f13.net

Its back- I just got done watching the first two hours.  Happy so far...

(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y222/Abagadro/jump_the_shark.gif)

Can't we ever be nice to one another?  :oh_i_see:

Yeah, this will never be as good as the first time around, but it is more than adequate popcorn.


And this was the best first episode barring the first first episode.

This is a series where in the first season, you had Kim stuck in a bear trap being threatened by a mountain lion and Jack's wife the victim of that most hoary of clichés: the bump on the head = total amnesia.  It's hard to jump the shark when the show was completely ridiculous from the get-go.

Don't care, people shoot each other and shit gets blowed up.

Oh, and they don't keep pausing the storyline for an episode about a fucking boxing contest (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmKWAczYP5U) or something equally retarded.

You misunderstand.  I'm saying it's silly to say the series is even capable of jumping a shark.  It is what it is, and has been from the beginning.  It's a modern serial pulp series; a comic book without the super powers.

It has jumped the shark by being repetitive. It was always stupid, but at least find new and interesting ways to be stupid. They keep doing the same thing over, and over, and over. Tiresome.

How is that incompatible with a neocon fantasy?  :rimshot:

How long was it before he tortured someone?

About 15 minutes :awesome_for_real:

I believe that bear trap / cougar shit was season 2.

Season 1 was the one where Kim and her friend got kidnapped, escaped, kidnapped, forced to do drugs, escaped, run over, escaped, captured again, etc etc etc.

The show has always been the equivalent of a bear, riding on a shark, riding on a unicycle.

Threat of Torture.

I'm watching it simply because it's in DC.  Also, I wonder if I can go get an autograph.

Or tortured by Jack Bauer.

Well, if you've watched it, the latter has already happened.

:oh_i_see:

The wife and I skipped last season. We like this one so far. We also don't disagree that it was downhill after season 1, but the rest of TV is so bad that even downhill a lot is better than many alternatives. I was stunned when they killed his wife in season 1 and hoped his daughter would be next half way through season 2.

Boo on the haters.  Jack Bauer is the MacGuyver of torture.  If you give him a rubber band, a penny, and three pieces of pocket lint, he'll craft it into a machine that shocks your genitals.   

I am now viewing the show in a whole new light.

Considering his results, he's more like MacGruber.

Somehow I still love 24, in spite of the shows efforts to make me not like it.  I guess it's because I go into it each hour expecting a live-action comic book, that way those pesky things like realism and plausibility don't seem as bothersome.  Sometimes I do wonder if the show is limited too much by being on Fox instead of FX.

I will say, though, that just because you bring in an actor from Die Hard 2 does not mean you also have to bring in part of that story.

Why the fuck would the President be sacrificing American lives for some shithole in Africa?  The whole "We don't negotiate with terrorists" thing should only be used when it's in your benefit to not negotiate, not when they can get planes to fly into whatever they want.

The FBI chick being all shocked that there were leaks in the FBI was pretty funny too, I thought agents would be smarter than that.

Lastly, Jenine Gerrafalo is fucking horrid.  Yes, I know I probably spelled her name wrong, she's not worth googling.

I'm fine with the whole DO NOT NEGOTIATE thing, even if it was for some punk kids lunch money.  What I find unbelievable is how some of the white house staff starts losing their shit over the plane incident when, while that was a terrible thing, is nothing compared to the amount of damage and casualties sustained in the sixth season, where a .

I concur with the Jeanine Gerafalo hate, she really detracts from the show.  I suppose she at least looks the part of the job she has compared to a lot of other characters, but that isn't really complimentary at all.

Fuck that. I'd sacrifice American lives for a shithole in Africa just to show the world that my country WILL NOT BE PUNKED by some shitheel dictator with delusions of adequacy. Then, I'd make sure I found said shitheel dictator and had a specwar bullet air out his melon in due fucking course.

You surprise me, Nerf. I figured a shoot-first-ask-questions-never guy like yourself would be all over that shit.  :why_so_serious:

That said, now I'm gonna have to watch season six...

I didn't say she should stop hunting the bastard down, but when the options are 1) pull carrier fleet back and American lives are saved or 2) leave carrier fleet in place and Americans start to die, the choice is pretty fucking simple.  It's not even a troop withdrawal, the troops aren't there yet.  Now, if he started to threaten for other things, fuck em, we don't negotiate with terrorists.  Maybe it's because it's Africa, and she really thinks that if whats-his-name regains control then it will be a nice country and the constant struggle for control from various "freedom fighting" groups will stop.

