Watching 24

Wayne Palmer as President. I don’t know what to think about this. I always liked Wayne as a character, and DB Woodside does a great job playing him but I never thought of him as President material. He was a perfect person to fill Mike Novick’s job as Chief of Staff, but as President I just don’t know.

Then on the other hand President Logan shouldn’t have been anywhere near the Presidential seat so at least we know Wayne will be a better President than his predecessor. Also, Wayne has a great friendship with Jack and it seems, at least from the commercials, that Wayne is the one that says “Get me Jack Bauer.” Implying that he may be the one that brokers the deal with the Chinese to get Jack back.

It’ll be interesting to see what kind of a President Wayne will be. At least we all know that he will most likely not be a traitor like Logan.

24, Jack Bauer, Season 6 premiere, Jan. 14th, Wayne Palmer, President

I’m just finding all kinds of cool stuff on the FOX homepage today. If you go to the homepage you’ll see a media player on the right hand side. It plays an exclusive clip from season 6 of newly returned Milo talking to Chloe’s ex-husband Morris.

Something that is a mainstay in the 24 world is inter-office tension, and from the 20 second clip it seems that those two don’t get along well at all. Hopefully it’s only kind of a side sub-plot and doesn’t have huge ramifications within the season. Sometimes the politics within CTU are a bit too much.

Sometimes I wonder how these people work with each other day in and day out. Most of them hate each other, and the others are too busy usurping their “power” onto their subordinates. Anyway, check out the clip see what you think.

24, Jack Bauer, FOX.com, Exclusive, Clip, Season 6

Over on Fox.com they have a nifty little counter counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until the January 14th season 2 hour season premiere of 24.

It’s getting close people. My anticipation for season 6 is through the roof now. I’m dying to see what perils await Jack Bauer on his 6th day of death.

Also, like I mentioned in one of my previous entries you can go here and get a 24 countdown widget of your very own.

13 DAYS….

The cast for this season has already grown quite considerably. Expect to see a lot of those people get killed off, if the past seasons of 24 are any indication of what will happen this season. 24 has shown time and time again that it will kill off main characters without even flinching.

Jamison Jones will play the man in charge of now President Wayne Palmer’s Secret Service detail. Another actor that has joined the cast is Alexander Siddig who has been on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The only information I can find on him is that he’ll be one of the people that Jack Bauer will be fighting against. Whether he will be the first main baddie that will be killed off halfway through the season (Gaines, The Salazaar Brothers) or if he will be the ultimate bad guy that Jack will have to face in the second half of the season I don’t know.

Something I’m really hoping for in this season of 24 is that it be “mole free.” That’s right I said it. It’s just that It’s become a little easy to spot the mole inside CTU. I would like a season where CTU actually did background checks on all their new employees they have to bring in.

It would be nice to see Jack just have to battle with people outside of CTU. I think it would be more of a surprise if there wasn’t a traitor within the government. Either way I’ll watch though. The thing is whenever 24 throws another traitor at us they do it a little different every time. So we accept it, and just hope Jack meets up later with them and breaks their fingers.

24, Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Bauer, Nina Myers, Season 6

As I talked about in my article All I Want for Christmas 24 one thing I hope to see this season is Mandy back in a bigger role. Mandy, played by Mia Kirshner, has ducked in and out of season after season. Season 4 was her biggest part in 24 as she kidnapped Tony and threatened to kill him if she wasn’t able to get free of the horde of CTU agents closing in on her.

Not even Nina was able to elude Jack as long as Mandy has. Mandy has escaped custody time and time again, and I think if given a bigger role would be able to provide quite the antagonist for Jack. Although in the end I’m sure Jack would kill her, I would love to see her back in this upcoming season.

Over the next 10 days I’m going to list the top ten 24 events that I’m most excited for in this upcoming season. It’s going to be a mixture of things I already know are going to happen, and I just can’t wait to see them play out, and things that I hope will happen.

#10. I’ll be waiting to find out if my favorite Ghostbusters villain, Peter MacNicols (Dr. Janosz Poha) will end up being a good casting choice. For some reason I just don’t see the guy doing a show as dramatic as 24. Maybe it’s just because ever since I was a kid I loved Ghostbusters. When Ghostbusters 2 came out the image of MacNicols saying “Evil� in that high, whiney voice has been burned into my brain.

Then I think back to Ally McBeal, and his insane way of acting completely unsure of himself. I just don’t know how he’s going to mesh with 24 as a whole. But, then again I thought the same thing about Sean Astin last year and he did a pretty swell job. I was glad that he was killed off midway through the season though. Though he personally didn’t irritate me, his character did. He was a wannabe George Mason without the sharp wit.

What does everyone else think of MacNicols? Given we don’t know the exact role he will play in the show, what do you think of the casting choice as a whole?

Over on Buddy TV I found a great article called An Ode to Chloe. Oscar Dahl, the BuddyTV writer defends Chole all the way. Some people hate her yes, but he gives some good reasons why she should stick around.

Personally at first I found Chloe annoying, almost like they messed up in the casting department. I think why most people find her irritating is because she didn’t enter CTU and the 24 world until season 3. Season 1 and 2 didn’t really have any comedic outlets, so when Chloe came into the picture people didn’t know whether to love her or hate her. It was such a departure from the norm of 24 that it jolted some of the audience members. They were used to watching a show that was 100% action and drama. Then Chloe came in, but at that point it was completely foreign to laugh at an episode of 24, who had ever heard of laughing while watching 24? I guess you could laugh at the incredibly stupid decisions that Kim made time and time again, but those just made me yell at the screen wishing that a cougar would eat her.

