(SPOILER)
David Fury's first penned episode of 24 airs tonight on FOX.
I have no idea what it's about. I imagine it will involve Jack Bauer having a crappy day, and there will be a lot of running and talking on cell phones. Fury's description of the episode follows when you click the link that says, "more..."
Okay. Fury says: Jack breaks into the President's retreat to confront him about his chief of staff's connection to the terrorists. We find out what the whole plot was about (or appear to).
That's the terrorists and nerve gas plot... not the 24 show plot.
January 31 2006
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billz | January 31, 05:17 CET
eddy | January 31, 05:20 CET
...except that they both pretty accurately describe my episode. (Damn.)
Hopefully you'll enjoy my future episodes when I really break the formula:
Yet another mole is discovered inside CTU(!); Chloe shows off her tech prowess as she acts snarky toward her co-workers(!!); and Jack performs CPR on a mortally wounded colleague as he shouts "Don't you die on me!!!"
Fury | January 31, 05:43 CET
P.S. Gotta love the Chloe snark (yay geeks!), so go ahead and pile it on all you feel like! ;-)
billz | January 31, 05:47 CET
And good to have you back in a non-mea culpa situation!
SoddingNancyTribe | January 31, 05:49 CET
"They're worms, Michael."
pat32082 | January 31, 05:52 CET
I love 24, and love all the jabs at the formula. Perhaps that's a testament to how good the show is, that it traffics pretty regularly in cliches (some of its own creation) and yet continues to be compelling (Just how will Jack torture this guy? Will there be dismemberment? ;-).
"I'm gonna need a hacksaw." - Jack Bauer
jam2 | January 31, 05:57 CET
Craig Oxbrow | January 31, 05:58 CET
Geraint Wyn Davies played Vampire detective Det. Nicholas Knight on "Forever Knight"(1992). Also Fury worked with a another "Forever Knight" main actor John Kapelos, he was on "Angel" in "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been" (episode # 2.2) as the Hotel manager.
What is Fury up too? ...just saying.
demon magnet | January 31, 06:15 CET
cronopio | January 31, 06:32 CET
Please tell me you had Jack growl "Dammit!" at least once! These are the kinds of things that make my life worth living.
orphea | January 31, 06:40 CET
My only problem is having to wait another two weeks before i get to start watching season five. Especially as i've already seen the first ten minutes of hour one. My GOD, that is one intense start to the season!
WhedonTrivia | January 31, 06:59 CET
jam2 | January 31, 07:03 CET
I wanted more of Chloe, Edgar, and Curtis. Especially Chloe. Did Curtis even have any dialogue this week? And didn't Tony wake up from his coma at the end of the last episode? Why hasn't he been around.
Invisible Green | January 31, 07:06 CET
Yep, there was torture - but no blood which was wierd.
redfern | January 31, 07:10 CET
[ edited by pat32082 on 2006-01-31 05:30 ]
pat32082 | January 31, 07:24 CET
Speaking of Jack Bauer's cell phone, he must have an endless cell phone battery. Everything on that show happens in real time yet Bauer never has to recharge his cell phone? Or go to the bathroom, for that matter. Nobody at CTU takes bathroom breaks for 24 hours!
Tonight's ep starts in an hour and 40 minutes over here.
[ edited by ElectricSpaceGirl on 2006-01-31 05:34 ]
electricspacegirl | January 31, 07:24 CET
More to the point - when is Fury's cameo? And can we possibly work in some Smile Time puppets? And a goat.
crossoverman | January 31, 07:35 CET
palehorse | January 31, 07:46 CET
Invisible Green | January 31, 07:59 CET
To my fellow Buffy/Angel/Firefly/Serenity/Astonishing X-Men fans who haven't seen it: I urge you to seek it out on DVD and get caught up. You'll eat it up with a spork, and wonder how the heck you ever lived without it. Each season is a top-notch, feature-quality 18-hour thriller (minus commercials), and so far this season looks like it could rank as the best work they've done yet - and that's a testament to the addition of David Fury (who will eternally rank as a TV God for penning "Walkabout").
