Albert very easily could have devolved into what Chloe has become: an odd sort of comic relief, someone who occasionally drives the plot, but whose main function is to drop sarcastic one-liners and make other characters feel uneasy, embarrassed, or angry. He didn't do that, though, because about halfway through the run of Twin Peaks he told us the source of his vitriol, and it shone a completely new, completely unexpected light on him, and revitalized him in a way that demonstrated not for the first time that the writing on Twin Peaks was often nothing short of brilliant.
The writing. That's what I'm talking about. The acting on 24 is, I think, pretty good, and, as Jeff has pointed out several times, the actors often inject their scenes with some poignant emotion. But just think how much truer the emotion would be if it were motivated by a story that was 1) more attentive to being internally consistent, and 2) populated by characters who showed more recognizably human behavior.
The plotholes we bring up again and again aren't necessarily meant to
demonstrate that the stories 24 tells couldn't take place in the real world (and it most certainly couldn't; read the excellent Salon article, in which Spencer Ackerman interviews experts on the sorts of things 24 snows over); the thriller genre has conventions that make it bigger, badder, and louder than reality. But, at the very least, the 24-verse should be consistent with itself. Remember the encrypted document Paul and Jack printed out at the MF building? Someone at CTU pulled a name out of the printout within seconds of receiving it (check Jeff's commentary on the 8:00 - 9:00 PM episode). Remember when Chloe went to Girlfriend's house after the "I think my boyfriend is a terrorist" phone call? She took one look at the extensions on some filenames and knew they'd been encrypted with the Blowfish Algorithm (check our commentary on the 1:00 - 2:00 AM episode). That's two examples of CTU being able to get a handle on encrypted information almost instantly. And yet, think back to the 3:00 - 4:00 AM episode. Jack and Co. are outside the abandoned factory where Marwan is holed up, but they don't yet know for sure he's there. There's a microwave dish on the wall or roof, but Chloe can't make sense of the information it's sending because "it's encrypted." She makes no attempt to break the encryption, when it's already been established that doing so is as simple as using your decoder ring to get the "Drink Ovaltine" message. Encryption has gone from being nothing more than a speedbump to being as impregnable as Fort Knox with absolutely no motivation from within the story. So are we dealing with a thriller anymore? The laws of reality in the 24-verse change from one episode to the next, so we have to posit that no, we're not dealing with a thriller. What we've got here is some kind of technomagical, metaphysical subgenre of fantasy (and look throughout our past commentaries for more evidence). Either that or writers who aren't paying attention.
Article comments
1 - Temple Stark
whew
2 - mike hollihan
Wow, indeed. Pretty exhaustive.
I can forgive 24 a lot of sins because it's just a television thriller. Even the elastic treatment of time this season. But the rocket launch last week gets me. I'm a model rocketeer and there's no damn way that missile, launched at that angle, has been in the air for an hour! Just ain't gonna happen.
3 - Paul Foth
Mike, thanks for your comment. Jeff and I were astronomy grad students at the University of Iowa. George Hospadarsky, mentioned in a previous review, was another of our ilk, and once in a while all the rocketeers in the physics building would gather at the farm where he grew up and spend the afternoon launching rockets. We definitely feel your pain when it comes to the show's launching of the nuke.
I think part of the reason we shred the show so much is that we don't want it to be "just" a thriller. We want it to be edge-of-the-seat, white-knuckle fun, yes, of course, but we don't want it to be so sloppy, either. A thriller should have thrills IN ADDITION TO the necessities of responsible storytelling, not INSTEAD OF them.
4 - mike hollihan
Exactly right, Paul. It's already a great show, but with just a bit more, extra, effort it could be one for the ages. Remember, the speed of light isn't just a good idea, it's the law! ;-)
5 - Jeff
And in Hilbert space, no one can hear you scream...
6 - Karen
I missed an episode. Does anyone know where I might buy an episode or see it?
Day4 4 to 5 AM
7 - Aaman
This is episode 23 torrent.
Here is the 24th episode torrent
This is the entire Season 4 (8 GB) torrent
All in hd
usual disclaimers apply.
8 - HW Saxton
In the seventh paragraph the reviewer
mentions a missile that was fired from
somewhere in the "mountains of Iowa".
I'm just wondering where the "mountains"
of Iowa are. Ive never even seen a hill
there that was more than maybe a couple
hundred feet tall and that's on a very
gradual grade. Hmmmm.......
9 - Jeff
Yeah, my mocking tone kinda gets lost when merely reading this! This goes back to the 12 AM - 1 AM episode, where Mike blamed the loss of contact with the warhead transport team on the mountainous terrain in Iowa. This silly comment (as anyone who has been to Iowa knows) was a howler, and I used it ever since.
10 - HW Saxton
I figured it was sarcasm but just wanted
to clarify. I'm familiar with the Iowa
landscape,having crisscrossed the state
on I-80 too many times. A hill would be
nice distraction amidst all the corn,soy
bean fields and stench of cattle & pigs.