24 Clocks Out

I remember when I first heard about "24", I was a senior in high school and heard that there was this show that was going to take place in real-time. Since I'm a sucker for gimmicks, I checked it out, and began to watch one of the single greatest television seasons of all-time. Of course, it was hard to duplicate the magic of that first season, but for the first five years, "24" still managed to be a very entertaining and heart-racing show. Then came season six.

Season six was one of the all-time stinkers when it comes to television, and it was painful to watch. The show found itself again in season seven, and I had high hopes for this season, season eight, as the show was now set in New York City. But alas, this season has been about thirty times as bad as the dreadful season six, and even though I still watch the show most of the hour is spent with my head in my laptop, ignoring what is supposed to be the adrenaline racing television that is on my screen.

Because of this, I am not surprised to hear the news that "24" is calling it quits after eight seasons. While I would have liked to see it go one more year (there is kind of a trilogy feeling between season 1-3, and 4-6, and wanted to see that with 7-9), this year was just so dreadful that I'm not really heartbroken about it. The reason it sucked this year is because the show seemed to take all the things people didn't like about it - boring political storyline, mole at CTU, lack of Jack - and intensified them.

It's sad to watch something I love fade away with such a lack of grace as "24" has, but that's the way things go sometimes. The show will live on though, as their at least is going to be one movie made about it, and hopefully that will serve as a proper farewell and make us remember why we fell in love with Jack Bauer in the first place. It is really sad to see it go though. In college, I used to get drunk and smack people around with phone books while asking where the bomb was, now I'm barely even upset it's being taken off the air.

The series finale will air May 24th, on Fox.