I took it off TIVO Season Pass after 2 boring episodes. Too many jiggled head shots of people showing over the top urgency on cellphones and radios. Pure plotless poop.
I like Donald Sutherland alot, but the kid is only average.
Posted by TIKI AL at February 13, 2007 02:54 PMNow the story of the ex 3rd from the top CIA bribe taker Kyle "Dusty" Fogo,(indicted today) might make a good 24 plot.
Do poker games with prostitutes promote family values?
Duke Cunningham only plays for cigarettes now.
Hollywood (TV) has always been a tug-of-war between usually conservative owners and usually progressive creative types. With the issue of profits thrown in just to make the tug-of-war interesting. Thus, you've always had mind-numbing trash aimed at the lowest common denominator (Gilligan's Island, Laverne & Shirley, Love Boat & everything else ABC put out in the mid-70s, etc.), but you've often had some really interesting values stuff emerge, such as with All in the Family or M*A*S*H after the first few years.
Today we still have the mind-numbing trash, but values stuff is not to be found. Not even on PBS.
However, glorification of the military has been real big in the last 10 years. Real big.
Posted by Anonymous at February 13, 2007 04:08 PMHow funny is this. Casting the Sutherlands as right wings puppets. Both father and son are two peas of the same pod. Both hard Democrats, amazing Steve wants to cast this show as a right wing put up. Just amazing. I've NEVER watched it, not for 15 minutes of however many seasons its been on. Not my kind of show.
Wow Steve, a right wing put up. Next he'll saw NCIS on CBS is trying out the same thing. Maybe even the Unit. Maybe that's the price for Dan Rather's mistake back in 2004. Wonder if that's the case. Add CSI New York to that. Yeah that Gary Sinise, he's supports the troops all the time. Must be another right wing show. CBS is just trying to get back into this administrations good graces. 28% approval and CBS is worried still. What a farce Steve.
Hey Steve, after Zarqawi's death, how come we never hear about any Al Qaeda references in the news. Why has there been a blackout like the NYSun wrote about today? Seems your allies in the news don't want the problems in Iraq linked to Al Qaeda anymore. Must not get it confused with the real war on terror. Must not have any linkage today with the reason we're fighting Al Qaeda all over the world.
And another thing, what was Zawahiri talking about "pledging allegiance to Mullah Omar"? Where Osama? Whats happened to him? Why's he so quiet lately? Think he quietly passed away? Wouldn't that be a shame now...A peaceful death?
Posted by peter at February 13, 2007 04:56 PMWhy does anyone watch TV anyway? One can read, write one's own novel; one can lead revolutions, give speeches on soap boxes in a suitable park in a preferred city, or just drink. Or one can socialize with other progressives and change things. All is possible instead of wasting time in front of an Orwellian BIG SCREEN TV succumbing to the propaganda masquerading as entertainment!!!!
Posted by Mal Feasance at February 13, 2007 06:05 PMpeter, meet facts. facts, meet peter. The two of you should get acquainted.
Look at who is the major creative force behind 24, and his background. Not the lead actor, the person who pulls the creative levers.
Actually, from various sources it appears that 24 has had as many stereotypical liberal boogeymen as conservative boogeymen through the years. BUT -- and this is the key point, whether the nasty guy is a wild-eyed middle-easterner or a power mad Republican, in all cases the show dramatizes the glorious usefulness of torture and the idiocy of all who oppose it. And THAT is the underlying message the creator of the show wants to push.
Posted by Anonymous at February 13, 2007 06:38 PMmurphy brown, and now Jack Bauer; whom else can republican blame?
Posted by americanforliberty at February 13, 2007 06:49 PM"Where Osama? Whats happened to him? Why's he so quiet lately? Think he quietly passed away? Wouldn't that be a shame now...A peaceful death?"
Peter, I don't know. Why don't you ask your fucking leader. Oh, I forgot. He's isn't even remotely interested in the planner of 9/11. What happened to all that macho tough talk?
"Boston Legal" character Alan Shore (James Spader) every so often gets in some digs on the admin, but that's not the main focus of the program, though I appreciate whatever is presented.
But of course, Steve, your points are right on.
Posted by me at February 14, 2007 12:36 AMWith the propaganda program, 24, it's important to understand they employ two, full time script "advisers" from the Pentagon.
The series is structured to keep viewers locked into Bush's world view that the bad guys who carried out 9/11 are always just off the Port of Los Angeles or hiding in the Library of Congress, ready to detonate a nuclear device or unleash a cloud of anthrax.
Apparently, people enjoy being frightened.
Posted by Christopher at February 14, 2007 05:18 AMPeople enjoy being uninformed idiots for whom any wild fantasy of domestic nuclear detonation is actually just a matter of time, no matter what steps the (always incompetent) government takes.
