now, from the POV of a TM shipper, season 4 could also have been a good place to end things - because, hey, I wouldn't have wanted to miss the chemistry and the emotion we got in season 4 from the two of them . I liked their starting off at the point of being hurt and bitter about each other and ending up together (like we all knew they would ) - as unrealistic as that might be within 24 hours.
going slightly off the topic of ending things:
we also saw jack move on in some way, being at the DOD rather than CTU in the beginning. thinking about it now, do you think that if they had abolished CTU in season 4 things might have been different? put jack in a totally new place (NOT government related), and bring the characters together in a personal rather than professional context? maybe that would have done away with the need for repetitiveness?.. just a thought here.
(I was going to post some thoughts on something s7 related but I'll do it in the Norules forum.)
]]>For me, Season 3 would have been the ideal time to have ended the show, at that point, all of the characters were familiar to a point of comfort in watching it. The storylines wern't being reused and it was the end of the previous 2 seasons. For me Season 3 ended so well, the effects of the day take effect on Jack in the last few minutes at the end, then he breaksdown inside his car, this was perfect, the music was great (Jacks Humanity) and to me their wasn't a more perfect way of ending the season.
When Jack got the call, he just picked up where he left off and kept going, to me that just leaves the message of "Jack is human, he will make mistakes, but he just keeps going" Thats why that episode remains one of my favourites.
]]>I think what we can effectively say is that the how changed after "the first trilogy". Seasons 4-6 didn't necessarily match up to our expectations.
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the second trilogy didn't reach the heights of the first. Whether that's because we'd seen it already, or because the show itself wasn't as good is contestable.
no, indeed they did not. though, to be fair, it has to be said that it is clearly pretty hard to keep coming up with new stories once you've locked yourself into a pattern. it's not like there's a shortage of terrorist threats, but in the light of 'bigger, better, more', once you've started down that road, people, i.e. we, expect the threats and storylines to get bigger with every season, and there is probably a limit as to how much you can do - I mean, they actually set off a nuke on US soil twice in these 6 years AND we had a nuclear power plant meltdown. forget about the fallout, but if you're going to top *that* you're likely have to go for complete annihilation of the US population...
that being said, yes, it has become very repetitive in the 2nd trilogy of the series. we've seen way too many moles, and the dialogues and storylines were reused to the point of it being a copy paste from earlier seasons, and whereas in the beginning you could say they were reusing elements but in a different way, it did start to feel old at some point.
I think the genuine question is, when should it (have) end(ed)?
not continuing it for 7 seasons and setting a stop point after three, four, five seasons might have been a good idea. simply because it would have prevented the repetitiveness and would have ended on a high note. sure, we wouldn't have had Bauer Against The World anymore, but hey, at least we could say *our* favorite TV show didn't go down the drain eventually. which, i'm not so sure of anymore.
I have to say, I think season 5 is very good (aside from one obvious major mistake, which I'll let J_A argue. lol.)
hehe. no I won't. but thanks for mentioning it
and 24nut, I agree with your statements, too
]]>But the main point i think here is that Season 6 was tired and seemed like it was just replaying everything we had seen before, and it started off with lots of potential. Anyways, im getting kind of of topic here. I think we can probably move the discussion on to the next set of hours?
]]>I also didn't like how easy Jack just moved on after that situation had resolved itself, apart from the infamous whisper in Nina's ear (I still really want to know what he said).
I read somewhere that what Kiefer actually said was something along the lines of "I love you Sarah. Why did you marry Xander?" At which you have to give her an oscar just for not cracking up laughing.
If you mean what *Jack* actually said, that of course, is up to our imaginations. In my imagination, Jack uses a few more colourful words than he normally allows himself, along with "rest of your life" and "hunt you down".
]]>Often the cliffhangers were quite open ended and was almost something to make you ponder "what does that mean?, why did that happen? etc etc" than a the more traditional which are aimed solely at making sure you tune in next week.
