Approaching a season w/out "Jack"...

[Captain Mike]

Well this marks around the time that "24" is about to premier. I just find that there is nothing that I find "exciting" that they have found to replace it. It almost wants me to give up on anything that doesn't even show potential. IS there anything out there?

 

[Aeon]

I gave up in the beginning of the last season and don't regret it.

But yeah, I don't think there are any exciting action thrillers out there at the moment.

 

[Jax]

The final 2 seasons of 24 made up from any past mistakes though I guess it was time to end the reign of Jack. FOX had Fringe as a potential replacement but then moved it from monday nights and have failed to find a new Monday hit.

Lie To Me and Lonestar were FLOPS of the biggest kind and The Chicago Code will follow suit most likely because the show sounds like it won't resonate with the 18-49 demo and the House lead in audience.

 

[Trekker4747]

Yeah. Having no 24 this season is sad.

Last season was... Well it wasn't good. And it really wasn't the show's fault. It started off good had some good plot elements in it, Jack was good as always but it was just off track. It focused way too much time on Starbuck's character issues (sigh and ugh) Jack was under used (IIRC he spent like two or three whole episodes of the show in a row riding a car or otherwise out of the action) and there was some other silliness.

And to make it worse the show's writers had no idea why people hated Starbuck so much. I even remember reading an interview with one of the ExecProducers who said something along the lines of "all these people hated Katie Sackoff's character but no one knew why!" That alone showed the disconnect they had with the viewers (we all hated her because her plot (dealing with he red-neck wife-beater of an exboyfriend) was slowing the whole story down and too much time was spent on her. So they made the "rad" decision of making her the mole. As if that plot device hadn't been overused in the series over the course of its time. And that's fine she could've been the mole if it didn't mean she suddenly became a completely different character! The woman who just a couple hours ago was cowering and fretting over her ex-boyfriend hanging out in her apartment was now a total bad-ass withstanding Jack's "enhanced interrogation" techniques and killing CTU's gaurds with a cold-hearted efficiency. It made no. Damn. Sense!

The show really could've gone on longer but the shitty story decisions being done in the series, pretty much abandoning any "realism" in the show whatsoever (including the use of the "real time") and the over use of Starbuck in the last season turned off viewers, dropped the ratings and made the show unviable for renewal. The writers killed the thing and there was no reason to. They really should've gone back and watched the first three seasons and studied what made the show so good in those years and why after that the show pretty much became a farce of itself. Which is still fun to watch for the spectacle of it all, and because Jack Bauer was awesome, but the story and "drama" of it was long gone from S4 onward.

It was Foxed up. But that last season was just awful. Worse than Season 6 which was just... ugh.

Hopefully any movies we get will be good.

But I am going to miss the running commentary threads they were a lot of fun.

 

[Jax]

dropped the ratings and made the show unviable for renewal.

To be fair the 8th season still got an average of

9.31 million with a 18-49 demo above 3.0

Not bad after 8 seasons/1 TV movie over 9 years.

The show was never really going to get a 9th season, costs made the show hard to give the 9th season even if it had bigger ratings. Just read FOX has turned down the script for the movie but the project is not cancelled, Kiefer and co just want the right script.

IMO the 2nd and 7th season's were the best of 24.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

No Jack from Lost either. Tho I guess that's not a bad thing to everyone...

Check out my list of 2011 premieres here, but no, it doesn't offer much hope. The show I'm most looking forward to is The Clone Wars, which I recommend only if you were really really really aggravated by the PT, thought Anakin and the story deserved much better, and don't mind being very patient with the battle-heavy and simplified-for-kids writing, and initially off-putting animation (everyone's heads are too big, and would it kill them to try animating hair every once in a while? they all have a bad case of Ken-Doll Syndrome!)

 

[Greg Cox]

No Jack from Lost either. Tho I guess that's not a bad thing to everyone...

I actually thought this was going to be a thread about LOST . . . .

 

[Kirkman1987]

I think last season was as good a time as any to end the thing, with enough interest still around to fuel a movie. If the movie does well enough, we could see a few 24 films before all is said and done. 24 as a series has pretty much used up it's potential.

That said, I will miss the guy. Great series.

 

[Trekker4747]

The problem with the series is that they kept trying to "one up" the threat. With what it is, who was causing it and what lengths needed to be go to solve the day's crisis.

The best season was, arguably, the first season where the "threat" was fairly small and minor, had a deep personal story for Jack and the "real time" aspect was treated very realisticly to the point of us even having dusk and dawn periods in the day, Jack dozing off for a moment and so many other aspects (I think even CTU agents snacking at their terminals.) The second season "raised the stakes" by making it a national crisis and threat but still treated other aspects of the series seriously. The fourth season seemed to undo all of that and show became a farce. A fun farce but a farce.

But the biggest problem was always trying to make it a large national or global threat. When the best season, the first one, was a very minor threat. Hell, Jack could've failed at his job in season one and America still would've gone on just fine. That was their biggest problem.

 

[Aeon]

True words!

 

[sidious618]

If you want a thrill ride I'd suggest "The Shield." I always found that more of an adrenaline rush than 24.

 

[PlainSimpleJoel]

Loved the first season (as I consider that to be the best), but with last season - never got around to watching as I missed the first few episodes on the network aired here. So didn't really try and watch it. I read that the DVD is out soon here, so sometime next year, I'll track it down and watch it.

 

[Mr Light]

Man, 24 already feels like so long ago. Of course it doesn't help that the last three years (really four because of the Strike off-year) weren't that great. Well, Seven was decent. But Eight was pretty meh. Sad way to end the show on.

 

[Captain Mike]

I didn't think that Day Eight was so bad. Was it great? Far from it, but it did have some memorable moments. I think since they knew it was going to be the last season, that TPTB didn't put much heart into the story lines.

 

[Mr Light]

I don't think they found out until 2/3 of the way into the season that they were getting canceled.

 

[Trekker4747]

At which point half of their audience was seriously considering blowing their own brains out everytime Starbuck came on screen.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Last I heard about the movie was that the script by Billy Ray Somebody, writer of Flightplan, had been ditched. There was some talk of Tony Scott as director. My hunch is that it just won't happen.

And yes, it was time to end the show, indeed S.7 might have been a high to go out on (with an ending that might have suited the series proper). S. 8 was easily the worst, but as someone observed, the last 3rd was the best and was genuinely exciting gripping stuff.

But why no Aaron Pierce in S.8?!

 

[Jack Bauer]

But why no Aaron Pierce in S.8?!

All I could find was this quote from Howard Gordon

ew.com


Aaron Pierce?
We always considered bringing back Aaron Pierce. The story never presented itself. Other than Kiefer, he is the only one who has been in every season. Unfortunately, we couldn’t give him a perfect run.

Man, this is gonna be a weird second half of the 2010-2011 tv season...no 24 and no Lost. Just plain w-e-i-r-d!

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ They couldn't have Aaron working in the UN or helping Jack or even helping hunt Jack down in the finale third of the season? Sounds dodgy to me. But thanks for the link.

 

[PsychoPere]

They couldn't have Aaron working in the UN or helping Jack or even helping hunt Jack down in the finale third of the season? Sounds dodgy to me. But thanks for the link.

The way I've chosen to view it is that Aaron was "asked" to retire again at some point after Olivia Taylor's arrest, hence not being in the Secret Service in season 8. As for "helping hunt Jack down," I also figure the people in charge were just smart enough to realize Pierce would be more likely to help Jack.