And as a diehard 24 fan since the show first premiered, my hat is off to David for delivering a crackerjack episode tonight that gleefully abounded with deft reveal after deft reveal, while astutely drawing on threads from past seasons for added resonance. In other words, Fury kicks ass and takes names, and I'm pleased as punch he's working on my favorite show. Copy that! ;-)
Robogeek | January 31, 08:02 CET
I really like 24, but:
24 << The Shield & Veronica Mars
Invisible Green | January 31, 08:15 CET
I did start watching season 3 to see if I could maybe get into it and then I had lab on Tuesdays or whatever day 24 was on, I forget. And I couldn't watch it. Haven't been inspired to watch it since.
Now MI-5, before all the original characters left, that was some intense programming.
[ edited by foreverwes on 2006-01-31 06:18 ]
[ edited by foreverwes on 2006-01-31 06:18 ]
foreverwes | January 31, 08:17 CET
k8cre8 | January 31, 08:23 CET
SoddingNancyTribe | January 31, 08:25 CET
rbt | January 31, 08:27 CET
VerseRoamer | January 31, 08:29 CET
A 24 drinking game sounds fun, and I don't even drink. Does anyone know of any?
[ edited by ElectricSpaceGirl on 2006-01-31 07:12 ]
electricspacegirl | January 31, 08:55 CET
There aren't enough hours in a day...
Nebula1400 | January 31, 09:04 CET
But, all that said... I find it an incredibly entertaining hour of television. I first caught it via DVD, and agreed with my friend who told me it was "crack DVD watching" – once i saw one episode i had to see what happened next, which meant i often ended staying up inadvertently until 2 am, and then cursing that i didnt' have the next Netflix packet yet. Is it great? No. Is it up there with the Whedonverse, or Deadwood or the Wire, or even Veronica Mars? Nope. The plots and characters are cliched and contrived, and the dialogue is often wooden. But it's also a totally different genre - pure action, pure adrenaline, and lots of fun. I agree completely with jam2's comment: "...it traffics pretty regularly in cliches (some of its own creation) and yet continues to be compelling (Just how will Jack torture this guy? Will there be dismemberment? ;-)."
It's my popcorn, guilty-pleasure TV - and though it's easy to predict the basic clichés (as Alysson did so well above!), you still want to see just how Jack will save the world this time. And which twists and turns and moles and crazy plots and torture and near misses they'll devise. I'm pleased as punch that Fury has been added to the writing team.
Great debut effort tonight!
acp | January 31, 09:16 CET
Mark A. Sheppard (Badger) plays villain Ivan Erwich. (Been discussed recently, so nuff said.)
Sean Astin, who plays Lynn McGill, directed the “Angel” episode “Soulless.”
And my personal favorite, President Charles Logan, played by Gregory Itzin, is better known as Magistrate Higgins. I must be pretty slow because I just figured it out last episode, after all this time!
Pliny | January 31, 09:36 CET
k8cre8 | January 31, 09:41 CET
MFNlaw | January 31, 10:06 CET
billz | January 31, 10:38 CET
I gotta echo many others re: 24's plot predictability and the lack of deeper characters development I've been hardwired by Joss's stuff to crave, but for an hour's worth of adrenaline-soaked action and high-wire political intrigue, there's nary another contender on network TV.
We've started calling it "The Bauer Power Hour" because Jack, with his inexhaustible reserves of energy (and apparently enormous bladder!) never fails to save the 1/24th of a day.
Wiseblood | January 31, 11:42 CET
Caroline | January 31, 12:14 CET
gossi | January 31, 15:20 CET
I feel like this season they've raised the stakes by killing off so many people in the first episode.
