some weird way. Never fails.

Oh yeah, and Kim Bauer is now being pursued…by a mountain lion.

You really gotta love this show. Really.

3:55

I’m onto another episode. I was really losing steam until I saw the following name in the opening credits: Kevin Dillon. What?! Yeah! Most of you know him as Johnny Drama from Entourage, but I’ll always remember him from the Blob remake as the greaser anti-hero.

Here is my guess as to his character in this:

Reclusive, misunderstood, hasn’t spent much time with people much lately guy who finds Kim Bauer in the mountains and saves her (she’s currently stuck by a river in some sort of animal trap). I’ve got to be right about this, I’ve just got to.

Other notable Kevin Dillon films:

The Rescue – a bunch of kids band together to save their hostage parents (I think. I could be remembering this wrong.)

Platoon – one of the best war movies ever made

War Party – he and his Native American friend re-surface old conflicts with white people on a reservation (I bought this at a thrift store once)

4:04

The craziest thing right now is the realization that two months ago I would have woken up an hour from now to go to work. Yechhh.

4:07

They just introduced a character named Murdock. See? MacGuyver! I told you! This is almost as good as a Richard Dean Anderson appearance. Almost.

4:10

I was right!! Kevin Dillon! He is the guy in the wilderness who finds Kim. I don’t know about the reclusive, crazy part yet. We’ll see…

4:13

A lot of torture going on in this season. A LOT of torture. Hmmmm. 2002…terrorism…torture. Was America more tolerant of it then? What was up with us then?

4:15

“The highway is a couple miles that way, but the terrain’s not safe in the dark and there’s cougars all over the place. My place, is just a little ways that way. You come with me, I could put a roof over your head for the night.”

Wow. What a move, Kevin Dillon! Nice.

4:17

Two Muslims (one a mosque leader and the other the terrorist mastermind) are arguing over what the Qur’an says about the “killing of innocents in non-combat”. They’re really dealing with some big time issues this season. I can’t decide if I think this is good or totally contrived and lame. I could go either way.

4:43

I’ve reached the halfway mark.

This episode opens with Kim Bauer walking to Kevin Dillon’s cabin. Oh, by the way, his character’s name…is Lonnie. Perfect.

“The shower’s in there…you’re welcome to use it.”

Man, they really gave Lonnie some great dialogue.

4:51

Okay. The reality of this feat is starting to set in. It’s like when someone tells you not to look down, I’m telling myself not to look at a clock or think about the number of episodes I have left. I’ve officially reached the dark period of this mission. The only remedy…Kevin Dillon doing something either a) really cool or b) really crazy. Come on, Dillon…save me!! Please!!

4:55

Kim Bauer, who has been kidnapped multiple times, seen many people die, and has been chased by a myriad of nutjobs, is trusting this stranger, Lonnie (K-Dill), enough to not only go to his house in the woods with him, but to shower there and walk around in a tank top in his living room.

Note: There were a shitload of commas in that last sentence.

“I knew it. I’ve been telling people that this is going to happen for over a year. But no one would listen to me.”

That was K-Dill’s response to hearing about the nuke in LA. I was so right about his character! So right! Possibly more right than I have been about anything in the history of my life.

“I’m gonna show you somethin’, but you can’t tell anyone.”

I swear K-Dill just said this. He is saving me! He’s really saving me! Am I really calling him K-Dill? That stops right here.

5:00

I’ve decided the perfect ending to this season would be for Kevin Dillon to save the day with some sort of home made nuke dis-arming mechanism. That’s it. That’s the perfect ending. Anything else would just be mediocre.

5:38

It’s official. Kevin Dillon’s character is creepy. He made Kim think the bomb went off to lure her into his bomb shelter. I’m disappointed. I really wanted him to save the day. But, alas, he’s the latest character to make Kim Bauer a kidnapping victim. What a strange character she is. It’s like their only plan for her is to get trapped, run away, get trapped, run away, etc, etc… Weird.

