Thursday 19 September 2013

Season 1: Episode 3, 02:00:00 - 03:00:00

Firstly an apology - So turns out I need rules. This blog fell on its ass a, shockingly short, 2 episodes in!
My husband doesn’t think I should bother doing it as I am not as committed to Bauer or the project as I should be, his friend thinks that I will never really like or get 24 if I have seen the first series and never felt the urge to continue and I can’t look Mark in the face at work as I am ashamed by my lack of devotion to this project which was his idea!
All in all I have come to the conclusion that I need to stop right now or make sure I am committed enough to push forward. I am going with the latter.

The rules I have made are:
1    1)  Watch 1 episode a week AT LEAST
      2) Update the blog once a week
3    3) Write shorter more concise posts
4    4) Don’t go in so negative every time

Fairly simple, I hope.
As rule 3 states, I am intending on this blog having shorter posts. However the problem I face is that the show is so all over the place that it is hard to write it in any sort of order other than the way it is given. I’m working on it.

So here is blog number 3. I feel better about this already!

Episode 3 – only took me a month to get here… I am trying, and struggling, to get enthusiastic about this programme. At the moment there isn’t a character I love, there is no real story line I am engaged with and I dislike the main character Jack – controversial but I am being honest. He is bossy, rude, demanding and not hot! At the moment I have nothing making me root for him other than the fact I dislike most the other characters too… I am trying to decide who I like the most out of a bad bunch really.

This episode starts with a few of pissed off people. Jack is pissed off with Alan York as he was planning on leaving the shop rather than wait for the girls to return from their ‘Party’. And Ira is pissed off with Bomber girl’s girlfriend for keeping the ID card and demanding more money. A lot of anger for 2am!

Quite near the start of this episode it comes out that the two kidnappers are working for Ira (Ira is the head of the group I was calling ‘the terrorists’). Kim’s friend is moaning in pain over the broken arm so the nicer of the kidnappers injects her with heroin. I am shocked! I dono whether Kim is right in letting him do that or whether she should have stopped him… I honestly don’t know what I would do in that situation.

CTU – Jack is back there and has lied to Nina to get some time with Jamie so she can check out the key card and make double sure it is Nina that is the dirty agent. To stop Nina spotting Jamie at her desk he brings up her relationship with Tony and acts a bit jealous – good plan Jack, she still wants you so make her think you are still interested! During that interaction Jamie calls up to the office and confirms that Nina’s card was in fact used – she is dirty! I KNEW IT!

Kidnap – Kim has seen an opening for escape so she explains to her drugged friend what is happening and they get ready to run. These are the worst kidnappers ever! Seriously they just go off for a little chat leaving the van doors open and the girls untied – obviously they are going to make a run for it. Ira didn’t pick the best people for the job.

Now I know this is scene is set in lower Hollywood but jeez this neighbourhood is not a good one, the girls are running through back alleys with garbage everywhere while homeless male prostitutes are working… I am not sure what is more scary, the place they are in or the fact they have people after them! 

Palmer – So the last episode saw Palmer go missing just when there had been a threat on his life. We now find him in an underground car park waiting for someone whilst standing up to some street youths that are breaking car windows.
When the guy Palmer is waiting on arrives we find out a bit of back story about the family and why the call that happened in Ep1 was such a bad thing. Basically Palmer’s daughter, Nicole, was raped a few years back and the guy that did it killed himself. However the woman that called Palmer has had information saying that the boy didn’t kill himself but was killed and Palmer’s Son, Keith, is the one that killed him! That’s quite an interesting plot actually.

CTU – Jack confronts Nina, she denies it using the line ‘I can’t believe you would think I did’ and Jack, the sucker, falls for it! I am surprised actually, typical man. He has slept with her so doesn’t want to believe that she could do something like this and him not be able to have noticed it.
Jamie is called into the office and is told to then go through all that she found. One of the dates that Nina was apparently working on something dodgy was a date that her and Jack were away together. She is cleared… for now! It does make me laugh that not only does Jack believe her pretty much straight away but then lets Jamie show her all this information. Surely there must be a little bit of doubt left to keep you from uncovering all the information to her!

Kidnap – The girls find a guy (I can only assume a pimp) on the phone and ask him for help but he is obviously dodgy and refuses but the homeless boy (from earlier) hits him over the head and tells the girls to take the phone and run. The boy then gets beaten by the pimp guy and the girls run – doesn’t look like the homeless boy will make it! That’s quite sad really but he isn’t a bit character so doubt I am expected to dwell on him too long.