One thing I've always wondered about 24 is if there are any Fox corporate people that make the writers put in certain messages reflecting Rupert Murdoch's political ideology. In previous seasons there've always been parts where it's like, "There's not time to get a warrant! We have to detain and torture these radical Muslims right away or a nuclear bomb will go off in the United States!"
Celluloid Novelist | January 31, 15:39 CET
I find this season's subplots to be resolving very quickly as compared to past seasons. Each hour resolves subplots that were introduced the previous hour. Is there pressure from the network to make each episode more of a stand alone (as much as this format allows) so that more viewers can jump in without feeling ... dare I say ... "lost".
Good job on tonight's episode Mr. Fury. Glad to have you on board 24.
coolpeace | January 31, 15:48 CET
While the show will take shots at anti-war types like Richard Heller, I tend to think that it all comes from people involved with the show, as opposed to higher-ups at Fox.
[ edited by areacode212 on 2006-01-31 14:16 ]
areacode212 | January 31, 16:07 CET
sandyg | January 31, 16:11 CET
That's what it's all about. Then again, vampires and slayers aren't real either! LOL. Reminds me of some spy novels/movies from the 60s/70s by Alistair MacLean: Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, etc, where the Hero gets the crap beat out of him, but keeps going back for more, never gives up. The mission is more important than his own life (personal and physical). It's not about the believability, but the action.
I enjoyed this ep, although was a little dissapointed Jack didn't get more with the torture! My other half and I cheer everytime Jack exacts a little vengenge! The quote jam2 made above about the hacksaw is what makes me love this show. (yeah, we're a sick puppies!). It's not often a TV show makes me cover my eyes, but that little scene with the knife sure made me flinch!
I'm glad Mr. Fury is a part of this!
[ edited by Grace on 2006-01-31 15:34 ]
Grace | January 31, 17:15 CET
I always tape "24". I was sitting there trying to watch and as usual, 10 minutes in and I had to turn the channel because I can't watch that show before going to sleep at night. Gets me too worked up. (Yeah, Kiefer's hot, but not "worked up" like that, you!) So I wait 'till Saturday morning...after the treadmill.
By the way...nice to see that Kiefer won a Screen Actors Guild award! That's some mighty fine acting going on in that there "24". I'm not ashamed to admit it...but he actually made me puddle up once. End of season one. Y'all remember that? Last 30 seconds of the show. Damn.
AmazonGirl | January 31, 17:56 CET
rbt | January 31, 18:05 CET
Fury was a much-loved writer on "Buffy" and "Angel" (one of the best, actually) who was also known to sing about the occasional condiment and stain removal. He moved on to "Lost" where he defined the series early on with "Walkabout," the brilliant episode where we learn Locke was confined to a wheelchair before the crash.
He left "Lost" when he signed an exclusive deal with Fox and now serves as some kind of producer/writer for "24." Honestly, I'm not sure it's the best matchup. It seems to me that Fury's considerable talents will be largely squandered by "24"'s rigid structure. At the same time, "24" was running just fine without him, under the eyes of creators Robert Cochran and Joel Surnow.
You could pick out the Fury episodes of "Buffy" and "Angel" or at least see flourishes of his own writing style. With "24," he's another cog in the Jack Bauer Power Hour machine. (A well-oiled but largely faceless contraption.)
rbt | January 31, 18:40 CET
I think you make some good points about 24, although my hope is that the producers have brought David and Manny Coto on board (both having different genre backgrounds than the other writers), because they realize the show will get stagnant if they continue to adhere too closely to the same formula.
Celluloid Novelist | January 31, 19:00 CET
Well. Okay.
I did not watch 24. I saw Brokeback at the Arclight followed by a Q&A with Larry McMurty. There were no cellphones. But there were cutiehead cowboys in love. Hooray!
Allyson | January 31, 19:44 CET
Swoon.
24 is the KISS of television. Drowning in the ridiculous, but when it starts to rock out you can't help but throw up the horns.
