Hour 14 (7-8 p.m.): Like That Old Waterbed in Our Basement, CTU Springs Another Leak

Is it me or is this season getting WAY OVER THE TOP?!

Here Jack disguises himself as an aging truck driver who enters an arm-wrestling contest to win back his tween-aged son's love. Don't laugh. How much you wanna bet it's a major plot point in Season Seven?

What’s next? A boxing kangaroo?


Grace Jones as an evil mastermind?



Casting the director’s daughter in a major role?


Thank God you found directing, Sofia.

We've been there, done that on just about every plot point. Do faithful fans really need another mole at CTU?


Another dead wife/lover/girlfriend for Jack?


Another nuclear crisis/World War III averted at the last second?



Another foreigner and/or employee under suspicion tortured in the bowels of the CTU building?

Another incident of bad blood between employees?


Another Friend of Jack dead and gone?


Another rogue group of foreign terrorists?



Another malicious president?



There are concerns among my fellow Jackophiles that 24 has jumped the shark.


Let’s just pray this is just one of those off seasons. You know, it’s cyclical: seasons 3 & 4 were not super, but fairly good, what with all of Kim’s boyfriends losing their limbs willy-nilly, and then season 5 came along and blew us all out of the water, just like season 1 had. We must maintain hope, fellow Kiefer Kids, that 24 will one day regain its luster. Until then, we’ll just have to find solace in other shows, like Ugly Betty, Lost, and other superlative programs like The Hills, and Ninja Warrior.

Anyhoo, just a few observations this week.

1. Love the way Jack always resorts to saying “As soon as this is all over…” Marilyn needs to RUN LIKE HELL!


She should know that any relationship is gonna suck if it EVER includes any sentence containing “Before I was taken prisoner by the Chinese…”



Jack Bauer is poison.


DOESN’T SHE KNOW THAT?! Just ask this girl...



or this one...


or her...


or her...


or her...

(Still recovering from a bullet to the leg above the kneecap that was not meant to cripple her, but still caused months of rehab, which she's still paying for.)

or her...

or him...



or this guy.



2. So, the stork is dead.


Not sure how to feel about this. Is she really dead? Or is this another fake-out designed to send Jack to Meadowcreek, “where celebrities lose their marbles every day!”


He could be Martha Logan’s roommate. Of course, if that happened, she’d end up dead eventually, because JACK IS POISON!


And of course, Jack is now in it for the long haul, so he can avenge Audrey’s death. Ho hum.


You go on ahead, Jack, and go for it. I’ll stay here and rearrange my sock drawer...


...or work on my curio cabinet filled with Chronicles of Narnia figurines.


Last week: in order of publication, this week—ALPHABETICAL!

3. Powers Boothe is supremely sinister as Noah “Nuke ‘Em Two by Two” Daniels.


Here we see him putting his ear to the ground to pick up the screams of all his nuclear victims.
I think he’s the best actor of this season. WAY better than Wayne “Chemically Induced Coma” Palmer.


4. Another mole at CTU?!


WILL SOMEONE PLEASE GIMME A BREAK?!


We, as faithful fans of the show, should start a letter-writing campaign to clean up CTU.


If CTU were a real government organization, don’t you think it’d be shut down after, say, the fifth or sixth breach of security?! Yes, the show has always been over the top, but it just isn’t believable anymore. C’mon, writers, challenge yourselves and give us something we haven’t seen before!

5. Wouldn’t it behoove Jack simply to kill everyone? Every person he sees, he should just kill.


Then, next season, we can start ALL over with a new cast. Oh, wait, he already did that in season 5. If I were Chloe, I’d be VERY nervous.



Next week:

Wayne Palmer awakens to find himself in a whole new world, brought to us by Noah Daniels.


Jack finds a touching way to honor his beloved Audrey.