*SPOILERS* What I learned from the 2-hour "24" event

Philip Bauer is evil. This would be more impressive if James Cromwell would decide to wake up and ACT for this show. Seriously, I don't care if you are a "veteran" actor. You shouldn't look BORED on-screen. It's not right. And is he gaining weight in his face by the minute? I feel bad bringing that up, but the continuity directors better be looking at Mr. Cromwell. That is, if 24 still has continuity directors. I'm pretty sure that after season 3 they just fired them.

And speaking of weird things happening hour by hour, is the White House's underground lair becoming bigger and bigger and BIGGER by the minute? And just what style of design IS that? I can't decide if it's supposed to be futuristic, or if it's supposed to look like a children's hospital. It has bright blue walls (which, I'm sure in HD, actually look "royal" or whatever, but in regular definition, they just kind of suck), and weird designs put here and there, and if you would just put up a picture of a flamingo in any office, it'd totally be a pediatric exam room. It's tough to describe it with words, everyone. It's just not presidential. Shoot, it'd be a bad design even for CTU. It's the WEIRDEST DC set they've EVER had. And that's not even taking into account the awfully bland Oval Office set they had earlier in the season.

On a character note, I feel bad for Morris O'Brian. He was kidnapped by terrorist conduits/errand runners/suppliers/whatever, then delivered to the current villain, beaten repeatedly, watched someone else die, and was DRILLED BY HIS SHOULDER. With a DRILL. He caved, like ANYONE would do, and made a nuclear activation device for Fayed. An extremely complicated device, meant to activate Soviet-era technology with modern-day electronics. In 4 minutes. While he's in pain from being DRILLED. CTU later rescues him, and he gets chewed out something fierce for making a functional nuke activation device. He spends about 15 minutes in CTU's Clinic, then his ex-girlfriend, Chloe, comes in and pretty much chews Morris out for not going back to work. What the?? He's been beaten and tortured by TERRORIST and, oh yeah, DRILLED IN THE BACK. And Chloe admitted she didn't even need him. So what could an extra 20 minutes of recovery time hurt, Chloe? Morris doesn't have super-healing powers. That show is called Heroes.

Philip Bauer, while he was hanging around at CTU, erased files from Graem's phone. Now, if Graem just confessed to ordering the assassination of a former president and 2 federal agents, why wouldn't his cell phone be in custody? Why wouldn't Jack have it? For lesser thugs they run the cell numbers right away. Why not this time? When the suspect is more important, then the security becomes looser? CTU security just sucks.

Oh, in case you were wondering how long the show can keep Josh Bauer on, child labor laws I think prohibit minors shooting film after midnight. So unless they keep him in the hotel set for the rest of the day, he only has about 6, 7 hours left. (This is why most seasons start at daybreak, so they can introduce their annoying child actors right away. Now you've actually learned something new!)

Fayed, the most evil Arab terrorist in America, works for a white man. It's a good thing, too, because Season 4 was the only season that didn't have a Caucasian as the Big Bad for the season, and it'd be awful to take a risk again and have an Arab as the actual planner of a big event. Apparently Muslim extremist can only carry out plots, they can't come up with them. Man, no wonder so many Muslims hate this show! As it stands, it's nice that we have Russians as bad guys, at least for the middle part of the season. We had some Russians in season 5, but they didn't really... speak. At all. Except "AAAAHHH!" and "I'm DYING!!!!", after an assassination attempt. Come to think of that, the lack of Russian dialogue was actually kind of odd, considering they were a major plot point for the season.

Man, this show sucks.

Back to the DC plotline, I love how everybody has no spine. Karen Hayes quit, in part because she was sick of having to disagree. Tom Lennox told Chad Lowe to draft a letter of resignation, because Wayne said "no" to his highly illegal maneuvers. One "no" and apparently, in DC, you're out. And seriously, how BAD would it be to have a nuke go off in the morning, and later in the day find out that two of the highest-ranking officials in the government, right when they're needed the most, resigned? That'd suck. Also, is Chad Lowe planning on shaking Palmer's hand with a chemical poison or something, a la Lesbian Terrorist Mandy? Because it sounds like they're planning on getting rid of Wayne for good. (Hooray!!!)

Meanwhile, I guess Sandra Palmer and Walid are done for the day? Did they just go to Milo and Behrooz's Land of Abruptly Dropped Characters? Nadia has to be careful... She's heading down that way, too.

As it stands right now, I don't think 24 will probably get any award nominations for this season. It's been slow, dry, and lacking oomph. It can all change, yes, but it's been very generic, like the scripts are being written by a 24-cliche-generator. The only thing different this season is that they've given Jack Bauer a personality again. Which is cool, actually. But after about 3 seasons without one, it's kind of odd to deal with again. And is Jack's hand healing itself? It looks no where NEAR as gross as it did just 3, 4 hours ago. By hour 15, I bet his hands will be completely fine.

What a weird, weird show.