6:00

It turns out K-Dill’s character, though creepy, is totally harmless. After she freaks out, Lonnie realizes how wrong he was and lets her go. My dream of him saving the day in some sort of wacky last minute way is over.

7:00

They found the bomb and set it off in the Mojave Desert. Jack was originally going to be on the plane for the kamikaze mission and had the big I’m about to die by choice speech with his daughter (still in the woods somewhere). After a few minutes in the plane, what do you know, the guy who’s going to die of radiation poisoning in a few hours anyway snuck on the plane! Jack can parachute off and live to save the day for 8 more episodes. Whoooo!

Meanwhile, I am battling the urge to do what my body needs me too. Why am I battling? Why? Why? Why?!!

7:45

Kim’s story line has taken a turn for the even more ridiculous. Now she’s been taken hostage in a liquor store by a guy who’s freaking out about the bomb that went off in the desert. Meanwhile, there’s some shit going down about how to retaliate about the bomb.

Meanwhile, I’ve got like six episodes left and I can’t keep track of what’s going on.

8:56

I’m hanging in there, but I’m fading fast. Everything that’s happening on the show is starting to blur. I don’t think it was meant to be watched like this. Nothing was! Ahhhhh! It’s like a never ending movie!

And I miss Darlene and Kevin Dillon. Why weren’t they major characters? Why? Why?

9:00

Alright. I’m waking up and going to push on through. I’m going to try to pay closer attention to what’s going on here. This is the last leg.

Looks like yet another character that is going to provide key evidence is about to die suddenly. It seems less exciting when my eyelids have lost all strength.

9:04

One interesting thing about the last few episodes is that the president is waiting as long as he possibly can, weighing out every single option before he goes to war. It’s funny because this was shot in 2002, during which time the real president was doing the complete opposite. Then we re-elected him. Way to go, us. We need David Palmer to become a real person and run for president…and fast.

9:10

This is is the story line for the Kim Bauer character this season…

She escapes with the girl she nannies for from her abusive father, runs around the city trying to hide from him, takes her to the hospital, is forced to leave the hospital by the abusive husband, returns to the hospital with her Emo boyfriend to bust the girl out, busts her out, steals the father’s car (after beating the crap out of him), get’s pulled over for speeding then arrested for murder (body in the trunk), escapes police custody by starting a fire in the police car thus causing an accident injuring the officer and her boyfriend, gets lost in the wilderness, is rescued by Lonnie (K-Dill) only to later be sort of trapped by him because he’s lonely and wants someone to keep him company in his homemade bomb shelter, escapes from Lonnie, hitches a ride during wich her father tells her over the phone he’s about to fly a nuclear bomb into the desert and will die, walks to a liquor store that ends up being held up by a crazy person who is “just trying to help his wife” but ends up killing a man and getting killed himself, ESCAPES AGAIN!!, turns herself in, gets set free of all charges, calls her boyfriend expecting him to be happy to hear from her only to have him say he never wants to see her again because the car accident/escape…left him with only one leg (which she doesn’t know about, but we the audience do). This is her storyline? Is this not the craziest shit any character has ever gone through ever? Does this make any sense? What were they thinking here? I don’t get it. And I’m not sure it was even entertaining. I’m to the point where I wish they didn’t even include her.

I can’t believe I’m still doing this. I don’t think I ever want to watch television again. But I know I will.

1:42

The last episode is over! The last episode is over! I feel like shit. I’ve wasted a beautiful morning, but I did it!

Jack Bauer saved the day. His daughter survived (although she had to kill a man by shooting him twice in the chest). And war was avoided! If only real life were like 24 right? No one would ever sleep, but boy would it be an exciting world to live in.

Note: I think Jack Bauer killed more people than Stalin this season.

And in an amazing twist…the president may have been assassinated. I won’t find out till the next time I do this!

Yeah. Right.

Did I really do anything? Besides waste a ton of time? That’s what keeps going through my mind right now. I guess I wanted to do something goofy to have something funny to write about. In the end I just wasted an insane amount of time.

Next time…I’m watching season one of The Golden Girls in one day.  You can’t tell me THAT would be a waste of a day.