"24" has just - mercifully - finished its seventh season. As Jack lay on his death bed, receiving remarkably progressive advice from an imam that he pray to Allah to be able to forgive himself, I couldn't stop myself from saying "I can't believe I waited almost a year for this!" With the writers' strike last year, a lot of shows were delayed or truncated, but they managed to come out of it fine ("Lost" immediately comes to mind). Not so with my (formerly) favorite show. The strike sapped the momentum, and it just never got its legs back.
There were hints of what was to come in the beginning of season 6. Jack, recently released from a year in a Chinese prison (during which he didn't utter a word to his captors), breaks down and cries like a little girl after he sees a mushroom cloud over Valencia. Season 1-5 Jack would have responded with "Who detonated that nuke?!? I will find you and KILL YOU!!!! Season 6 Jack tearfully declares "I can't do this anymore. Boo hoo."
Season 7 opens with Jack facing a Senate subcommittee investigating CTU. Rather than facing questions along the lines of "If CTU was in charge of intelligence gathering and fighting terrorists, then why was it so easy to infiltrate and attack?!?!?" we had to endure "Did you hurt bad guys' feelings?" Season 1-5 Jack would have declared "I did what I needed to do to save a snot-wiper like you. Now, get out of my way, I have bad guys to kill!!!" Season 7 Jack said "I am tormented by what I have done. Please forgive me.
We don't want an Oprah-fied wimp protecting us from terrorists. We want a man's man, who isn't afraid to raise his voice and (if necessary) inflict a little bit of pain to find out where the bomb is. We want Chuck Norris, not Alan Alda. Heroes are supposed to be superhuman, not pre-menstrual. Jack spent more time this season discussing his emotions than he did fighting terror. Unacceptable.
But what really bothered me about Jack's death bed apology to the imam to forgive him for his misdeeds against Muslims is that Islamic terrorism played a very tiny roll in any of the seven seasons, and I can't think of Jack torturing any innocent Muslims. This seemed very forced and didn't mesh well with the previous seasons. He should have called his sister-in-law and begged forgiveness for killing his brother and leaving her a widowed mother. Or he could have called his ex girlfriend Audrey and apologized for torturing her ex-husband because he believed (mistakenly) that he was involved with the bad guys. Also, after he tortured the dude, he interfered with the CTU operating room doctors, leading directly to his death. Perhaps he could have called her up and asked that she forgive this....except, he couldn't because she is in a mental institution, broken by what he did to her. (I think the producers of "24" should call all of us and beg forgiveness for not having that mountain lion eat Kim back in season 2).
The final moments of the season finale didn't actually show Jack dying. For all we know, he's about to undergo "gender reassignment surgery" and "Jack" will now be "Jackee'" and the show will now be called "224". And if that's the case, the show would be not be any worse than it was this past season.
Please, for the love of all that is good in this world, let Jack Bauer die.
I am starving for more pithy cultural observations. Please get busy with the writing. What is it, do you have a job or something. The great thing about being a hippy is you never have to work. Unfortunately, you also never have any money for, like buying a computer, so I have to glue together some more popsickle sticks and sell them as "crafts" at the next Dead show---I'm almost up to $15.
Peter?
Maybe to the uptight, power-brokers unable to tune in to the beauty of equality and nature, but I prefer "Saffire Flake".
"Saffire Flake?" That's kind of a mouthful. How about I just refer to you as "Flake?"