Rhys Coiro

No one does crazy like my hometown boy, Rhys.  Thank god his character was (one of) the mole(s) on 24 because except the moments Janeane Garofalo has had Keyboard of Death hackmatches against Chloe, she's been shockingly boring.

Also, he recovers quickly from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Why does no one ever think there are multiple moles in TV government agencies?  I mean... the Bristows, Jack and Sydney...

But, please, Rhys.  Don't go back to Entourage.

Meanwhile, it would seem Renee Walker has never been in a situation with collateral damage before... seriously?  And now she's slapping Jack and crying onto his shoulder?

I should know better than to pay attention to Fox's promos for this show by now, y'know?  "The episode that changes everything"?  More like "the episode that happens two or three times a season where the plot changes directions as a villain/terrorist threat is replaced by a different villain/terrorist threat who was backing the early Little Bad."

I hope Bill Buchanan is the Big Bad of this season and it was all done to get CTU reinstated and Jack Bauer off the hook.  Okay, I don't hope that, but I'd be intrigued.

Oh, hey, Tony is still on this show!  And they Middle Bad is targeting the White House.  Because they already built those sets.

Oh, Kurtwood Smith.  How did you manage to be in both 24 and Worst Week?  I am impressed.

Hour 3 (and Lie To Me*)

Much better. Bill Buchanan and CHLOE. Jack in an interrogation room. Revealing that Tony was doing secret covet things with the terrorist organization because the government can't be trusted (yay...? although wasn't there a big undercover agent working with terrorists but wait not really thing back in season three?)

Oh. And CHLOE VERSUS DARIA IN A BATTLE OF THE COMPUTER HACKERS. Please let them meet IRL over the course of the day. Governments and financial markets will rise and fall at their every whim.

Meanwhile, other things are still happened with the African Subplot That Is Actually The Main Plot, and with President Woman President's husband / suicide committing son. Sorry for adopting Dave Barry-speak, but, well, I'm just so gosh darn entertained by him. [EDIT: Please note that I wrote my capslock Chloe versus Janeane Garafolo thing before actually reading Dave's blog to see that he referred to it as a far more eloquently and entertainingly put "KEYBOARDING DUEL OF DEATH."]

The FBI is "setting up a perimeter". Woo! Perimeters!

Seriously, though, good to know four ex-CTU agents and staffers can basically thwart the FBI in a matter of minutes.

Onto hour 4!

Oh, there's a Lie To Me* commercial. I was displeased with that pilot. It's not terrible, but it's just a run of the mill pure procedural with a gimmick that wore thin halfway through the episode. I certainly won't be watching any more of Tim Roth reading facial ticks and explaining what they mean to solve crimes. I mean, what's the most interesting thing they can possibly do on this show? Put him up against an expert poker player? Meh. Giant heaps of meh.

About this weekend

Quickly about the rest of 24's first night... meh. Glad I stopped the minute-by-minute commentary because eventually it would've started droning on about "goddammit, why am I still watching this series?" I'll watch tonight's installments and make my decision about continuing to record the show. There had better be some more thrilling cliffhangers. The ratings were middling, and without knowing the effect having House as a lead-in will have on 24, come February it and Heroes will likely be neck-and-neck in the demo (though 24 will likely have the viewer advantage, I am guessing).

Anyway / also... Legend of the Seeker.

The 100-ish pages about Denna, the Mord'Sith (basically the fantasy-world combination of a dominatrix and a professional torturer) was the only truly original and entertaining part of Wizard's First Rule. So I was super-excited that the title of the episode was Denna. But oh my was that an arch performance. Great costuming job, though. However, I seem to remember the description of the pain-inducing instrument (the Agiel) as being a stick that was about foot long and a finger thick. So I got a hefty guffaw when the Agiel prop looked, well, much more like a sex toy than a long, thin, horrifyingly painful instrument of torture and death. Maybe it's just me?

But having Craig Horner shirtless, sweaty, and hanging from the ceiling for much of the episode was appreciated. See, I'm very easily amused when it comes ot campy fantasy series.

And, oy, we're something like 8 episodes into the series and they've already introduced something called "the breath of life" (I don't recall this from the book, but it has been a while and I didn't read past the first in the series)... which basically eliminates death provided you get "the breath of life" shortly after you die. Good lord, we've learned nothing from Heroes' second season. NOTHING! Anyway, Denna was brought back to life at the end of the episode, unbeknownst to our heroes, so I guess the show wanted a recurring villain. She's no Callisto... but I guess she'll do?

