24 has been Canceled

Yeah, I guess 24 may have been canceled in the middle of it's eighth season. Can't say I'm sad to see it go. While I do get a kick at the fact that it outlasted Heroes (I got so much shit when both shows competed in the same timeslot), 24 should have gone the way of the dodo a few seasons ago.

I was talking to my brother about this a few weeks ago, and interestingly enough, an article from Time Magazine had about the same explanation as I did about where it went wrong. In the start of season 6, Jack kills his friend and comrade Curtis without blinking, all because the writers decided to give him a previously nonexistent vendetta at the last minute. Moments later, a nuclear bomb goes off in Los Angeles. Jack is on the ground, shocked by the combination of both events, vomiting on the grass. I wasn't sure about it then, but the show was over for me at that point. That was when my subconscious realized that the writers had ran out of ideas. 24 was never afraid to kill off anyone and everyone on the cast if it helped advance or improve the plot, but Curtis' death was neither moving or surprising. It just felt unnecessary. More importantly, this was the first time the show had a nuke had gone off without a hitch, yet a few episodes later no one seems to care. I have vague memories of a scene in which a badguy of sorts is arguing with his wife while driving, providing what was supposed to be comedic relief. But I don't imagine anyone driving, or chit chatting on a cell phone, or walking on the sidewalk after a nuke goes off. One of the most powerful plot devices that 24 - or any show for that matter - has ever tried to rely on was turned into an afterthought. How could we have any trust in the writers from that point on?

Sure enough, there wasn't any reason to after that. Jack's family is revealed to have been involved in Secret Villain Plotting, but the conflict is introduced and resolved with such little fanfare or scope. It should have dovetailed wonderfully with the end of Season 5, but it was made into another afterthought. With Season 7 we got a new setting and a largely new cast, and once again characters are knocked off with abandon, and a yet another secret society is introduced. Fast forward to Season 8, which I haven't watched more than an episode of. I asked my family whether those Big Bads from Season 7 were still kicking around, and at the time, they said 'no'. In other words, 24 keeps dabbling with continuity, only to follow up with seemingly standalone seasons. It's sloppy, teasing, and hard to give a damn about.

Let's face it folks - 24 has never been the height of TV entertainment. But it always manage to squeeze out more action scenes than I ever expected to see on Primetime, and the concept was intriguing enough to generate basic suspense. Nowadays, not only is the concept worn out, but there's no point in trying to guess what will happen next, not when the answer is forgotten within the span of two episodes.

Damn shame. Time to find something else to watch weekly.