Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Improving 24 Revisited

I was a great fan of 24, but really, season 6 was just a steaming pile of rotting roadkill narrative. In short, it was bad, especially in comparison to the stellar fifth season.

Anyway, today the IMDB posted a link to a post over at Empire Online detailing 10 ways to Improve 24, and I have to say that each of the suggestions have merits, though I am not entirely sold on suggestion 10: bringing in Chuck Norris. I just can't see that working, though it is funny to contemplate.

And of course, I've been vocal about my own suggestion for changing the 24 formula up, but if the producers and writers of the show took some of the ideas that Nick de Semlyen has laid out, I think that the show can pull out of the nose dive and once again regain the love of its viewers.

But I always thought that 24 needed a bit more comic relief, a role that at times was played by Mary Lynn Rakskub's Chloe, but really, there needs to be a bit more. In drama, you sometimes need something to break the tension, because if everything is designed to give the viewer white-knuckles, then basically a lot of events lose their bite. You can only amp things up a certain degree, and then there is nowhere else you can go. And because in part 24 takes place in an office setting, well, in most places, there is always someone who has a quip or a burn for even the most dire of situations, and I think that these people would also probably be employed by the fictional federal government. There are smartasses everywhere.

Of course, knowing 24, such a character would probably get whacked before noon.

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