With The X-Files long gone (even before it officially left) and The West Wing reduced to being just another hourlong drama, my TV viewing has been soulless and robotic.Enter 24.
My friends have been talking about this show for a while, and I finally gave it a chance when its third season started. And now I am completely hooked. The show has taken a couple weeks off over the holidays, and in that time I’ve rented seasons one and two on DVD from NetFlix. I’m devouring the discs as soon as they arrive, staying up till four or five in the morning because I can’t stop watching. I just finished disc four of season two last night, and disc five might show up Friday. I’m greatly enjoying the second season. I think expanding the story to involve global terrorism really holds up better in the long run. This truly feels like a huge eighteen or nineteen hour movie, more so than season one (which seemed to founder and lose its way during the second half).
It’s a lot of fun watching the episodes back to back, without commercial interruption; but the drawback is that I am so involved with last year’s story that I’ve completely lost my place in the new shows. The other drawback is that if I want to augment my interest by checking out fan sites, I run the continual risk of uncovering spoilers — like with this morning on IMDB. Thank God for 24 though. It reminds me of the glory days of The X-Files with its high production values and film-like look; and it’s revived the fun in TV viewing for me, by giving me something to look forward to again (and, what novelty, on a Tuesday no less).
FUH-chum, fuh-CHUM, FUH-chum
