24 – Season Two

Given that the “24” writers are the only ones in television attempting something like this, I suppose it’s not surprising they do not seem to feel the need to improve on their writing from the first season. The real time gimmick is still a big enough gimmick that they seem to be coasting on it.

And that’s a pity. The writing in this second season of “24” is flabby, silly and typically telegraphed miles and miles off. Fans tuning in looking for edge of their seat thrills aren’t going to find them here; they’d be better off switching from Fox to sister station FX and “The Shield.”

The very first hour telegraphs things that the characters will be blissfully ignorant of for several hours — Hey, there’s a conspiracy inside the White House to subvert the president’s authority! Hey, this cartoonishly evil bully Kim works for isn’t going to just let her get away with defying her authority! Jack is mad and he’s a loose cannon!

Plot elements seem to have been lifted from online fanfic: When running from the evil father, Kim runs, not into the crowded public street, but into an alley empty of people; Kim is an au pair instead of a nanny despite the fact that most people have no idea what an au pair is and despite the fact that she neither seems to be a foreign student nor a college student at all; an expensive sports car’s trunk conveniently springs a leak in time for police to investigate the sudden gusher of blood despite the fact that even the cheapest car trunk won’t drip a drop if you spill a 2 liter of soda back there (learned the hard way); no one seems capable of getting along with each other, and instead White House officials and intelligence agency officials alike have to snarl half-threats at each other and refuse to do even the most rudementary cooperation; this bizarre inability to connect with each other extends outside the workplace — instead of calling up his estranged son and saying he’s been badly hurt on the job, the humorously named George Mason has his son arrested and brought in wearing handcuffs, in a failed attempt to win the Father of the Year award.

If they cut most of this nonsense out — along with the entirely pointless Kim storyline — the show would be half its length, which just might make it tight enough to watch. As it is, this is a rental, at best. Flabby, slow and silly.

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