nixsight

24 Season 7: 8:00 am to 12:00 pm

Jack’s Back!

Everybody has already talked the hell out of these four episodes, with the debate split between those who thought it was a return to solid ground, and those who thought that Jack didn’t hurt or kill enough people in these first few episodes, or there wasn’t enough carnage.

Personally, it was just good to see the show back on the air – “24″ is never quite as straightforward a show as one expects – the “constant twist” element to the show, far from becoming predictable, is rendered chaotic by the fact that they’re never afraid to change things up or get rid of dead-wood characters, and it’s a dynamic that isn’t quite the same as anything else on screen.

Plus, there just isn’t anyone as bad-ass as Bauer, and anyone as good at bringing depth to a character that by necessity can’t colour too much outside the lines of his required parameters as Kiefer Sutherland. Jack can’t have the luxury of self-doubt or hesitation during a season, but if he was just a machine, we wouldn’t be nearly as invested in him as a character.

To be honest, I find the recalibrated pace of the show for this season refreshing – Jack, and by extension the show, have been becoming aware of themselves and their place in the political and moral world for a couple of seasons, and this time out there’s a pensive air to Jack’s interaction with this most recent day.

The fact that Jack is largely inactive throughout these four episodes – he begins them on defiant form as he is deposed by a senator, is pulled in by the FBI as a consultant, and spends a lot of time playing second fiddle to his FBI handler, deferring many of his trademark action moments to her – is telling.

The show isn’t without action, but Jack is mostly peripheral to it. And the usually extreme terrorist attack that always primes a season early on is present, and beautifully done, but even that is ultimately bloodless, and serves as a way of delivering more intrigue.

And, y’know, the fact is, it’s good that it’s different. Jack and his team have been through too much for their motivations to stay the same.

If I’ve got any misgivings about the season so far, it’s that a lot of major storylines have already had their big revelation moments, and I’m always a little worried about a show burning through it’s good material too early in a season.

Having said that, “24″ is always really good at sharp turns down surprising alleys – it’s kind of what they do. And though it makes the pacing a little wonky, it’s probably the right decision to get the things that the audience would have expected out of the way early on.

It’s good to see Tony Almeida back, as well – though anyone who knows “24″ lore would have realised that he was never gone for good. Two of the early reveals I was talking about involve him, and I’m guessing that though the audience, like me, would have liked a little more cat-and-mouse to Jack’s pursuit of his old friend, the showrunners have plans that needed the major players in the places that they find themselves by the end of these four episodes. It’s early in the season, after all.

It’s great to see Janeane Garofalo installed as a character that I’m sure will become a rival to the newly assigned Chloe. I have a bit of a crush on the lovely Ms Garofalo that has nothing to do with her staunch idealism, and everything to do with the fact that she’s pretty damn cute and talented.

I’m hoping that the new First Family storylines will grow on me, though. It’s cool that the seperate plotlines all seem to be flowing together early on, and all roads seem to be leading to the African connection, and the as yet absent Jon Voigt, but though greatness flowed out of the early Palmer camp, Gregory Itzin and Powers Boothe acquitted themselves well, the trademark “24″ melodrama and impulsiveness doesn’t always sit well with the reflective and calculated environment of politics. As yet, this family hasn’t convinced me.

Still, a good start to a new day, and it’ll be interesting to see where it goes.

Being Erica 0101 – Dr Tom

“Being Erica” is a new Canadian series that is part “My Name Is Earl” and part “Back To The Future”, or kinda like “Quantum Leap”, if Sam only ever leaped into his own life, and was a young woman going through a tough period of self-analysis.

The premise is simple enough: Erica has regrets. A lot of them. Enough that they pretty much cripple any chance she has of having a decent life. An eccentric therapist pretty much drags her into a session with him, and midway through it, Erica finds herself transported to her teens, around the date of her prom night. This is the site of one of her worst regrets, and it soon becomes obvious that the only way she’ll get to go back to the present day is to fix the things that she regrets.

The show has a bit of an identity problem, but it’s got a lot of charm, most of which comes from a strong central performance by Erin Karpluk. Erin makes a character that could come off as self-indulgent and whiney almost adorable, and it just about works.

It also has superb production values – the show all looks really pretty – though that’s always misleading in a pilot.

I don’t know how many episodes the show’s premise can work for before Erica has one angsty problem too many and stretches audience sympathy, but it’s good enough to be worth a few more, for sure.

Demons Pilot

Philip Glenister and Zoe Tapper have both done good work on pseudo-genre shows in the last few years within the confines of British TV.

This isn’t one of those shows. It’s not even got a few shiny moments that make it worth sticking at, the way “Torchwood” did on that awkward first season.

It’s probably just a coincidence that both “Life On Mars” and “Survivors” were BBC productions, and this is on ITV, right? After all, “Primeval” was pretty good, and that was ITV. But it didn’t have Glenister’s awful – I mean, actually distractingly, brain-crushingly awful – American accent, for example.

Seriously, every time one of my fellow Brits bitches about Dick Van Dyke, we should force them to watch this show, so they realise that Van Dyke’s chimneysweep really wasn’t that bad.