24
Fox
Tuesday, 9 p.m / 8 p.m. CST

Fox's "24" is an action-espionage drama that unfolds in real time — meaning that the hour it takes you to watch it corresponds to an hour in the lives of the characters. Correspondingly, Flak will be providing a written-in-real- time-alongside-the- show review of "24" each week for the duration of the series or until the gimmick of the review becomes tiresome.

Episode 16: 3 p.m. – 4 p.m.

Three separate readers earn recognition this week. Flavio Atas, Alexander Howlett and Mike Wilson took pity on my inability to find graphics for these pieces and either directed me to q13.com or, in the case of Flavio, sent me his own video captures. Gentlemen: Thanks very much.

On the topic of the show itself: So now Jack knows that one of the hitmen angling for Palmer is Alexis Drazen, of the Kosovo Drazens. This constructs a certain kind of feedback loop — as different players become more aware of the bloodlines involved, the richer the story becomes. To wit: Jack's family being targeted is one thing; Jack's family being targeted because Jack executed a strike against the Serbian terrorist/warlord-type Victor Drazen is another thing; Jack's family being targeted by the surviving Drazens is another thing; Jack's family being targeted because not only Victor but Victor's wife and children were also (apparently inadvertantly) killed in the process is yet another thing.

This is a nice knot they've created — one of Palmer's intimates has been having an affair with Alexis and got to see intel revealing him as a potential assassin. It's a cozy quandary. On an episode-by-episode basis, it's these quandaries, often layered two deep, that really make the show, particularly because the story still works when strung together as a whole. The artificiality of it is inescapable — like every sitcom or drama, the immediate problem is usually tidily resolved within the 30 or 60 minutes of the program, and the real-time gimmick only exacerbates that unnatural structure — but it works. "24" has demanded more than a little suspension of audience disbelief, but they likewise offered 15 reasonably commendable hours of television, and counting.

On the flipside, however, are the dividends paid by what the viewer has invested in the show's recurring characters. That comes to light wonderfully in these scenes between Teri, the wife previously separated from Jack, and Nina, the colleague once involved with Jack. At some level, it comes off as too soap opera-ish — Teri saying things like "Nina, Jack and I were separated at the time that you slept with him, and I'm not going to hold it against you" — but the undercurrents of tensions that surge through their conversations, such as this bit about whether Kim is telling the truth and whether Teri is right to defend her. I wonder if "24" will be recognized for this acting in next year's various TV awards.

I don't know what to make of the Kim/Rick relationship. I hadn't considered the writers setting up the kidnapping situation as something pat like Stockholm-syndrome-in-the-making … and, oh, Rick has another piece on the side.

How often in the past have I mentioned that "24" does something great, and then scuttles it? The follow-up scene between Nina and Teri in which they are explicit about their turbulent feelings was clunky and simultaneously under- and overwritten. Similarly, the whole replacement of Jack's replacement seems forced; an instance of swapping second-tier characters in and out because they've run out with characterizations to exploit — in this case, it's Alberta, the wannabe director with a grudge against Jack, for another wannabe director with a grudge against Jack. Why?

I like how David Palmer and his son Keith can't get together. Their relationship has already been delved into on these pages, but their inability to relate is so ridiculous you almost wish it would be plumbed with a little melancholy comedy. The show really is negatively affected by everything always being so serious — and, sure, we've had to deal with rape, murder, kidnapping, assassination, etc., all of which are serious topics — and maybe it's supposed to be a point in "24's" favor that its characters don't whip off screenwriterly bon mots (bons mot?) … and, for that matter, maybe the viewer superiority demanded by comedy runs counter to the paranoia/susceptible-to-conspirators ethos the show is trying to re-restablish. Still: I wouldn't mind a minimum of one smile an hour.

Wait. How did this new hitman kill the two guards watching Teri and Kim? Is that just going to go unstated? Probably not, giving the show's penchant for retroactive justifications, but I can't help feeling that I missed a clue. It was too sudden, too jarring — too much like the writers had written themselves into a corner and needed an easy out.

Alexis' squeeze is being debriefed now, telling CTU that Alexis had told her that he ran an importing business. Ladies, gentlemen: Never trust anyone who tells you that they run or work for an import business, particularly if you're a character on TV or in a movie. It's always a lie. They're either drug dealers, terrorists, assassins … those of you who actually work in the import/export business should demand better representation in movies. But then again, hey, you never see engineers as heroes in movies, either.

That was a nasty dart.

What is with UPS referring to themselves as "Brown?" Are you supposed to be fooled into thinking that the testimonials are talking about some other company — a consultancy or something — only to realize you've been baited and switched, and that UPS is a better, more capable company than ever before?

Wow, Teri has really crashed and burned this episode. Not telling Jack about the pregnancy (again), the bad confrontation with Nina, the near-catatonia after seeing her rapist's mug shot —I still contend that the show has underplayed just how tired everyone must be, giving them stamina beyond the pale even in light of such brutal circumstances. I like that Teri's showing it, and yet given that she's gone through the most trauma, you almost want her to be the most together of them all.

Oh, wow. Kim. Car. Cliff. Fireball. However, I'm not going to get too worked up about this; they made a point of showing Kim roll down her window, and, particularly given the license the show has already taken with probability (as if a fall from that height would cause such a critical fuel tank failure, particularly when there was no open flame), it's not too much of a stretch to think that Kim was able to get out and is simply lying unconscious a few yards from the fireball.

Or she could be dead. They haven't had a major death, at least of a hero, in some time, and the periodic death was certainly a staple of the show in its first weeks. But right now, I'm more concerned with Teri having fainted by the side of the road" — the culmination of the just-mentioned exhaustion, combined with the haymaker of seeing what appears to be your daughter's violent death.

I do like Keith pushing Karl. I like the brashness of youth, particularly when counterpointed by the underlying futility of it all. … But Keith bugged himself! Unless a more definitive, fatal conclusion is reached about Kim, that's a bigger pick-me-up than the car accident is a bring-down. But now they have Teri walking around to "spiritual" choral music … I don't know if that bodes well for Kim. And, of course, Teri would wander onto the road just as the killer decides to turn around and go looking for her.

And, of course, what really seals the deal is that this "happened" because Nina stopped guarding them. Not literally, of course — although Nina did leave the safehouse in the wake of her last tiff with Teri, there's no saying that the attack would have been better prevented — but it's a very interesting wrinkle in this truly compelling Jack-Teri-Nina triangle.

Although: Teri has amnesia? Outrageous. Amnesia like this is always the exclusive province of fiction — it's always been my understanding that there's very little analog for this in the real world. Groan.

And what did I tell you? There's Kim. A longshot? Sure, but her being alive and abandoned is a much more interesting story development than her being dead, even if it does require the eye-rolling development of Teri's amnesia to facilitate it.

The larger thesis contrasting film and TV fell by the wayside again. I do have stuff to say here that's germane to evaluating "24," and I will get to it. In time.

— Sean Weitner (sean@flakmag.com)