Honestly though, it took me through season 4 to really understand why Chloe was needed. What her purpose at CTU was, and her purpose for the overall show. I like Chloe. Every now and then she still irritates me with her perpetual scowls, but it’s fun to have some kind of comedic relief on 24.

During the filming of “The Cowboy Way” (1994) Kiefer found out that he had a way with horses. He’s gone on to win Roping Championships.

In the upcoming January/February issue of Men’s Vogue Kiefer is quoted as saying:

“What I lacked as a roper and a cowboy I could make up for in horses, Roping is one of those sports like polo where you get infinitely better the better your horses are. I had some great horses.”

Kiefer is jack of all trades. He also owns his own recording company.

As you know I’ve talked a lot about this new feature that’s going to be coming to Watching 24. After every episode review, I’ll then post the points I have awarded or taken away from each character based on his or her merits or blunders.

Everyone will start out with 100 points depending on what they do, and how I feel their points will go up or down.

Example:
Jack starts with 100 points
-kills terrorist +10
-tells Chloe to shut up and do what she’s told +14
-actually listens to orders from division -7
Total: 117

Chloe starts with 100 points
-first scowl of the season -8
-stops killer virus infecting the CTU’s network +15
-watches poor Edgar die in a roomful of noxious gas released into CTU because the stupid fat hobbit didn’t want to appear moronic for losing his security pass -10
Total: 97

I’ll keep track the entire season. Hopefully everyone will have fun with this. I’ll still do reviews of every episode, but this will just be a way for all of us 24 fans to have a little fun with the most intense show on TV.

Also, I have a prototype of the logo for the feature, but I’m not sure about it. Keep in mind that I’m not a photoshop whiz like a lot of people are. But, here’s kind of what I had in mind. It needs to be cleaned up a little but you get the idea.

Again I’d like to thank Jess at Apropos of Something for the idea.

Also, the character’s pictures will be sized right, this is also kind of a test to see how everything will look.

What does everyone think?

If anyone was actually planning on buying this DVD here’s what Wikipedia says it will look like. I still have no idea why someone would buy a DVD containing the first four episodes of season 6. This move just boggles my mind. If you’re watching them live why would you need this? This surely isn’t going to help the people who use Bit Torrent, because those people are going to download no matter what. If you plan on buying the entire DVD set when it comes out, this product seems pretty much worthless. But, in case you were interested here’s the pic.

Check out this video actually sponsored/made by FOX. It’s a Christmas spoof of 24, called “24th.” I love how they do all the different camera angles, and they also use all the same music. It’s pretty funny.

No torture scenes though. Could you imagine Santa torturing that poor little kid? That would’ve been pretty funny. But, in the spirit of fun holiday cheer check it out.

I made a commitment as I watched season 1 again, to check out if there are any times within the show that wouldn’t mesh with the bombshell we find out about Nina at the end. I’ve always had this kind of obsession with going through a movie, or TV show again and again trying to find any slip-ups or things that just absolutely didn’t make any sense when you compare them to how the show actually turned out.

After watching season 1 again I couldn’t find any of those slip-ups and realized that throughout the entire show they were “telling” us it was Nina anyway. By something so simple as the introduction (which was only done on season 1 and then they switched to the “Previously on 24″ stuff) where Jack would explain to us what is happening that day. I would usually fast forward through that part, but I noticed every time they showed a clip of Nina looking shifty. To take some wisdom from Homer Simpson, it’s always the person with the shifty eyes, and Nina shifter her eyes throughout the entire season.

I also realized, again, how much I loathe Sherry Palmer. Out of all the mean, sadistic, and just plain weird women that have appeared on 24 Sherry Palmer is the one I hate the most. Even more than Nina, yes. At least Nina is getting paid to do what she does. Sherry is just plain evil. The way she would talk down to David Palmer, the way she said “David,” made me want to strangle her.
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Today is the birthday of our favorite 24 actor Kiefer Sutherland.

He was born in London, England on December 21, 1966. Actor Donald Sutherland is his father. A little known fact about Kiefer was that his name at birth was Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland. Celebrities are always weird with naming their kids, but having 7 names, no thanks.

Now let’s take a look back at what Kiefer has done to get to where he is today. The first movie I remember seeing Kiefer in was Lost Boys (1987). It was a campy, cheesy vampire flick, which I hated. Then came Flatliners (1990) who he co-starred with Julia Roberts who was his fiancee. Then there were movies like Young Guns (1988), with Emilio Estevez which were just awful.

So, fine Kiefer’s career before 24 wasn’t all that amazing. But, then 24 came and Jack Bauer was born. Kiefer has carried the show through 5 seasons, with a sixth just around the corner. Jack Bauer has saved the world countless times. Kiefer has become a worldwide celebrity.

And on this special day, we here at Watching 24 would like to wish Kiefer a happy birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Our favorite CTU agent turns 40 today. Or, at least Kiefer Sutherland does. We wish for this year to bring him as much success as last year did, with his Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. On top of that, we are anticipating this season of 24, beginning Sunday January 24th, to be as good as the seasons past.

Happy Birthday! Here’s to many more “days” saving us from evil!

Birthday gifts : send a “Happy Birthday” gift including fresh flowers, plants and gift baskets. Send Birthday Gifts that leave a lasting impression.