24 (Season Four)
Fox
2005
Rating:

"No matter what the target is," said former President Palmer (David Haysbert) during the "24" season finale, "there will be widespread panic." Palmer's promise went unfulfilled, with neither the arrival of mass hysteria nor an unprompted performance by a jam band to lift the episode from its anticlimax.

The disappointment was almost as intense as most of "24's" fourth season, which featured Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) defending himself and the country on the most hectic day of his life. The writers, who have always suffered a breathless level of ADD, apparently went cold turkey on the Ritalin and began taking speedballs this year. The gambit worked, however, with the Jack Bauer Power Hour feeding masterfully into the cliffhanging tropes of old Saturday serials. The day began with Secretary of Defense Heller (William Devane) and his daughter Audrey (Kim Raver), who was having an affair with Jack. The two are rescued, but their kidnapping was just a distraction from the real plan by the impossibly crafty terrorist Marwan (Arnold Vosloo). By the end of the day, Air Force One was shot down and a nuclear attack was launched on L.A. It was a madcap race to the final countdown and the most pulse-pounding season of "24's" four-year run.

So it was more than a little disappointing when "widespread panic" is avoided and the nuclear missile was too easily and harmlessly shot down. Not that the destruction of a major U.S. city should be cheered for, but the resolution left viewers with a serious case of blueballs.

"24" has at least set-up what could be a white-knuckle ride of a fifth season. Jack was involved, under the authority of acting President Logan (Gregory Itzin), in the inadvertent killing of a Chinese diplomat. Logan called for a hit on Jack, forcing Jack into hiding. Looking more than a little like John Wayne at the end of "The Searchers," Jack is last seen walking into the sunrise and into a world that, for better or worse, no longer approves of his methods for stopping terrorism. Jack is now on the run and, with just one life at risk, "24" has done the impossible — it has raised the stakes even higher.

Posted Thursday, August 25, 2005

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/tv/24.season.four