24-hour Party Pooper

[January 31st, 2007] Counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer has had a lot of bad days. Six of them, to be exact. As the current season of Fox's real-time series 24 gets underway, Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) is gearing up for a long afternoon of torture, betrayal and subterfuge—all this without stopping for a hot dog, a bathroom break or a catnap. This sort of commitment takes duty, honor and an unyielding sense of patriotism. I am not Jack Bauer. I've always lost interest. So I decided that maybe the best way to enjoy Jack Bauer's long day was to give myself over to it—follow his every move from start to finish. So I rented the newly released fifth season of 24 in its entirety, put on a pot of coffee and a pair of pajamas, sat down on the couch and propelled myself toward total atrophy.

The following takes place between noon and 6 am.

12:00:00 Okay, I'm good. Coffee? Check. Agua? Check. Pajamas? Check.

12:45:17 So, apparently Jack Bauer's long days are a few minutes shorter without commercial breaks—that's when he probably heads to the loo or scarfs down a bean burrito.

14:10:32 These terrorists should just cap Jack. They've had plenty of opportunities to just plug him and get it over with. Apparently they suffer from hero worship.

14:16:46 Oh, so much subterfuge!

15:47:08 Some guy just got stabbed with scissors. They should spend a lot more time stabbing guys with scissors and a lot less time talking about computers.

17:15:27 So, 24 seems to be a great place to get a job if you were an actor in the 1980s. We got Kiefer from The Lost Boys; Sean Astin from The Goonies; Peter Weller, the guy who played RoboCop; and Julian Sands, the guy who played Warlock. Who could ask for more?

20:28:49 My eyes are a bit glazed over, but now I get it. Each episode of this show is about Jack Bauer accomplishing some small task while impending doom circles somewhere outside. While this is happening, a lot of people have conspiratorial whisper sessions and no one gets stuck in L.A. traffic.

23:37:28 I'm beginning to worry that Jack Bauer is getting dehydrated, and that I'm going to fall asleep before his day is done.

1:49:35 More coffee. More coffee.

4:14:07 The show's timeline and I just synchronized to the minute. Trippy.

5:03:34 Just fell asleep a little. Woke up and splashed cold water on my face. I've drunk enough coffee for it to no longer have effect, but Jack is still going. Maybe chasing terrorists is better than caffeine.

6:16:37 Over. Done. Now to bed.

So, I did it, and, honestly, I'm still not sure if 24 deserves all of its acclaim. The characters are wooden, the plots are driven by procedural minutiae only interesting to bureaucrats and tech-heads, and it is hard to stare at Kiefer Sutherland for extended periods of time. I did learn one thing though: It's nice to go outside.