Breaking Down Bauer: Tackling the New Season of 24

Written by: Rob Van Winkle, CC2K Staff Writer

3-26-07

Another installment, another ridiculous delay that would matter more if this ongoing piece were being written for any reason other than my own stupid sense of self-satisfaction. I have a good excuse (I moved houses, if you must know) but since even I couldn’t care less about it, let me assume that you agree, and let’s move forward.

After watching the past few episodes, I can now officially let you know a MAJOR SPOILER: I was able to steal a brief snippet of a script from an episode of 24…FROM NEXT YEAR!! That’s right, feast your eyes on the FIRST EVER look at a portion of Season 7:

BUCHANAN: Jack, you can’t stage an attack on a foreign country by yourself.

BRIGGS: (Puckers his face into that adorable look we all know so well) Whatchoo talkinabout, Jack Bauer?

Seriously, can you even believe what a masturbatory homage to the 1980s this show has become? Firstly, we have a former brat-packer anchoring the thing, Pedro Cerrano as the former, now deceased president, and one of the Designing Women as a former first lady, now presidential assassin. Guest stars have included Chad Lowe (Life Goes On, already covered ), C. Thomas Howell (Soul Man), William Devane (Dynasty), and most recently, Ricky Freaking Schroeder (Silver Spoons)! If Gary Coleman WERE to show up, would anyone be surprised?

Having said all this, there is one homage to the 1980s that is somehow both refreshing and overdue on 24 this year, and I am course talking about the return of our go-to villain: the Russians. What better way to celebrate the decade that brought us BOTH Cabbage Patch AND Garbage Pail Kids than by bringing back the good old Commies? Remember when they were everywhere? All our best bad guys had long fur coats and weird little oblong hats, and spoke Eenglish with their consonants in the back of their mouths? There were spies, and stolen plans (on microfilm, almost certainly), and the ever-present nuclear threat. Perhaps most importantly, they were easily identifiable. We hated them, they hated us, and the lines were clear. Our country…versus your country. It was so perfect, even Governor Schwartzenegger got in the swing!

Once Gorbachev took over, thus ended our golden age of cinematic baddies. We had no one to hate, and so our action movies took aim against monsters, or aliens, or anything else that could be both evil, and not us. September 11th certainly gave us a something to rally behind (a fact which 24 has been taking advantage of since its inception), but it’s so much harder to fight an ideology than an actual country. Never is this clearer than in this season and last, when the President has had summit meetings with leaders from “Certain Arab Countries” that never get named. War plans are drawn up, threats are made, debates occur, and yet at NO TIME are the countries mentioned. The reason is clear: no one country is behind what happened to us (at least no country that we don’t depend on for oil), and so we must tread lightly in these matters.

However, putting the Russians behind this year’s attacks was a masterstroke. Now, we once again have that ever-present scowl sculpted from years of harsh Siberian winters, an accent that we love to boo (“If he dies…he dies.” BOOOOOO!!!), and a country we can mention by name. Bravo, 24! Of course, here too they have to deal with the fact that we aren’t actually fighting with Russia, but as long as they make the President a good guy (which they did), we can make everyone from henchmen on up to ambassadors evil without repercussion (which they did.)

Coming later this week (I swear), a crash course for the Presidents of 24, which I call Picking a Running Mate 101.