My DVR most likely hates me. It does its duty, and does it well, but I just keep adding more and more shows to it. I wouldn’t be surprized if it slides itself off the television one night and strangles me in my sleep.

JJ Abrams can do just about anything and I will tune in with fangirly glee. I am that easy. I do, however, have the sense to expect a big pile of crap along with my glee. No point in having wild expectations, only to have them dashed against The Rock.

Three episodes of Alcatraz have aired so far, and I am finding it pretty entertaining. We have a secret lair (which is mighty inconvenient with all that water surrounding it, if you ask me), some kind of selective time traveling, Hurley being the smart one, Sam Neill just being awesome by being Sam Neill, and for all of you out there who miss Lost, some potential numbers shenanigans. Personally, I don’t think the numbers mean anything this go around, but I thought Fringe was just gonna be a X-Files rehash, so what do I know?

Looks as though each episode will be the appearance of one of the inmates , and our heroes tracking them down. The first two reappeared inmates seemed to have some sort of directive to get something done. Sylvane got a big-ass key from some poor guy, and Cobb shot whatsherface (what? I don’t know names yet!) totally on purpose. This last guy, while insanely CREE-PEE, didn’t seem to have a job to do, and he ended up dead, dead, dead. I wonder how many people thought, like I did, that when they brought that dead guy back to NewAlcatraz, and handed him over to the apparently perpetual Alcatraz doc, that there would be a shot to the neck or something, and the guy would be brought back to life. Anyone? Just me?

Much like Fringe in its early days, Alcatraz seems to be only okay with the MOW stories, but really interesting with the set up of its mythology. I love this kind of storytelling, and I hope that the audience has the patience for us to get to know these characters and find out what the hell is going on.

I love New York City. I lived in Brooklyn for 12 years and I miss the damn place on a regular basis.

I adore Kiefer. I own all eight seasons of 24 (including the TV movie, ‘Redemption’). I even sorta, kind of stalked the man not once, but twice on the streets of NYC.

So Fox, a network I keep wanting to hate, handed me me a shiny new show that not only takes place in my beloved city, but stars a lovely and awesome (as usual) Kiefer. Touch.

Now this show made me nervous. I want to laud anything Kiefer is in, but this sucker is from Tim Kring who gave us Heroes, which started out as a fantastic show, and devolved into one hot mess.  The man has great ideas, but seems to have trouble following through.

As far as I’m concerned, so far so good. Was the twisty, turny-ness a little convoluted? Yup. Do I care? Nope. Give me something fantastical to believe in and I will happily jump on board. I was worried that this was gonna be an hour of SadDadKiefer, but there were some nice, light moments, and Kiefer had plenty of edge to keep the character from falling over into self-indulgent woes-is-me’s. And the moment at the end, in the rain, on the cel tower? I teared right up. Well played, sirs!

I liked Touch, and am excited to see if they can pull this off week to week. Unfortunately, we’re gonna have to wait until March(!!) to get our next taste. But you know me, I will sit patiently for another dose of Kiefer-ness.

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So, I wasn’t gonna write about 24 this week. Not because of anything with the show, but because I have been cranky, distracted and have got a to-do list a mile long before I move next week. But you what? 24 is almost over, and how many chances will I get to write about one of my favorite all time shows? So here we go with hour 10am – 11am.

I hate to nitpick the show, but those helicopters got in the air and caught up to Jack pretty fast, eh? I do love how Jack steals a heli just to fly over the river and land on a building in Manhattan. Shortest.hijack.ever.

I was worried that Chloe being in charge would put a wedge between her and Jack, and I am fairly desperate to see that friendship continue, seeing that Jack has almost no one to trust anymore. I was sure, for drama’s sake, they would have Jack be betrayed by her. Thank goodness they played it like they did, with Jack being wise to the trap, and not blaming her for doing her job.

Chloe is doing her job well, even though she still used a little of her tech-fu to get the location of the actual safehouse off of DB Sweeney’s phone so Cole had the info for later. (Hi DB!! I see playing an evil head of a private security firm on Jericho has stuck with you, even though on 24 you had a mustache instead of a goatee).

So Jack does what he does best, takes down a bunch of highly trained agents, and easily convinces Cole to go with him to expose the Russians and get Dana and whatever. Good. I wanted this whole season to be Jack and Cole together, a la Jack and Chase in the virus season. I will take them together for the last few hours.

