Wanna get us, terrorists? Well, here’s what you do…

First of all, I want Jack Bauer’s cell phone battery.

Having said that, let me also get it out on the table that I am as thrilled as the next guy to welcome the return of America’s favorite vigilante hero. (I say “vigilante” because, dude, half the time nobody knows where that guy is or what he’ll do next, right?) But as much as I missed CTU’s resident badass and awaited the reappearance of the breathtaking tightrope act he’ll be doing, I am exactly that pissed at this season’s premise.

Is there anyone else out there who gets more than a little bit worried about the proliferation of TV and movie fables that seem to be recipe books for terrorist strikes? Has it occurred to anyone that terrorists not only live in the U.S., but also have TV’s? They hated us before 9/11 and still hate us; now, thanks to the cowboy rhetoric issuing from our nation’s capitol since then, the rest of the world is not all that fond of us anymore, either. Mission accomplished? Whose? 

So there’s that. And now we have the most popular serialized suspense drama on network tellie having President Palmer (version two), after a series of suicide bombings, say words like, “We’re at war and we have no way to fight them.” Another character talks about setting up racially profiled concentration camps, prompting another of the president’s top aides to declare that our terrified response to terrorist strikes is leading us down a Constitutionally slippery slope from which we may never recover. I’m watching and I’m imagining dark rooms around the world full of extremist Shadow Men sitting next to crates of AK-47s, tapping their fingers in Montgomery Burns fashion, going, ”Exxxxcellent.” 

Why are we flaunting our fear in their faces when the first rule of Fighting the Terrorists Club (aside from the one that says “Do not talk about Fighting the Terrorists Club”) is to identify your enemy—then generate FEAR?! The writers of 24 have already proven their imaginations boundless. Any one of you ever try writing a cliffhanger, oh, every ten minutes, approximately, each episode climaxing with an even bigger cliffhanger every hour, for twenty-four hours? Yeah. Well, it’s got to be etching more than a few furrows in the brows of those that can and do. These are the superheroes of the computer keyboard. As such, my assertion is they can do better. They don’t have to write a primer for the would-be destroyers of America. Those guys have enough ideas of their own. I don’t want to hear a fictitious President announcing what things we will never recover from, so I can imagine bad guys the world over licking the points on their DIXON/Ticonderoga No. 2’s and adding a few notes to their Anarchists Cookbooks. Capice?

Yeah, and while I’m at it—what about stretching our credulity beyond its limit in Episode One??? They send the most heroic human in the federal government’s service to certain death…he manages to escape, then calls for reinforcements. With seconds to spare to save the day, his colleagues spend four minutes in real time—first, arguing about whether to take the call or not—then, to debate his conclusions. Don’t they know by now Jack is always right?

People, for chrissake! This guy has put his life on the line while saving the world for twenty-four hellishly nightmarish hours, annually, five years running. What more do you need? Four minutes? While the violent assassins from whom he’s just escaped (and who are just around some nearby corner, by the way) are hunting Jack down as he speaks? Not to mention plotting the next act of carnage! Guys, where’s the love? 

One place I’m personally finding it is Los Angeles. How happy are we in New York that the Evildoers are now (incredibly) trying to annihilate the West Coast? No offense, LA, but if Hollywood is going to give terrorists a roadmap to our destruction, at least it’s had the courtesy to relocate the carnage to its own neighborhood; we here on the East Coast appreciate the hiatus. Let’s see if the writers can keep flexing those creative muscles and find even more cool new targets, ‘K?