24 Season Premier--Starts with a Whimper

Well, one of my favorite shows, 24, kicked back up last nite with a two hour season premier, which will be followed by another 2 hours tonite. As you may know. The premise of the show is that stuff happens in the course of 24 hours and each episode is an hour of the twenty four hour day.

What a dud! I'll probably watch the whole season, but this has been an inauspicious start. For starters, the entire cast, with the exception of Keifer Sutherland and Cloie, his former assistant, has been purged. Can you say, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The show has made a mistake inthinking that 24 is about Jack Bauer and the format, but it isn't. It was about a group of people linked to each other and thown in situations together. To make matters worse, the new characters are duds, flat, no life . . .The feeling I got from watching, last nite, is the feeling I get when i watch Stargate Atlantis: you sit there and say, "Okay, I guess this character is the X of this show, and that character is the Y of this show, etc. It is hard to copy an original.

President Palmer of the last three seasons was the token black guy on the show, but he was one heck of a presence. Now, he's gone . . . and is reduced to doing Allstate car insurance ads (from President to Insurance salesman). The new token Black guy is pathetic. Also the token woman boss, is a joke. She saps energy from the show. She seems like a fine actor, but something's not clicking and she's trying to be too cool. One thing about pervious seasons was that CTU was always buzzing with activity. Now it is a soporific dungeon of people who seem well suited for a stint in a Sarcophagus Unmoved movie.

The villians are also less interesting this time around. Of course it all could pick up, leave me with my mouth agape in wonder. We'll see.