[ edited by Gonnas on 2006-01-31 17:50 ]
Gonnas | January 31, 19:48 CET
Okay. Fine.
Allyson | January 31, 19:48 CET
rbt | January 31, 19:54 CET
I remember a bit in Day 2 after the plane crash. Jack is kneeling injured, with a gun to his head, to all outward appearances defeated and Nina says something like 'Is this how you thought it would end, Jack ?' to which he replies (meaning every word) 'This isn't over yet'. Guy just will not quit. Ever. Very much in the mold of a Steve McQueen or some character from the 'war' comics of my youth (the quotes are because they often featured stories about football - the kind with feet ;) - or, bizarrely, long distance running).
Makes me wonder how they'll write him out tho'. I mean what will it take to kill him, direct nuclear hit ? Full scale alien invasion ?
Hokey, cliched, fun (in roughly equal measure ;).
Saje | January 31, 20:22 CET
electricspacegirl | January 31, 21:31 CET
If they do kill him off I hope they leave it Angel style ambiguous so that we can at least tell ourselves 'Well, if anyone could survive it'd be our Jack' ;).
Saje | January 31, 22:18 CET
spikeangellover | January 31, 22:19 CET
Allyson: There's a fine line between "brilliantly snarky" and "annoyingly condescending". ;-) And while I appreciate that your intent was the former, it came across as the latter - to me, at least. (Consider, for instance, if someone made a similarly broad generalization of "Buffy" or whatever your favorite show/movie/comic/religion happens to be.) But it's not like anyone died, or anything. No worries.
Robogeek | January 31, 22:56 CET
The DVDs have been re-released at a really reasonable price on play.com so I was thinking of investing in the rest at some point, hopefully soon. I was disappointed when Fury left Lost because I think it is a great show and his work on it was excellent, but its no bad thing to move from one great show to another, so when I eventually catch up on season five of 24 I will definitely be seeing what his work there is like.
One thing about 24 bugs me though- the names of the episodes. Yeah, it fits in well with the idea and time format, but it's incredibly annoying and difficult to find an episode based on part of it you may remember, or something. Contrast this with the frequently excellent (although rarely shown on screen) titles of Joss' shows which most of us know extremely well.
Razor | January 31, 23:08 CET
Not to completely diss the personal bits, cause I'm loving Martha Logan. She's going to do something, and I hope it smokes the Prez!
Znachki | January 31, 23:13 CET
The show is great fun, but i can't honest say i can pick out the Fury-ness in this latest episode. Can someone help me learn what a trademark Fury bit might be?
foofaraw | January 31, 23:38 CET
If you need to continue the conversation, e-mail me or the other admins/mods. Thanks.
SoddingNancyTribe | January 31, 23:50 CET
[ edited by SoddingNancyTribe on 2006-01-31 22:44 ]
Robogeek | February 01, 00:42 CET
Elo | February 01, 01:33 CET
acp | February 01, 01:47 CET
It should also be noted that one of the people with whom I watched actually said, "Oh snap, David Fury!" when the writing credit appeared, which has got to be one of the best/lamest ejaculations of excitement I've heard recently.
friarfunk | February 01, 01:53 CET
areacode212 | February 01, 02:12 CET
I think it has character development, it's just on a smaller scale. Little decisions with huge impact that take place over the course of the day. Personal tragedies (trying to avoid spilers here). And of course there's the season-to-season progressions in character, among those that survive at least. I don't watch so much for the character development though. The gut-wrenching emotional stuff is all there though. Amid the admittedly explosive, somemtimes insanely paced, sometimes ridiculous action/suspense elements. 24's made me cry a few times. And I'm not in agreement with the segment of the fanbase that claim it's all about Jack Bauer. Almost all of the supporting cast/characters in the three seasons I've seen are excellent and just as watchable.
Kris | February 01, 09:07 CET
Wiseblood | February 01, 11:20 CET