Terrorists – the bombers girlfriend is pushing for 2 million for the ID card so they have a mill each. Bomber, Mandy, agrees but you can tell she isn’t being honest. Ira finally agrees to the extra money after Mandy talks to him alone and they all go with the girlfriend to get the card. Once she has handed it over (SPOILER ALERT) she is shot by the lookie-likey. Mandy looks understandably upset but not surprised – obviously this was the plan. What a good girlfriend Mandy is.

CTU – Tony is suspicious again. I say suspicious but I actually mean jealous. So he makes a call and tells someone they need to come in a relieve jack of his command! Sounds bad and makes Tony seem like even more of a D**K!

Kidnap - Using the phone they stole, Kim calls Teri and tells her they were kidnapped and are hiding from the guys in north Hollywood. Not sure what help Teri will be as she has been useless so far! As they are running from the kidnappers Kim’s friend runs into an oncoming car and is hit. The car drives off and the kidnappers catch up to Kim and take her, leaving the friend in the road. 

Just as the episode ends the friend opens her eyes…she isn’t dead!


Episode 3 down, 21 more to go… 

Wednesday 14 August 2013

Season 1: Episode 2, 01:00:00 - 02:00:00

Ok I have to start this blog with a confession; I had to watch this episode again to remember what happened because I left it far too long between watching and writing. Lesson learnt. I have also got to admit, and some people might have noticed this, but a few things that I blog about in episode 1 actually didn’t happen until episode 2…. This project is starting to feel messy and unorganised so I might have to impose some rules on myself!

With all that in mind, onto the episode:

At the start of each episode they go through what happened before, this reminds me that Alan York called Terri about her daughter being missing. Now that makes him even more suspicious to me, I definitely do not trust him.

The actual episode begins with ‘bomb girl’ landing in the sand and then burning her clothes and burying the ID – now this was something I mistakenly thought happened in the last episode so I won’t go back through that part! Although Dan and I realise why she would have buried the ID within 2 minutes of someone showing up and un-burying it – it’s so that the people she is working for don’t kill her and take the ID. Clever girl.

Ok we are back at CTU and they are looking into the flight that blew up – they want to know if this is at all involved with the threat on Palmer’s life. It is the first real look we get at Tony in the team and he isn’t a likable character at first; he is very nosey, suspicious and acts like he is entitled to information. To be honest from the two episodes I have seen, I have no favourite character; everyone has a dislikeable trait about them. The only one that so far hasn’t annoyed me and seems to be good at her job is Jamie, also in the CTU team.

Back at the furniture store Terri and Alan meet and have a look around to see if the girls are still there – there is food and wrappers everywhere and the place is a tip but to really prove they were there he shows Terri a used condom wrapper. Now to me this is unnecessary information for a mother that is already worried about her missing daughter. Quite insensitive of old Alan York!

Anyway Terri talks to Jack and asks him to come and help her look for Kim but he can’t as has just got the call from ‘Walsh’ who is being shot at. Again this is something I wrote about in the first blog in error! But now I have watched the episode back I know that Walsh was in that building to discuss the threat on Palmer’s life with the man that found the evidence about it. He was promptly killed once he agreed to carry on helping. Poor guy, he just wanted to go meet his family…

When Jack calls CTU to get the pass code for the building from Nina, Tony listens in. Now we have only seen a bit of Tony but I get the feeling they want us to believe he is the spy in CTU as he is always asking questions and now is monitoring phone calls. Either that or he is just jealous as Nina obviously has still got the hots for Jack – got to love a love triangle J

We go back to Palmer’s hotel room and his wife asks about the phone call he received earlier. He brushes her off saying it was nothing and that seems to be good enough for her. I’m sorry but either she is the sort of wife that doesn’t question her husband at all OR she actually believes him, either way she comes across like she doesn’t really know her husband enough to know when he isn’t being honest with her. So far their relationship has only caused me frustration!

A bit later Palmer has another secret conversation on the phone and we find out a little bit more about the original call he received. It was a lady called Maureen Kinsley – we don’t know much more than this but I expect it will be a subject that will come back. After the phone call the secret service turn up looking for Palmer due to the threats on his life but when they try to find him they realise he has left. Alone. Uh oh!

