Well, just as I was starting to write off this season of 24, they whipped out the best installment so far this year. Chloe in jeopardy and kicking ass! Genius! The episode was in fact so good that I was able to completely overlook two things that would have otherwise brought me way down.
1) Again with Jack Bauer and the "nuke-ya-ler." This time, it was when he was trying to convince the Secret Service agents not to come into the club and arrest him.
2) I already knew David Palmer was coming back for the end of the season. Dammit.
Everyone who knows me knows that with the exception of the two reality/game shows I watch, I never, never, never watch the "scenes from next week" of any show I follow. The way I figure it, I'm already know I'm going to watch next week. I don't need convincing. (More on this below.)
The trouble is, I also visit a lot of entertainment news web sites. And while they generally do a pretty good job of labeling spoilers, occasionally one of them has a horrifying moment of "dumb fuckery." Usually, it involves announcing in their headlines that "such and such actor is returning to such and such show." Consequently, here are some of the grand returns I had totally ruined for me so far this year:
Carlos Bernard (Tony Almeida)
Reiko Aylesworth (Michelle Dessler)
Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe O'Brien -- after her early season departure)
and now... Dennis Haysbert (David Palmer) (As you can tell from the date on the article that this was ruined for me over three months ago!)
Not to mention, on Alias:
Gina Torres (Anna Espinosa)
and David Anders (Julian Sark)
And some other spoilers too, which I won't ruin for anyone else. All without clicking a single link, dammit!
Anyway, if you can sense how much that ticks me off, then you'll get a sense of how much I love, love, loved tonight's 24 episode. Because right now, I've just got a warm, fuzzy feeling instead.
A final footnote: as proof of why my "don't watch scenes from next week" policy is a good one, I looked back after the end of tonight's episode at last week's "scenes from next week" (Thank you, TiVo!) to see if they'd spoiled Palmer's return. Sure enough, they did. (Up yours, Fox!)
6 comments:
Agreed, that episode kicked ass, after last week's lousy installment that made me want to quit watching. Of course, bringing back old characters is kind of a cheesy way to spark things up, but we take what we can get.
The return of Chloe and Palmer were based on "here's a replacement for somebody you liked from an earlier season that sucked" and then they brought back the replaced person. Kinda lame when you think about it.
Good thing Palmer was hanging out in DC. Do formaer presidents get security briefings every 3 hours?
Doctor, your last quip at Fox brings up a goo point. We must remember that the networks and movie studios are in charge of trailers -- not the creators of the spoiled works. Those parties want to entice you any way possible, even at the expense of being spoiled. The creators want to surprise you and have faith you'll keep watching.
OMFG...i can't believe you spoiled it for me. :( :9 :(
Wow! Lots of comments... let's see here:
Shocho -- Sometimes the writers do successfully draw a new character. Chloe was new last year, for example. Edgar has been tons of fun this season (pun not intended). But yeah, it is sort of playing with us to write some we like and then take them away just so they can give them back to us during sweeps month.
Kosmo -- Yes, former presidents do indeed get security briefing. During the elections, I read something about it, and the fact that most former presidents don't generally choose to exercise that privelege. Take this next part with a big grain of salt, but what I read was that only former president Bush was regularly doing so. I'd fact check that. I like to be angry at/suspicious of my government (past and present) for things they actually did.
GiromiDe -- Notice that Dennis Haysbert's name wasn't in the opening credits last night. They were trying to preserve the surprise which Fox had already given away. That's the struggle between network and show runners in a nutshell.
Girard -- I am sorry if I ruined something for you, but there's got to be a moritorium on this sort of thing. (Hmmm... a topic for a future post, maybe.) I think it was pretty clear from the title I'd be talking about 24. :-) I suggest you be careful what you read every Tuesday morning on the blog for the next month or so. :-)
Perhaps someone needs to invent a /sarcasm emoticon or something. ;)
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