I used to watch 24, the tv show, all the time with my parents. We would always get together for an hour of popcorn and excessive violence. In the latest season I didn't watch many episodes because the show was getting old and there were only so many ways that Jake could torture a person. That was season 7 but I'm pretty sure I've been watching it since the middle of season 2, so it has been a good run. Recently I've been watching the first season of 24. I think I now understand why it is still on tv.
Season one was amazing. It was slower to pick up than other seasons but that makes sense because you have to introduce a full cast of new characters. And still, that statement isn't totally true. Kim, Jack's daughter, gets kidnapped in the second episode and by the time they know she is gone, people are already dead. The major difference between this season and the other ones still in my memory, is that it isn't just about Jack shooting and then torturing person after person. This season started and left me with questions about morality in situations that could actually be real. I'm still trying to figure out what I would do if it was me.
I love how the motivation of the terrorists is revenge for killing loved ones, yet when Jack believes the same has been done to him, he kills 7 men and the last one in cold blood. I love the realistic evil nature of Victor Drazen as he kills his friends daughter and then tries to justify in on Jack. If anyone knows that pain that he just caused, it is him and yet he does it without hesitation. Victor Drazen has no remorse left.
The last thing I really enjoyed was the polictics. I'm not usually huge into polictics (Wednesday night I would be upstairs as my parents watched the West Wing) but I've thought about it more now that I realize I should be voting soon. I enjoyed how this season shows how cut-throat politics cnd be and how it is really a competition. A competition between two parties, even two people, more than people choosing what is best for the country. Let David Palmer sort of goes against that, maybe there is hope?
My favourite part was the character of Shery Palmer. In other episodes she is weak and I'm gald I got to see her best season before I wrote her off. I absolutly love how she gets consumed by her ambition. She starts as a loving mother but slowly gets reduced to a selfish, untrusting, hollow person who justifies every action she does as for "the greater good". She is even willing to let another women sleep with her husband so that she can have power over him. Her whole existence is reduced to one thing, the White House, and every time she thinks she is losing that, she does anything she can to get it back. But the justification was amazing. You would almost want to believe her if David Palmer wasn't a more likeable chacter.
To wrap it all up, this season still had all the classic 24 moments. Maybe Edgar didn't die in an airlocked room and there was no nuclear bomb but you could still follow the blood drops like breadcrumbs. They didn't need to have Jack kill someone with his teeth or test to see if the voltage in a lamp will not kill a person because they had better writing. The gun fights were still ridiculous and at least a dozen times you can spot some wannabe tech guy accidentally caught in the shot but that lead to the fun of the whole thing and kept you from killing your family during the night. Funny thing, it is better that I saw the first season now because if I watched it back then I wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much as I did over the last month. I'm gald I went back and saw the first season, it really saved the whole francise for me.
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