Nah, it's not even that, it's the principle of it all. Those marines sitting on those ships waiting to be deployed are the only thing keeping Dubaku's boss from going all Janjiweed on the local populace. This ain't about moral equivalency. People are gonna die either way. And us letting this dipshit punk us into letting him kill his own people is a no-win fucking situation, 'cause, what's to stop him from pulling shit like that again when he decides to invade the country next door?

I didn't say leave him alone, but pull out the highly visible carriers sitting off shore so he stops killing Americans for the time being.  Find him and kill him, and put some special forces on the ground and dug in, ready to repel the invasion.  Remember Somolia?  10,000 Africans vs. 100 rangers and we held our ground, and they were the entrenched force.  Africans aren't very good at this whole war thing when they are recruiting anyone who can hold a rifle and the training is "pointy ends of bullet go that way --->"

I'm really liking this season so far, except for Jeanine Garofalo, aka the Worst Actor in 24 History.  Monday's was great, but I think we're fast approaching the part of the system where everyone starts invoking the 25th and the Secretary of Agriculture ends up being President. 

100 rangers vs 10,000 conscripts is great when those 100 rangers don't have to defend an entire populace. It's all about the logistics. I'm game for defending the innocent of both countries, but any way you slice it, somebody's gonna die. And you can rest assured that if we give in to Dubaku's demands, that's license for every Tom, Dick and Habeeb to try to put our populace in harm's way anytime they want to pull a jack move.

This is my first season of watching 24...

Why do they make the White House scenes so boring and repetitive?

  Madam Pres - have the military pull back or citizens will die.
   
     No.

  Repeat x 100.


It would be more fun to have some Military guy call for nuke strikes on the bad guy's home tribe land or something, and have them argue about that.

You're meant to hate this president. The show is conceived by a nutty right-winger and this is his version of Hillary Clinton. The reason her decision-making rationale is so weak, is that's how he wants you to believe a liberal-minded president operates. The reason torture produces the best results is that he wants you to believe that, because what happened under Bush was just fine with him.

However, as he's a nutty right-winger and completely lacking in artistic ability or any grip on reality, the president ends up being annoying and the torture just becomes entertaining, and the whole thing becomes an enjoyable cartoon-like fantasy. This show is fun by accident.

(A) Joel Surnow left,
(B) This President is a Republican (Palmer was a Democrat and Daniels was his VP, remember?), and  therefore
(C) You Fail. 

a) Joel Surnow is still executive producer.
b) She may be a republican but she's still got a Hillaryesque feel to her.
c) Nice try.

a) is for 'orses
b) for lamb
c) for miles

d) Duh
e) i-e-i-o

I loves me some 24 but here's my problem: Why would you ever, from a rational, technical, security minded standpoint, ever develop a system that could be locked down and controlled by one box? Was that explained in the premier? I must admit I get all giddy for the violence that details escape me.

It's the MacGuffin.  Jack needs to get it to save the country and HE'S RUNNING OUT OF TIME!

He'll explain later.  For now, you'll just have to trust him.

Coincidence that President Obama finished his address right before the next episode of 24 would begin?  I think not!

Uhh, OK, they send the limo with two secret service agents and fake prime minister to the trade point.

They pull up, and see a FULL SQUAD OF UNIFORMED ENEMY COMBATANTS!!!!

I think they would call in and tell the President its time to call out the National Guard, or the 82nd Airborne since Washington has been invaded?!?!?!

Sure, wait 20 min to see what happens to the 1st husband, but for crying out loud....

The first time the internet has become too strange for me. *steps away from keyboard*

Strange? I fear you may be experiencing symptoms of monoculture.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/at-last-the-truth-about-the-alphabet-has-come-to-me-1045223.html

Also, 24. There was this hilarious moment where the FBI agent Bauer is working with looks at a computer showing a standard Windows desktop with icons on it and says "I can't get it to boot". A window opens on the screen. She turns away and gives up because it won't "boot". I guess they only know how to use superduper FBI computers that run the 24 operating system.

Cloe wasn't available to open a socket.

(http://penny-arcade.com/images/2007/20070716.jpg)

It really is ridiculous, even for hollywood, how 24 treats computerin'.  I don't know if it's because they know a great majority of their audience is retarded, or that they themselves are unbelievably retarded, but in the 24 universe computers=magic.

They are writing for a Republican audience, and if Jeanane "alleged comedienne" Garofalo is in the show it must be mocking them.

Given some of the boneheaded decisions IT security 'professionals' make irl I never find this suprising or unrealistic.

Having critical systems that can't be pulled out of the wall and still operate while completely disconnected from teh internets, or safely shut down without the computer turned on at all is the unrealistic bit. Because happily noone in charge of things that can do physical damage is stupid enough to trust IT.

