Ok, I guess this is as good a place as any to jump in with my anti-24 rant <g> I like the pacing etc but I find the dialog and plot points so laughable it gets in the way of my enjoying the story. 24 takes itself so seriously and has such a complete tin ear for dialog that I keep giggling ( "Authority depends on no one laughing at the wrong time")

A show that pretends to be about real stuff has to have some kind of verisimilitude, but 24's writers seem to have never actually met humans but only seen them on TV. They are TV characters playing TV characters. The "White House" conversations aren't even good TV dialog. Keifer Sutherland has one gear. The format is so stifling they've got themselves into a situation where they have to introduce plot points and create tension between characters in ways that don't even make suspending disbelief fun.

I loved Alias and could go along with SI5 and Rimbaldi and the whole thing because there was enough tongue in cheek to allow for some fun.

I am currently re-watching the DVDs of 6 seasons of Angel from the brilliant Joss Whedon and I am constantly thinking it is amazing how he can make moral conflict, love, fear, angst etc. more real among vampires and demons and things that go bump in the night than is ever done with the characters in 24. And then there is Buffy, the gold standard for making the unbelievable believable.

I believe Buffy and Angel. I never believed Jack Bauer for a minute and he is the most believable character on the show. ( though pairing it with Prison Break was good. That show seems to even amuse the TV critics who take 24 seriously. )

But I have to admit, this last season when the nuke went off I was at least comforted that Kim Bauer may have been at ground zero <s>

The Shield, Rescue Me, Deadwood, Carnivale ... there has been some really good TV lately. I just never got why 24 always gets mentioned with shows that are so much better written and conceived.

Ok, I feel better now.


>Monk is one of my favorite shows. I really enjoy it and it is one of the few shows that I will actually spend time searching the schedules to see when it is on.
>
>What about 24? I never watch 24 on tv but wait for the whole season on DVD. Then I watch it back to back like an addict.
>
>I watched 2 or 3 episodes of the Sopranos and never got 'hooked' but did enjoy it. I would probably watch it the way I watch 24 rather than each week.