Your also absolutely right about chasing the clock in series two instead of embracing it in series one, and this ties into cliffhanger thing a bit I think, as the best example that in the early episodes they were really going for "real time" was the cliffhanger to episode 3 and the opening of episode 4, which feet so neatly together, you feel as if no time has passed at all. It's more like an ad break than an episode break, even with the boys dragging Kim away, they look to have gotten 15 - 20 seconds further down the alley.
That was defintely lost by series 4, and sometimes I get the impression new guest directors aren't that well schooled on "the 24 look", when they all should be told to watch the first 6 episodes of series 1 as research.
]]>I wanted to see more of the rawness of the two characters who we know have had more than a platonic relationship, who we know have betrayed the other's trust at least once, and yet I don't think it was fully realised. It seems there was definite shift in dynamic in the second season towards the story being against the real time clock rather than embracing it as they did in the first season, and I think it's probably this that caused the Jack/Nina conflict not to be taken to it's truest potential.
Here's an interesting side thought btw: If you really want to examine the way the show has altered consider the number and ferocity of the actual cliffhangers from season to season- and by cliffhangers I mean significant endings to episodes such as, for example, Mason finding out he's going to die, in comparison to episode endings, for example, s1 when Jack and Mason see the helicopter flying over their heads.
]]>I also didn't like how easy Jack just moved on after that situation had resolved itself, apart from the infamous whisper in Nina's ear (I still really want to know what he said) he simply walks away and brushes it off as some minor annoyance, as if he got stuck in a traffic jam on the way to work.
As for the "faceless" CTU, well that defintely started in series 4 when they redesigned CTU and it changed from being what could realistically be a government office to the bride of the u.s.s enterprise. Still, thats what happens when your new set designer gets his visual cues from Thunderbirds.
]]>Definitely agree with you about CTU becoming faceless. I think another word is, perhaps, redundant. In the latter seasons CTU has become almost a parody of itself- even when it's put in jeopardy, it can't conjour up anywhere near the same emotions that the bombing did in s2 or that the revelation of a traitor in the ranks created in season one.
]]>I think that the character wasn't underused and no alternative storylines are popping into my head at the moment, but i think that they handled the character well, they didn't drag the storyline out for long amounts of time, they didn't have gaps where she just dissapeared (between seasons 2 and 3, she did). For example there have been a couple of bad attempts at handling a characters storyline, such as President Logan and Vladimir Bierko. So i personally think that the writers handled themselves very well at the beggining of Season 2, especially with the way Nina was reintroduced.
Something else that really jumps out at you in the beggining is that Mason looks really at home as head of CTU, something that got lost along the way, CTU became incredibly formal and faceless, when i say faceless, it just doesn't seem human anymore, where as Season 1, 2 and maybe 3 had a feel of a place that was worked in and didn't feel over the top.
]]>I think really what 24nut means is for us to perhaps all have a quick scan through the episodes four at a time then come back to the thread with any points of discussion which you think maybe of interest.
well, I understand that . my problem is solely that I never really remember just what exactly happened when - but like michelle would say, "but that's my problem" . i suppose i'll leave it to the rest of you to bring up things that I'll then discuss
nina - good point. it was a great moment, when jack first saw her and then the scene where he's looking at her through the security camera and she's looking at the camera and kinda looking back at him. I feel really that this kind of stuff has gone forgotten and lost in later seasons, or at least to a point, because the plots got more and more complex, in the bigger, better, more vain - when maybe stripping it down but developing characters and their inner lives might have been more interesting. but that's just the woman in me speaking I suppose
]]>The one i've got from those 4 episodes is Nina Myers, these episodes are the first proper episodes we see her as full blown villian, in the final two episodes of series 1 she wasn't fully revealed to all the characters as a villian.
Do people think she was under used?, would you have handled Nina as a villian differently?, even introduced her back into the plot differently?. I think perhaps how the writers handled nina could be a good example of how they eventually handled bringing back any well known character.
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