*sigh*

As bad as 24's techo-jargon gets, it can never match CSI:NY. When they're not creating GUIs in VB to track down the Killer's IP (funniest scene I've ever seen but no longer on YouTube) they're doing this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbxwtEKpEL4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbxwtEKpEL4)

CSI PvP rocks, where do I sign up?

Dubaku is still alive because ...

a) Bauer will torture him.
b) Bauer will have to work with him.
c) Agent Walker will enjoy torturing him as revenge.
d) He still contains a motherboard.

Agent Walker will torture someone before this show is up. I hope it's Janene Garoflo (sp?).

You missed the boat on that one already.  It took her one hour after knowing Jack Bauer to completely lose all that anti-torture nonsense.  His personality is that corrosive.

Perhaps the most ludicrous two hours of 24 ever.  The White House is the new LA CTU!  And who knew there was an underwater tunnel to it?

On the plus side, Jack tasered a phone.  I'll repeat that in case your puny mortal minds can't fully grasp the cosmic awesomeness of that.  He didn't want to talk to the person yelling at him, SO HE TASERED THE FUCKING PHONE.  Every single moment of your Internet time that you spend doing things other than watching that scene is a wasted moment. 

I nominate it for an endlessly animating forum avatar GIF.

What makes it an unbelievably bad 2 hours is that we have no clue why the government mustachios are motivated to help Jubaku.

Pure greed has to have its limits. If their explanation is nothing better than that this will easily go down as the worst season in 24 history.

Another feature is there are no good black people. Everyone in the FBI and the administration is white. White people who work with black men are evil. Black men seen elsewhere are just agents for the other black men. Black women are portrayed as innocents, but all black men are bad.

They had a Black President on the show, though.

Or you can look at it as black men were using white men to do the dirty work until the white men fucked it up and the black men had to finish the job right.

Tell that to Jon Voight.

And the Secret Service tried to stop them with all-white agents.

BTW the sekret underground tunnel was how the bad guys got into CTU also. You'd think someone would learn.

Two. Both assassinated (OK one shot dead, one survived being blown up but became a vegetable).

Don't you know that all major cities are riddled with miles upon miles of long abandoned underground tunnels that no one remembers, yet the villains are still able to somehow find out about.  Of course, that pales in comparison to the idea that US borders are so porous that the equivalent of Saddam Hussein along with a large group of very well armed soldiers were able to not only get into the country, but into the one city were he'd most likely be recognized, and still remain completely undetected.  Not that I think US borders are especially secure.  But I think if Vladimir Putin or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tried to sneak into DC, they might have some trouble. 

All I can say is the fictional US in 24 is so incompetent, it makes Bush's government look like super geniuses.  In the span of 7 years there's been no less than 3 Presidential assassinations (I don't remember if the President actually died in two of those attempts, but they were disabled enough to be removed from office) and that's not including the current season, no less than 2 nuclear weapons detonated on US soil, at least 3 nerve gas or biological attacks that let to the deaths dozens, if not hundreds of people, a President so corrupt he was engaging in terrorist attacks against Americans, and that's only the stuff I can remember off the top of my head.  It's no wonder someone like Jack Bauer is their best hope.

That's just goes to show what outlandish lengths the writers have to go to justify JB's existence.

Reality has no place in the universe of 24.  It is a live-action comic book, you'll enjoy it better if you give it only that much.

Sorry, there are too many people who think it is relevant to real life to dismiss it.

Maybe certain overarching themes could be considered relevant to real life, but the details may as well be Gandalf the White and a bunch of horcruxes.

I had to post just point out that's not entirely true. Any of the black secret service agents were killed before the alarms were officially raised. :awesome_for_real:


It's been a bit more relevant than you are implying. Some people have been using 24 as an apologia for to increase the US powers to use torture.  It's gotten so bad the FBI or the army sent representatives to the production team of 24 to try and reeducate them on how they operate in these matters.

Things have settled down since the election campaign was in full force last year but for a time 24 was used as an argument moreso than it probably should have been.

Isn't that exactly what it is? (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/02/19/070219fa_fact_mayer) (yes it's also entertaining)

I want to post about the most recent episode, but there's nothing to say.


But I was entertained.

BTW who's the baddie? Have we seen him in past 24s?

He's totally new.  His acting, however, is pure  :drill:  Unlike any other villain in 24, he seems to be enjoying himself and has a sense of humor.  I like that.