So we are back with the, I am going to call the bomber and the guys she works for the ‘Terrorists’ so it is clear who I am talking about, terrorists and the ID is being explained. Basically one of these guys has had plastic surgery so now he looks just like the photographer whose ID they stole. This group are working on the attack on Palmer and the photographer was on the flight because he was going to be taking photos of Palmer at an event. See, it is all coming together J

The person who dug up the ID from the sand is the bomber’s girlfriend. Instead of giving the leader the ID she gives him a picture and tries to take charge of the situation and make sure her and her girlfriend get even more for the ID. This really pisses off the main guy and pisses off bomber girl as it is making her look like she is playing him.

Back to my favourite story line, the kidnapping. Terri is still at the furniture store and they have more information on the boys that are with the girls. One of them works for the furniture store and they have found the owner’s name but they can’t get his number. So Terri says she will call her husband as he can help. When Alan asks how she said ‘he works for the government so can get access to that sort of thing’ – surely she isn’t meant to tell just anyone that information? Nina answers the phone and says that Jack isn’t there but Terri asks for her help and – after a little bit of pressure from Terri – she gives in and gets the number for Terri. I assume out of guilt because she has feelings for Jack.

We go back to the Jack story which we already know about because I thought this had already happened. Walsh has been shot but his last words to Jack are ‘take the card and give it to Jamie to match it to a computer. Match the computer to the dirty agent’. Then Jack runs off and calls Jamie with the details – I told you Jamie was good!

We finally go back to Kim and the boys have pulled the van over and are trying to get Kim to call her mum to say she is alright. Kim refuses so the main kidnapper breaks Kim’s friend’s arm as an incentive to do what he asks. She, of course, does and speaks to Terri. This part is the most annoying of all the scenes so far and adds to my dislike of Terri. Kim calls her and makes no effort to sound like she is ok and having a good time at this party, in fact she sounds scared, upset and like she has been crying. But Terri doesn’t seem to notice and when she gets off the phone she says the weird thing is that Kim ended the conversation saying ‘I love you’. I can’t believe that she doesn’t notice a problem – it is so obvious.

Meanwhile Jamie has located the match for the card and sent the details over to Jack… It is NINA! I feel un-shocked as I think she is another dodgy character, but have we found out the spy in CTU within the second episode? Is it a double bluff? I guess I will have to let you know!


Episode 2 down, 22 more to go…

Sunday 4 August 2013

Season 1: Episode 1, 12:00:00 - 01:00:00


Ok I just want to start this by saying I feel under a lot of pressure already. Not only am I starting to watch something that is one of my Husbands favourite things ever, but I am also blogging about it and have already had requests to ‘get on with it’.

I am trying to go into this with no judgement. If you read the intro you know I have actually watched the first season but I am going to try and watch it as if it is the first time. I have pretty much forgotten everything that happened anyway.

Episode one:
I am shocked, firstly, by the quality of the shooting. It is awful! But Dan reminds me that it is old and hasn’t been shot in HD – obviously I have been spoilt by good quality filming in more recent programmes!
Unfortunately the ‘watching with fresh eyes’ has already failed slightly as I remember how much I dislike the mum Teri! There is something about her; she seems whiny, wet and always miserable. I might be being unfair but this is the impression I get from her straight away.

Anyway we start with Jack and his daughter playing chess, half way through the game (it seems, I don’t play chess but no one said check mate) he sends Kim, the daughter, to bed as it is a school night. It is obvious that the mother and daughter’s relationship is fragile, Kim favours her father and that Teri and Jack are newly back together after a recent split. Long story short, Kim sneaks out to go meet two boys at a furniture store with her mate – sounds like amazing fun huh?!  While Jack and Teri look around her room for clues he is called into the office. There is apparently going to be a threat made on the life of the possible future president – this is something that Jack already predicted which Dan thinks makes him awesome...

Jack heads to the office and George Mason, from ‘Division’, arrives to speak to Jack about this plot on the non-president / almost president, Palmer's life. During their discussion Jack is made aware that George isn’t telling the whole truth so Jack grabs a gun and shoots George, which seemed pretty extreme until we realise it is a tranquilliser gun.

Meanwhile Teri is looking for Kim and finds out who she is with because Jack got access (illegally) to her phone – I think these little bits point to the fact that Jack will do anything to get the information he needs, he will break rules and shoot people all to get information! Probably not a bad thing in his line of work I guess. Teri speaks to the dad of the girl that Kim is with and they meet at the furniture store – by this time the group have left.

