But the worst twist so far came a week ago when President Palmer appeared to bring the country to the brink of nuclear war, only for us to discover -- Gotcha! -- that he was just bluffing this whole time. Those kinds of inorganic plot twists aren't just annoying, they erode the show's credibility and make us less invested in the outcome. Can you imagine how little we would've cared about "The West Wing" if President Bartlet suddenly resorted to an international game of chicken, on a whim?
But unlike "The West Wing," "24" clearly wants nothing to do with realism or seriousness or credibility, which is why it's no problem to feature a torture scene in every other episode. Fayed tortures Jack, Jack tortures Omar, Jack tortures his brother, Graem, Jack tortures the Russian ambassador, Fayed tortures Morris. The question is, why do the writers think that the stakes are automatically high when there's torture involved? The end result is like something out of "A Clockwork Orange": We're forced to watch torture so many times in a row that these scenes become utterly mundane and lackluster to us. Way to slowly and painfully kill the golden goose, guys!
With only two tricks up their sleeves this season -- twists and torture -- the writers have been churning out some of the most ridiculous dialogue ever, and on "24," that's saying a lot. Take Mike Doyle's congratulatory remark to Jack at the start of Monday night's episode, the sort of deadpan understatement that almost seems designed to draw a laugh: "I know you've been through hell, not just today but the last couple of years."
Or how about Cheng's response to Jack's questioning why he'd want the suitcase bombs in exchange for Audrey. "It's not the weapons themselves we're interested in," Cheng helpfully explains. "What we want is the component from the triggering mechanism. It contains a prototype algorithm old enough to be free of any modern encryption safeguards. With it, we'll have access to virtually all Russian defense technology!"
Dialogue this awkward and obvious is simply an amusing diversion when all of the other moving parts on this show are working, but with the wheels falling off the speeding bus this season, it's hard to stomach such thoroughly implausible exchanges.
To be fair, plotting out a show like "24" is like piecing together a very complicated puzzle, and you have to know the entire season's arc to do it well. Unfortunately, this season the writers either didn't know where they were headed, or changed their minds, or lazily plotted out a narrative arc that didn't work half as well as the main stories from the past five seasons. Instead of fixing the problem, they seem to think that they can hold our attention by tricking us over and over again, changing the essential nature of main characters so much that they're no longer recognizable, and providing countless dead ends. Haven't these guys watched "Melrose Place"? Once all of the characters have either slept together or tried to drown each other in the pool, it's all over. But instead of admitting defeat, the writers of "24" want to throw one big, orgiastic pool party.
And hey, maybe that's the natural end for a plot-driven serial drama like "24," caught in an ill-fated quest to raise the stakes higher each season than they were the season before. For die-hard fans of the show, though, it's still disappointing to see Jack Bauer, the most absurdly idealistic, self-sacrificing hero ever invented, reduced to a half-inflated pool toy. Yes, the one guy we thought we could always count on to be valiantly merciless and courageously inhumane is now prepared to risk international strife for the sake of his ex-girlfriend. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
If only we could go back and start this day all over again ...
About the writer
Heather Havrilesky is Salon's TV critic. She also maintains the rabbit blog. You can find more of her columns in the I Like To Watch directory.
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