I bailed on Fox's 24 very early in this season – it just became too formulaic, too predictable, and just plain ridiculous. This week, the readers of Jump the Shark have voted, and a sizable number said that indeed, 24 had jumped the shark (although a not-insignificant amount said it had happened several seasons ago).
In February of this year, the New Yorker reported on a meeting of interrogation professionals and the show's executive creators, with a plea to down town the scenes of torture, saying the following:
At other moments, the discussion was more strained. Finnegan told the producers that “24,” by suggesting that the U.S. government perpetrates myriad forms of torture, hurts the country’s image internationally. Finnegan, who is a lawyer, has for a number of years taught a course on the laws of war to West Point seniors—cadets who would soon be commanders in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. He always tries, he said, to get his students to sort out not just what is legal but what is right. However, it had become increasingly hard to convince some cadets that America had to respect the rule of law and human rights, even when terrorists did not. One reason for the growing resistance, he suggested, was misperceptions spread by “24,” which was exceptionally popular with his students. As he told me, “The kids see it, and say, ‘If torture is wrong, what about “24”?’ ” He continued, “The disturbing thing is that although torture may cause Jack Bauer some angst, it is always the patriotic thing to do.”
This initially was met with deaf ears, but I think the writers eventually got the message. But the problems with the show are more pervasive beyond relying on torture as a plot device.
Salon chimes in with the following:
That's why Monday night's "24" was so jarring. But the episode didn't just compromise Jack's integrity as a character; it threw the entire premise of the show out the window. Season after season, Jack Bauer and the other CTU agents are faced with a crisis that they're forced to solve in the course of one very bad day. Sure, there are subplots and subcrises and twists and turns along the way, but the main challenges facing Jack aren't conquered until the end of the season.
Salon again, on torture, and how its 'abuse' and overuse has endangered the franchise:
But unlike "The West Wing," "24" clearly wants nothing to do with realism or seriousness or credibility, which is why it's no problem to feature a torture scene in every other episode. Fayed tortures Jack, Jack tortures Omar, Jack tortures his brother, Graem, Jack tortures the Russian ambassador, Fayed tortures Morris. The question is, why do the writers think that the stakes are automatically high when there's torture involved? The end result is like something out of "A Clockwork Orange": We're forced to watch torture so many times in a row that these scenes become utterly mundane and lackluster to us. Way to slowly and painfully kill the golden goose, guys!
They go on to discuss how the lame subplots and one-dimensional characters detract from the very essence of the show, but also the contradictory character u-turn performed by Jack – the man willing to sacrifice everything for the good of the Country is suddenly willing to sacrifice the Country for his girlfriend? This isn't the Jack Bauer we know.
The writers are treating the audience like junkies, assuming they can't handle complicated plots and multidimensional characters. Maybe they're right – but just like that same junkie who needs more-and-more drugs to get the same high, the ridiculousness of violence needed to keep 24 interesting is also making it irrelavent.
The LA Times reports on the audience and demographic challenges the show is faced with , and ponders some reasons why:
Last week, with a fresh episode designed to lay the groundwork for what the creators promise will be a typically suspenseful finale next month, "24's" ratings in the key young-adult category swooned to their lowest level in more than three years, with a total audience of just 10.4 million, according to figures from Nielsen Media Research.
More than one-third of viewers have bailed since the special four-hour season premiere that aired over two consecutive nights back in January. And if that wasn't enough bad news for the series, last week "24" was one of the prime-time shows that the Federal Communications Commission singled out in urging Congress to curb TV violence.
[...]
Meanwhile, with apologies to my mother-in-law, "24's" audience is getting noticeably grayer, typically a sign that a show is losing its purchase on the windy crags of pop culture. According to Brad Adgate, senior vice president at the New York ad firm Horizon Media, the median age is 47.4 so far this season, compared with 45.1 last year and 42 in the 2003-04 season.
Scott Collins evokes the anti-violence FCC, a weak lead-in (Drive! was pitiful, and has been cancelled after only two showings), the lack of a strong lead-in like American Idol, and then they take a time honored Conservative position, that of Blaming the Victim (in this case, the audience):
Could it be that the vague but gnawing post-9/11 fears that helped turn "24" into a hit are ebbing — the nightmares that envisioned great cities laid low by chemical weapons spilled into the water supply, say, or suitcase nukes wielded by shadowy assailants?
"It's something we talked about at the beginning of the season," Gordon said. "9/11 is becoming, quietly, a memory; the memory is starting to fade…. I do think that people are looking at the world differently, with less fear."
If so, that's probably good for America. And alas, that's probably bad for "24." Real-life political tension does wonders for creators of thriller fare. Look how kind the Cold War was to Ludlum and Tom Clancy.
With the principle creatives of the show being such committed Conservatives, it is reasonable to see how they might come to a conclusion like this, especially when compared to the alternative. Namely that the show mirrors the popular conservative principles exactly, and as the War on Terror, the President, and Republicans become more and more unpopular, it's reasonable to assume that the show will as well.
I can't help but guess which way the writing team will go, but if the usual "real-world" political smears are concerned, I suspect it will involve a liberal administration in bed with terrorists, Jews with purported Nazi-pasts, ecoterrorists, or any of the other fictitious boogeymen that keep the right up at night.
Tags: Afghanistan, America, Brad Adgate, chemical weapons, Congress, Federal Communications Commission, Finnegan, Graem, Horizon Media, Iraq, Jack Bauer, LA Times, Ludlum Clancy, New York, plot device, Scott Collins, the New Yorker, The West Wing, Tom Clancy, U.S. government, United States