Was there a logical explanation I missed at the beginning of the most recent ep for how Jack, after stealing a random car, could use a random laptop in said stolen car to instantly access the security cameras of the hospital he'd just left?   :uhrr:

You do know you are watching 24 right?

Well, he had taken the CD from the security station at the hospital, but Abagadro's right.  It's magic, dude!  Jack used his daily power to give the laptop a +4 to wireless hacking and rolled a natural twenty.

He was looking at the contents of the CD taken from the security room (it was shown again in "previously on 24" at the start of the episode). No magic, no security camera access, just a laptop and a CD.

I thought it was more impressive that he could instantly find an old-fashioned car to hotwire the old-fashioned way.

No, Tale.  How else would he hack all the firewalls in the laptop and decrypt the video-IP files to access the disc content?  I'll tell you how: Magic.

Chloe did it when no one was looking.

A computery moment I noticed - Jack sitting down at the Senator's desk, telling him why he needs to see the files. The computer is showing a desktop, no apps open. He starts tapping at the keyboard furiously with one hand, while not really looking at the screen, apparently trying to find what he needs. Tap, tap, tap ... somewhere up around the Backspace key.

Clearly the desktop-like image shown was mere wallpaper for the DOS-prompt on the senator's computer.  Also, he was in a state of Clear Casting, so more than one key was not required to enter complex commands and navigate the options.  It truly is impossible to overestimate the abilities of Jack Bauer.

That is one of my favorite things about "movie computers".  The protagonist always sits down in front of a Windows machine and uses nothing but the keyboard navigate the computer and do what ever it is he needs to do.  Aaaaaaaaalways happens.  Just like when ever they show a kid playing something like Grand Theft Auto on the Playstation, all the sounds are from Pac Man or something.

One word: Hackers

My favorite is the season where someone hacked a computer through it's power cord.

Quote: That's brilliant, that way she bypassed the firewall.

Nerf Hacker Spec.

Blackwater Starkwood can afford protective masks when handling bioweapons, but apparently FBI and Navy Seals don't need to wear them when searching for the same.

OMG they're going to cure brain damage from mad cow disease with an injection of stem cells and it will be like a snake antivenom.

  :facepalm:

There aren't many images that can truly capture what the latest happenings in this season make one feel, but this classic might be close:

(http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h292/ahoythematey/PicardRikerPalm.jpg)

I haven't yet seen today's episode, but so far this season has been better than the last 4 or 5.  Did the VP suddenly appear on the phone with terrorists, twirling his mustache and wearing an opera cape?  Anything less than that is fine with me. 

It's definitely close.

Dude, his contemporaries are still working out intelligent design.  :drill:

I just watched the episode.  Ahoy, I didn't see anything especially shocking or hackneyed.  If anything this episode a bit low-energy. 

Same here. Maybe he meant the previous episode with the sudden Almeida thing at the end.

But I'm still anticipating the curing of mad cow disease. Jack's brain is damaged but we can rebuild him with one simple injection of stem cells.

Jack's always been so single-minded that he has a lot of unused brain matter the 'disease' needs to chew through before it gets to the important stuff.  Once his brain is restored after an injection of Kim-cells, I look forward to the scene in the last episode when he inexplicably gets caught in a bear trap.

Well, I guess I am still reeling from the whole Almeida "twist".  It's always been ridiculous bullshit, but more arms dealers pulling all the strings?  Really?

Let's not even go into Jack Bauer's mutant healing factor, or the taint that is Kim Bauer.  The show will do that for us, in spades.

"I didn't want to hurt him with the news that he's got a grandson". Most people would die happy if told that on their deathbed.

Info on Season 8: http://tvguidemagazine.com/what-the-keck/a-24-sneak-peek-1091.html

At this point I don't care if the eighth season is about a war between the US and Candyland, just as long as they STOP BRINGING KIM BAUER INTO THE PICTURE.  That plot point has been stretched so thin it's width could only be measured in nanometers.

Fantastic ending, fantastic season.  Best since season 1.  Anyone who watched 24 early in its run and stopped because of the crapitude, watch this season. 

Towards the end this season has been nothing but ridiculous.

BUT...I ended up enjoying it.  Surprisingly, I didn't hate the mandatory Kim Bauer hostage crisis in this season.  I guess that's something...

Technically, she was never a hostage (well, maybe for a few seconds, but that's it).  Plus, she didn't fall into any bear traps, so I'd say she's improving. 

What made me laugh this week was that they've switched from technological cluelessness to ad placements for Cisco IP videoconferencing.

I like how they really mixed it up this season, lots of mini-bosses instead of one major boss!

I predict the First Gentleman hooks up with the remaining conspirators in the next season.