The most unusual thing for me this episode, is my interest in what was going on with the Presidents Taylor and Logan. For me, the White House portion of the show has always been the weakest and/or most annoying bits. But put together Cherry Jones and Greg Itzin, and we get TV gold. Logan is one of the best characters ever on this show, and to have him back to his evilly goodness, and bending and warping a President who has such strong convictions is great fun to watch. Totally tragic to see it happen to her, and it is gonna get messy, and we may have lost our lovely and awesome Ethan in the process, but I can’t wait to see what they do with all of it. Cherry is totally earning that Emmy she won last year.

Michael Madsen showed up this week, perfectly cast too, as a shady, old friend of Jack. I am guessing he won’t be the last of the fun guest casting for the last few episodes.

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Listen, I hear all of you, I do, retread, recycled, done to death, here we go again… but you know what, I still like it. I just can’t help myself. Jack goes off all cocksure and angry, it just gets me every.single.time.

So, along with the expected move of Jack stealing the helicopter (from his biggest fan, no less!), we got one of my favorite pairings in the history of 24. Cherry Jones and Gregory Itzin ruled every moment of their scenes together, and mad props to Bob Gunton for holding his own as the’ Good’ shoulder angel. It was interesting to see a character as idealistic as President Taylor be vulnerable to the brilliant smarmy-ness of President Logan. It was delicious to watch.

I know this may make me a bad person, but watching Jack smack Dana around was satisfying, as I wanted to do that to her for most of the season. Also, not only was she a bad spy, but she sucks at holding immunity too. Everyone gets immunity on this show! Poor, dumb, Dana.

While I was excited that Chloe was given temporary rein of CTU, I did wonder if her and her personality disorder could handle it. I thought she jumped right in and did great. I just hope it doesn’t end in another one of Jack’s BFFs having to break up with him.

All in all, even with a rickety Russian conspiracy plot bolstering the story, I am excited for the last few episodes… ever!

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As ticked off as I was last week that Renee “Red Hot” Walker was killed off, an interview that Annie Wersching gave to TV Guide gave me hope for the rest of this season.

SPOILER ALERT, don’t read if you don’t wanna know anything at all – though this spoilerism is more of a general nature and I don’t think will come as a tremendous surprise to anyone.

This was the key: They knew before the season started that she was going to be killed off, and shared the info with her.

One thing the producers knew was that Jack and Renee were eventually going to get together, then he was going to lose her, and that would be the impetus for him to go all kinds of crazy to the point where he’s just covered in blood.

As a long-time fan of 24 and a not-so-big fan of the last few seasons, this makes me happy.

I’ve said before that I’m not really a violent person. I’m kind of a pacifist, even. But when it comes to my action shows and movies, the more blood and gore and guts the better. Maybe that’s how I express that side of my human-ness: Virtually.

Anyhow, knowing that Jack’s gonna go crazy and kill a whole bunch of people will even make me start putting wagers in the weekly 24 Kill Counter at Blogs4Bauer.

Speaking of, we’ll be live-blogging there tonight, as usual. Stop by!

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Yes, terrible, awful things happened tonight on 24. If you haven’t seen it yet, be advised that this post is FULL OF SPOILERS!! STOP NOW IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT YET!.

The Happily Ever After we all wanted...

Another heart-breaker people! I haven’t been that upset over someone’s death on 24 since Tony. But you know what? Thank god 24 has some balls once again. I was happy to have Tony back last season, for my own selfish hormonal reasons, but they just hacked at his character. The writers keep a beloved character around too long, and they degrade exponentially. The only exception being Jack and Chloe, in my opinion. Remember how awesome Nina Meyers was, until she wasn’t? Martha Logan was great, until she really, crazily wasn’t. I would rather Renee go out in a way that gives me the vengeful, driven Jack that I love.

Does Jack deserve that kind of heartache? No one does, really, but this show is based on despair. I spent season one hoping that Jack would prevail, only to be devastated by watching his wife, the mother of his child, die in his arms. Wouldn’t a happy ending be an affront to that premise? Besides, who says romantic love is the only happy ending? Jack finally has a good relationship with his daughter Kim, and an adorable grand daughter, Teri’s namesake, to bring him joy. Why isn’t that enough, at least for now?

I admit my gooey heart was rooting for a happy Jack and Renee ending, but I give the writers mad props for being brave again. Offing Hassan last week, and wrenching Jack’s heart this week, gives me some serious drama and revenge to look forward to, and that excites me.

Plus, the extra added bonus of Chloe finally, finally! getting to run CTU, as it should be.

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OK, look. One of the things that was great about 24, once upon a time, was its willingness to kill off important people. I can appreciate and respect that about a show.

OH, BY THE WAY, THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE, SO DON’T FRAKKIN’ READ IF YOU DON’T WANNA KNOW.