There's No Time

(all tape-delayed-live-blog hour/minutes are "into broadcast," so 1:05 = the fifth minute of the second hour of tonight's premiere)

0:00 - Hey, it's that guy from The Nine! He's so hapless.
0:01 - I dunno, I get T-boned and go into a tailspin, I'm screaming like Egan Foote's daughter, not semi-worriedly glancing over my shoulder.
0:01 - Do you have any idea how difficult it is to time one car crash intentionally? Let alone two? PWN.
0:01 - Downtown LA just got f*cked up. Oh, wait, it's supposed to be DC. The props department isn't doing a great job with substituting the street signs. Just saying.
0:02 - The credits say Carlos Bernard is in the show, so even if I somehow were unspoiled... Tony Almeida is back. Yeah, we've known this for about 18 months and I *still* don't get it. And I don't trust the show to give a decent explanation. Anyway... the Soul Patch is back, too!
0:03 - Jack is so badass he doesn't even care that Kurtwood Smith is eating up valuable ass-kicking time by setting the stakes so we know that the government agencies are doing a 180 later when he needs a hacksaw.
0:03 - Oh, and the multiple angles of the same person are back on the split screen! Yay! This stylistic thing was sorely missing in Day 6. Ugh. Day 6. Ugh.
0:04 - Jack is fingering that pencil something fierce. Did he watch The Dark Knight? I want him to make the pencil disappear. Do it! Do it!
0:05 - Oh, now Jack wants a turn at setting the stakes by saying that when he's activated, he's brought in to do whatever he deems necessary to stop a threat.
0:06 - Someone vaguely familiar looking just walked in. Was she in 24: Redemption?
0:06 - Right, like Jack is going to be back in the Senate when the reconvene the next day at the same time. Right.
0:07 - She is not Special Agent Walker. Special Agent Walker is on Chuck.
0:07 - Janeane Garafolo is delivering semi-snarky exposition. Is Chloe back? I miss Chloe.
0:08 - Oh, and there is high-flying co-worker tension at the FBI, too. Love. It. Also, hi clean-shaven Billy Walsh!
0:08 - Hey, the FBI is using CNN's magic screen! Can a hologram of will.i.am be far behind?
0:09 - Terrorists! Aaah! Also, it's only been 7 minutes, but they have Egan Foote wherever they wanted him and he's already doing whatever they wanted him to do. So... yeah. I buy that not?
0:10 - And he finished whatever they needed him to do already. With post-car-accident bleeding going on.
0:10 - Something will eventually happen with the terrorists, Egan Foote, and that airplane. But for now...
0:11 - Something will eventually happen between Not Chuck's Special Agent Walker and that Larry person. But for now...
0:12 - CIP Firewall explanation... check.
0:13 - Can I just say that in the six minutes it took for Jack to get from the Senate / DoJ committee / whatever to the FBI Washington Field Office, his hair became a mess.
0:13 - Touché, explanation for Tony being alive. Touché. Sort of.
0:15 - Nothing happened to the plane (yet)? What a twist!
0:16 - Dammit Tony, stop threatening Egan Foote. He was in two car crashes 15 minutes ago, you know. Not to mention that whole 52-hour bank hostage crisis.

COMMERCIALS!

Hm, a thought occurs. It's 12:42am and I have work in the morning, as well as about 65 minutes of this premiere to watch. Sadly, I must sign off for the night, but any further large scope thoughts will assuredly be blogged about on the morrow.

Absense. Heart. Fonder?

Starting 24: Redemption now.

I loathed the sixth season of 24. Had the Writers' Strike not happened last year, the foul taste left in my mouth would still be so pungent that I would not have considered watching it (until people told me if/that the show had markedly improved... I've already heard from Fox friends that Cherry Jones will win the Emmy for her role). Of course, those people (well, not them specifically) also greenlit Do Not Disturb) so... grains, salt, etc.

So here we are, about 18 months after "Day 6" counted down its final minutes (in such a boring, boring way as I recall).

And this two-hour movie is going to air.

And I'm... well, I'm watching it. Hopefully, as a two-hour standalone piece involving Jack "There's No Time / It's For National Security" Bauer is, well, two-hours of standalone story it won't be bogged down by the tiresome antics the writers of 24 constantly employ (a mole! in CTU? again?) and thus, perhaps, it has a chance of being a fun action-thriller MOW (movie of the week for those not versed in TV Industry English).

I wonder what Dave Barry has to say about this... he was the only thing that got me through "Day 6". Well, I'll find out after I've watched.

If this doesn't completely suck (read: it's markedly better than the "Day 6" average), I will be watching the 2-day, 4-hour premiere and making my decision then on "Day 7".

Dammit, I thought we had a legit time jump (a would-be first in 24 history), but apparently the first few minutes were prequel to the rest of the "events occur in real time" (which they are back to saying out loud, I see...) two hours.

Onward, etc. It's 11:33pm, I'm going to shut up unless I absolutely have to comment on something. After all... tomorrow is Monday.

WGA Strike To Blame for Hillary's Loss?

Random thought of the day, upon reading this article interviewing Dennis Haysbert, who conjectures that his stint as President David Palmer may have paved the way for Obama's candidacy (and let's all hope that there's no Day 1-esque attempt on Obama's life)...

Day 7 of 24 was to feature Cherry Jones as the President. It would've begun airing in January, a little after the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries.

Of course, as we all know, it was pulled from the schedule as a result of the WGA Strike.

And, apparently, Jones' performance will be Emmy-worthy.

We've already had female Presidents on television (see short-lived Commander in Chief and, of course, BSG).

So, my thought... would having this portrayal of a female President on television during the primary season have helped Hillary? Sight unseen, we have no idea what kind of President Jones' character is going to be (while we know David Palmer was an upstanding citizen, moral center, etc).

Again, totally random.

I swear, I will be posting thoughts on The Ex List and Project Gary and more one of these days... but real life comes comes, and real life is teh crazy bizzeh.