To the authoritarian right, only the beloved military and the NSA is competent. And the torturers.
Oh, and I love the latest hilarity of the Retarded Right (modeled by our old delusional friend peter): that the monolithic lib'rul press is now supressing the actual "facts" about al qaeda really causing the trouble in Iraq! Thank God for those conservative newspapers that can point out the truth!
peter, try reading the latest NIE on Iraq. And the latest Pentagon evaluations. Even if they aren't posted at your favorite Right-Wing Internet Shit Troughs. Try to observe the Iraq situation as it really is, not how your "conservative" idols wish it would be.
To everyone else, observe peter's "comments". This is your brain on "conservatism". Any questions?
Posted by euzoius at February 14, 2007 06:24 AMWhere Osama?
Where's Osama, Peter?
Ask your hero, George Bush.
He's the one who decided (remember, he's the "Decider") that the resources of the USA would better be squandered in Iraq instead of apprehending the 9/11 Mastermind.
Posted by Christopher at February 14, 2007 06:41 AMThis tells how clueless the goverment is. It's just a show. I like the show but I don't take is seriously. The government can condemn the show for the torture yet the Bush Administrstion are fans of that show! Also, from watching the show fronm the far beginning, the producers of the show never used torture techniques such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, pyramids of naked detainees, dogs, and so on. Before the government can criticize a show like "24," they need to check their own backyard of scandals such as Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib and the horrifying photos of the tortured detainees! The government can't separate fantasy from reality. The fictional CTU (Counter Terrorism Unit) in the show has more intelligence than our real Department of Homeland Security.
Posted by SP Biloxi at February 14, 2007 10:16 AMFor a while in my earlier career, I handled cases dealing in what I now see as huge amounts of money. The multiple zeros were simply numbers. I became numbed and unimpressed with the magnitude of the subject matter. It was as if there was a "work" reality where everything significant involved more than six zeros and a "personal" reality where hundreds were important.
Shows like 24 and the myriad of other shows rife with obscene levels of violence and disregard of law and due process cause the same numbing effect. Likewise, sitcoms rife with casual sex numbs us to the real emotions that always accompanies real sex.
Generally, Americans, and especially those under forty, have been exposed to so much tv violence and mahem, both fictional and in the news media vicariously while being totally insulated from any personal experience of violence or personal damage from violence that they have little, if any, real ability to have any empathy or understanding of the pain that exists in the world and which is inflicted by US around the world in our elective war zones. Its all just a big tv reality show.
Yesterday, I was in conversation with a former military officer concerning the possibility of a war in Iraq. The officer extolled the effectiveness of American and Israeli weapons and proudly, almost gleefully, talked about how easily Iran could be neutralized by nuclear weapons. He thoroughly expects Israel "independently" to nuke Iran sometime soon.
I have has similar conversations with many other "conservative" young people over the last few years.
The frightening thing that is common to all such conversations, and especially with those who are military, are that they have no clue that such weapons, when used, murder real and innocent people. There is no existential understanding of the moral impact and horror that rides on such destruction.
During the course of my conversation with the former military officer, I pointed out that there would be moral consequences to nuking Iran. In response the former officer expressed his belief that if the US or Israel attacked Irab with nukes, there would be no continuing problem because Iran would have simply been "entirely neutralized."
The frightening thing is that he saw nothing morally wrong with simply neutralizing Iran. He had been in America, looking out at war for so long that he does not even know what modern war is---murder of innocents on a grand scale. He simply could not contemplate any qualms whatsoever to killing millions. He could see no people beneath his bombs, only zeros.
The US will remain a threat to the entire world until it experiences war at home. The sad reality is that if the US continues in its hubris to be numbed to the crimes it commits, such war will, inevitably come home to US.
Posted by Nobody at February 14, 2007 11:03 AMI watch the show, although I think it's jumping the shark this year. Repeating a lot of the same plot points for the third or fourth time, just trying to hold the audience by upping the ante of terror. Problem is, there's hardly anywhere left to go. I'm interested in the state of mind it's portraying. Increasingly labyrinthine plots involving all levels of right and left wing conspiracy paranoia. It's not the Arabs; it's Big Business; or maybe it's the Chinese; or the Russians; or the Feds; or a corrupt family. Or all of the above. If it's a cultural statement of the American state of mind, we're in deep shit, indeed. I wish I could bear to watch American Idol instead, but I just can't.
Posted by Delia at February 14, 2007 12:11 PMProblem is, there's hardly anywhere left to go.
Kind of like Jessica Fletcher's tiny hamlet in Maine having 10+ upper class murders per year for 10 years -- after a while it just becomes silly.
Posted by Anonymous at February 15, 2007 10:49 AM