Season 7 For 24: Problems?

Yes, I know I never posted about the 24 Season 6 finale. My wife and I Tivo the show and we didn’t get around to finishing it until earlier this month, so I figured that by that time it was too late to write about the end of the season.

There’s been a lot of press about the fact that Season 6 was not up to the standard of previous seasons and that 24 may have finally “jumped the shark”.

I can’t say that I completely disagree with that assessment.

Really, it’s beginning to strain credulity that Jack Bauer can still function as a human being after all that he’s been through. For one thing the guy should probably be on some serious medication, in therapy and certainly not involved in tracking down terrorists at a high level. For all intents and purposes, they’ve turned the character into a non-costume wearing Batman.

Setting off a nuke should probably be the zenith of the series, ending it at the end of the season. I mean how do you top that? The problem with the concept of the show (which I absolutely loved for the first 5 seasons) is that it’s just not possible to continually ratchet up the suspense/adrenaline factor indefinitely. At some point it just becomes unbelievable, and I think that’s what happened this past season.

I thought the show was at least “ok” during the first part of it, when dealing with the Russians/Middle Eastern terrorists, but I thought it jumped the shark by concluding that story about 3/4 of the way through the season and then shifting gears to the Chinese/girlfriend in danger story. I liked that they brought in Ricky Shroeder, but like Stargate SG-1 which seemed to go on a couple of seasons too long, I fear the same thing will happen with 24.

There have been stories about moving next season to a location in Africa (Africa??), but that was nixed due to budgetary constraints, so now the writers have to go back to square one for the story. Personally, I’m sad to say that I don’t have high hopes for Season 7 unless they figure out how to come up with some really fresh new spin on this.

Source: BuddyTV