But it’s been some years since 24 was that fearless. And last season’s return of Zombie Tony, only to make him bad, good, bad, good and then just psycho again, that really ticked me off. Better to have given him a silent clock originally and kept him dead.

But tonight’s death of Renee really pissed me off. No two ways about it.

This is, as we know, the last season. Jack deserves a wee bit of happiness, and Renee and Chloe were the only two others worth anything on the show this season. Hastings had redeemed himself, but still, he was a shrimper.

I’m so ticked off right now, I know I’m not expressing it well. In some ways, tonight’s episode was awesome. It showed a fearlessness rarely seen in network television. But Renee was NOT the person to kill off.

Renee was the finest character to join 24 in years.

RIP, Renee Walker. Jack’s gonna make sure your death wasn’t in vain, and that’s the only good thing that could come of this. Jack’s gotta rack up a body count, and that’s never a bad thing. You know, for those of us safe on our sofas, watching.

I only wish that the silent clock were subterfuge this time around.

(P.S.: Chloe in charge of CTU? Frak yeah!)

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The news just got posted on 24′s Facebook page. Here’s the press release, in its entirety:

Sigh. I can’t say I’m surprised or utterly disappointed, but a part of me is still sad.

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Really, 24?

CTU has just been EMP’d and no one even thinks twice about some random parole agent who’s bumbling around, asking questions about some idiot thief?

And how freakin’ committed is this parole officer that he sees that the COUNTER-TERRORISM AGENCY of the United Freakin’ States of America IS IN THE MIDDLE OF A MASSIVE NATIONAL SECURITY CRISIS, but, you know, he needs to get back to Arkansas so this just can’t wait.

Sorry for yelling, but Monday night’s episode was so moronically stupid that I still am quite upset.

I’m not gonna say not to read if you didn’t watch, because, frankly, you’re better off not watching and just viewing the liveblog we did over at Blogs4Bauer. I’ve been told it’s quite amusing. And you’ll get all the main points.

So, first, I would just like to ask:

A MOLE? I mean, I know it’s become de rigeur and all by now, but imagine how things would have been by season’s end if there hadn’t been a mole. The fans would have been all, “Hey, this season sucked, but at least there wasn’t a mole, so that’s something anyway.”

Now, we don’t even have that to hold onto.

And I (and the rest of the world) was hoping that Dana/Jenny would meet her untimely death sooner rather than later, but now that she’s the mole, who knows when that will happen. I really think that whoever does hiring at CTU seriously needs to be locked in a Chinese prison for 14 months. At least 14 months. Or, locked in a room with Jack Bauer and no security cameras.

So Dana/Jenny is engaged to a hotshot CTU agent who can’t hold onto his NYC accent for more than about 10 seconds at a time and has now killed some stupid hayseed crooks for his fiance, who is working for the bad guys. Great.

And now she’s killed a probation officer (poor Milton, you were the most dedicated probation officer in the history of mankind) and hidden his body. Of course, because of the EMP blast, no cameras recorded that, so she has that going in her favor.

And who thought the NSA jerkoff was going to be the mole? Best line of the night, “I’m sure you’re a nice guy, when you’re not at work,” Chloe says as she’s holding a pistol to his face. Chloe rocks, even in the midst of all this idiocy. And Hastings has had the best CTU director redemption since Bill Buchanan. Possibly, even, George Mason.

Go get some shrimp, Bubba. You deserve it.

Once again, we see that everyone should just listen to Jack and Chloe. I don’t know why people don’t. Those two redshirts who got killed with Jack and Chico Jr. totally deserved it. The first one for breaking formation in the first place (though that formation looked like the guys from Animal House trying to hide from the dean or something) and the second for being stupid. I really wished Jack had told him the guy he died trying to save was dead when he went out for him, because he deserved to know what a moron he was before he died.

Sorry, do I sound a bit harsh? Well, I’m pissed off.

I’m pissed off that Jack isn’t killing people.

I’m pissed off about the whole Dana/Jenny storyline.

I’m pissed off that the president of 70sHairistan’s daughter is all, “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me everything, even though I know you deal with national security and I obviously brought a car to you that kind of blew everything up. But you owe me!”

If it weren’t for live-blogging, I would have wanted to bang my head against the wall throughout most of the episode. Hell, I probably wouldn’t have made it through to the end. But we have a great audience over at B4B, so that makes it easier to stomach eps like this.

When the word “Rods!” is used more in an episode than “Dammit,” there’s an issue.

Chloe needs to tase someone. Red Hot got the kills, which was awesome, but Jack needs to start taking out bad guys. He needs to shoot someone in the knee and yell at them.

