24

Big surprise: Jack gets nabbed and tortured. Again. How much punishment can one guy take--especially after coming back from death's doorstep from the previous season? Has anyone done a parody of 24? I'm envisioning something like the Black Knight scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I can see Bauer as the limbless knight taunting Arthur to come back for more. "'Tis but a flesh wound!"

FOX doesn't even bother to build up suspense any more. The trailers for this week's episode (which aired on 2/16/2010) even showed us that when the Russians abducted Jack, they'd get more than they bargained for. Sure enough, after enduring some electrocution, punches, and knife wound gouging, Jack disables his torturer, turns the tables and proceeds to kill everybody in the building except for the Russian mafia boss, Bazhaev (Jurgen Prochnow), who, after predictably brokering an immunity deal with President Taylor (Cherry Jones), is shocked to find that his son has betrayed him. I've seen more immunity deals brokered in the last two seasons than I would have imagined possible. That's almost certainly a commentary on what would happen if we'd ever be crazy enough to elect a WOMAN president--especially if she were a Democrat.

At some point, I want Omar Hassan (Anil Kapoor) to say "Who wants to be a millionaire?!" That would just make the season for me.

The plot thickens in the Dana Walsh-former-identity-ex-boyfriend saga. Again, predictably, the ex-boyfriend has decided not to sever ties with Walsh after the successful robbery they've pulled. It looks like Walsh has decided to take matters into her own hands, tailing her former beau and his partner. She's shown pulling a gun from her purse in the epilogue to the episode.

Meanwhile, slimeball Arlo (Chris Diamontopolous) has revealed to Cole (Freddie Prinze Jr.) that Dana has secretly met with someone (the ex-boyfriend) who is obviously more than just a passing acquaintance. So even if Dana does bump off the ne-er-do-wells, she'll still have a lot of explaining to do to current fiance Cole.

Good grief! You'd think an organization that can track people via drones, has access to pretty much anybody's files from, well, just about anything--well, you think they could vet their own staff a little more thoroughly than to hire this trailer trash. Oh, yeah, right--she was fighter pilot on the Galactica! That's all we need to know.

Honestly, I think I watched a grand total of maybe three Battlestar Galactica episodes (the NEW Battlestar Galactica, that is). Somewhere along the line, I lost interest. But one thing's for sure, and I don't care what anybody says, Katee Sackhoff is not Starbuck. You can make her as tough as you want and have her smoke cigars, but she's still not going to replace Dirk Benedict.

Yes, I concede that the original series was pretty lame. Even as a teenager when I watched it, I knew it was silly. But still. It was the actors and the characters they portrayed that made it a success, and I maintain that it's a mistake to attempt a complete remake of a signature character like Starbuck.

Tangent over. They tried to throw us a curve this season by presenting the audience with a president of an Islamic nation who was sincerely interested in peace and disarmament. It was kind of a joke to begin with and anybody paying attention would know it would not turn out well. Given the network on which the show airs, the parallels with the current political situation in Iran are no mystery. So, naturally, it is no surprise when the apparently earnest and kind newfound ally turns to human rights violations, terrorist plots from within, yadda, yadda.

It's hard to take the show seriously at this point. I'm watching now just to see Bauer kick some butt and watch him escape from one near-death encounter after another. Annie Wersching's presence is another plus. So I have a thing for redheads. So sue me. Her transformation from a by-the-book FBI agent in the previous series to a disturbed, ruthless and even amoral one now has been interesting to watch. She learned all her tricks from Jack, naturally.

And it occurs to me, of course, that this show--and its network, I suspect--would have us all believe that torture is a useful and necessary tool to get the job done. That job is, of course, to protect the American People from the Bad Muslims who are out there waiting to blow us up with any explosive device they can get their hands on.

I'm beginning to think the secret to preventing another 9/11 is just to monitor all the Radio Shacks.

Yes, I'm cynical about the show. It's almost comedic, really, but I'm still watching. I guess the over-the-top seriousness is why I like Human Target so much. It has no pretenses about depicting any kind of reality. I'd rather watch a show that knows it's make-believe than a show that pretends truth but wouldn't know it if it landed in its lap.