We’re halfway through this, our last 24 hours. Please don’t wrap it all up neatly into some stupid storyline that makes me want to drown myself in the toilet. Please?

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The last two hours of 24 – 11 p.m. to 12 a.m. and 12 a.m. to 1 a.m. – have been both exhiliarating and a crapfest.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some fantastic moments in last night’s episode – Jack’s defense of Renee, his Jack Sack adjustment, his being freed even though he’d just attacked an official of the Justice Department – but it was so overwhelmed by the stupid Dana/Jenny plot as to be infuriating.

There have been many stupid side plots on 24, with Season 2′s “Misadventures of Kim Bauer” — which included her being framed for murder, being trapped by a mountain lion (cougar), being held hostage by Johnny Drama for about an hour and being a hostage in a convenience store robbery (really? the Kwik-E-Mart? Truth be told, that was even stupider than the cougar) — being the gold standard up until now.

Why is 24 wasting Katee Sackhoff on such a putrid storyline?

Let’s review:

Dana Walsh isn’t Dana Walsh. She’s Jenny Whitetrash, but covers up that southern accent really well. Her boyfriend, Dumb Hick, and his prison “buddy,” Dumber Cracker, have been blackmailing Dana/Jenny into helping them commit grand theft (I’m not sure of the exact technical crime, but that’s the one that makes sense to me).

Seems when she was an impressionable, underaged teen, she helped Dumb commit some crime. Because she was a minor, she got out quickly and her record was expunged. Because he wasn’t, he served serious time.

DanaJenny turned her life around and got a job working for the federal government in the most mole-ridden agency ever in the history of mankind. So, naturally, after being recreated, CTU didn’t improve its background check procedure and didn’t manage to find out that its top analyst wasn’t really who she said she was.

What’s the fun in that?

So now DanaJenny is completely susceptible to blackmail and she helps the StupidTwins rob a police evidence locker place, where they fling stuff around like monkeys tossing feces and nearly kill a cop. Good work.

Then they go to a strip joint and pick up some hookers. Who actually go with the boys in their rapist van to some deserted park and then leave, walking home. Right. Was that Hempstead Lake State Park? (Inside joke. Some of you will understand.)

So now Jenny’s sitting in some car, pistol with a silencer on it, ready to kill Dumb and Dumber.

But Chico Jr. arrives and won’t let her do it. He threatens the meth addict pair and tells them to get outta dodge. Dumb is OK with that. They got a six-figure payday and some hookers, so it’s all good. Dumber isn’t OK w/it, so he shoots Dumb, who still loves JENNNAH! and warns her just in the nick of time. Chico kills Dumber with his own shotgun.

So part of this storyline would seem to be resolved now.

But now the best CTU agent since Curtis is tied up in a moronic murder of someone who should have been a candidate for the Darwin awards years ago.

And to top it off, his fiance isn’t who he thought she was.

Blecch.

This is 24?

That said, there were moments of pure Jack genius in the past two hours:
• Jack, while tied and hanging from the ceiling and having been tortured by electricity being pumped into his gaping abdominal wound, manages to knock out his torturer, get down from the ceiling, untie himself and kill his captor. Mostly with his legs.
• He has a shootout with the bad guy from Judge Dredd and wins. He’s just been tortured. And he was stabbed in the abdomen just about an hour earlier.
• The rods (RODS!) are in Flushing.
• Jack busted into a room where Red Hot was being questioned about her massive stabbing of Vlad the impaled and put the hurt on the Justice Department chick who tried to stop him.
• Jack was tased. Did I mention he was just recently stabbed in the abdomen, tortured and involved in a firefight and he’s still standing? Bad idea. (C’mon, you know you laughed when the CTU security guard backed up when Jack gently advised him to.)
• Jack was ready to go on the lam with Red Hot. W00t! I’d watch that spinoff.
• Jack accepted Hasting’s offer of going back on the job for real and an all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet. He even adjusted his Jack Sack strap from “casual” on one shoulder to “ready to kick ass” with an over the head, across the chest move. It also allows him to put the bag behind him and not fall off while he’s at the shrimp buffet. True story.

All in all, the last two eps were fabulous. I just am really tired of the DanaJenny storyline and wish all people involved, except for Chico Jr., would just leave, already. Unfortunately, Chico Jr. is too tied up in it now, which means we’ll be the ones who’ll be tortured for the rest of the season.

Hopefully, Jack will be at least one more time. We need some more kickass scenes.

(Thanks again to Adam at The Jack Sack for the Bauertar image. I can’t get enough of it.)

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