The girls are now in the van with the boys and things start to turn sour. Turns out the boys' intentions weren't to ‘party’ as they originally thought but were to kidnap the girls! DUN DUN DUNNNN – I remember now that this was my favourite story line in the first season so apologies if I fixate on it!

Meanwhile we are taken to a scene on a plane with some creepy guy who is sitting next to a girl he doesn't know and doesn't seem like he wants to know. We come back to these two a bit later and they are getting on much better – she is really flirting, embarrassingly so, and he is loving it. She asks if he can show her one of his photos (this guy is a professional photographer apparently) and he picks up her magazines and says ‘this is one of mine’ – straight away I think this is the WORST chat up line, how gullible do you have to be?! But she laps it up and they end up joining the mile high club…. She is well easy.
Spoiler alert – it turns out that he isn't a creepy guy at all (well he is but not a baddie), she is the bad one… shocked even though I have seen this before. She ends up blowing up the plan and shooting out the side in a parachute, which, Dan and I agree, is pretty extreme.

Jack has now been called by his friend, Walsh, who is being shot at in this empty office space. Jack arrives to help Walsh and then the shooting breaks out again. Jack manages to kill one of the shooters and to get his ID he cuts off the bloke's finger!! Now I don't know about anyone else but this shocked me. There was no hesitation from Jack, it was as if that was a pretty average way to gain an ID from someone. Maybe that is how they all are, or are we seeing what extremes Jack will go too early on? They manage to get out but the old guy is shot. During his last moments he tells Jack that there is a mole in the team. Things are spicing up.

Now the girl that blew up the plane lands in a desert, changes, burns her clothes and then buries the ID card - of the photographer she slept with - in the sand. Almost as soon as she has left the scene someone on a motorbike rocks up and digs up the ID card – considering there is about 5 seconds worth of it being buried – it seems to me like she shouldn't have bothered and just left it out for the other person to find?! Just seems like effort for no real reason….

Now if you haven’t seen any 24 before, each episode ends with all the main story plots splitting on the screen so you are reminded of all the chains that are happening within the show. I think it is very clever HOWEVER it is proving hard to blog about – if you read this and think it is very fragmented then you would be right… I am hoping that as we go on I will find a simpler way of being able to write about each episode. But for this one I am feeling slightly confused trying to keep up so my blog is going to reflect that I guess!



Episode 1 down, 23 more to go…. 

Tuesday 30 July 2013

Introduction


A few weeks ago my Husband turned 30. To mark this occasion he created a list of things to do between 30 and 40 (he previously did a list to complete before he turned 30 so another list was expected). One of his things was to watch every episode of 24 one after another without stopping.

Now Dan and I have always disagreed about 24. I don’t understand the hype and he is in love with it. That might sound extreme but I don’t think it is considering that a few years ago he changed his name, legally by deed poll, to Jack Bauer. I managed to convince him to cancel it within the 24 hours they give you to get a full refund, otherwise he would have kept it for a few years at least. His favourite boys name is Jack, when I said no to that name he suggested ‘Kiefer’ or ‘Fox’ – obviously they were both no’s as well.   Since we have known each other he has tried to get me to watch 24 with him, now I would agree that I am an awkward cow if I had just point blank said no BUT I have actually seen the whole of the first series and made a decision, back then, that it wasn’t for me. I would think that that is good enough, I tried it, didn’t enjoy so end of. But no, Dan assumes that if I watch with him that I will enjoy it more…we will see.

So back to the list, I told a friend at work about Dan’s idea of watching them all at once and she told her colleague, long story short he came and spoke to me about it and told me about his friend who started a blog called ‘adventures with the wife in spacewhich is all about a Dr who fanatic who has convinced his wife to watch every episode of Dr Who while he notes down her reactions for a blog. The blog is brilliant; it actually made me interested in watching Dr Who myself just to know what Sue is talking about! Mark (the guy who told me about the blog) also gave me all the first 4 Dr’s so I could watch if I REALLY wanted to… I have managed two episodes, not sure how well I am going to do, I am definitely not committed like Sue. Anyway the reason Mark told me about this is he said I should do something similar for 24 as I like to blog. I loved the idea so this is me starting this project.

So far we have no ground rules, no time limit and no finish date – this could be the longest and least organised blog ever! In about a week we have made it through 3 episodes together, the only real reason I am making sure we watch is because I love the idea of trying to blog about it but we will see how long that lasts me…
Even though I have seen the whole of season 1, we have decided to start from at the beginning to refresh my mind as it was about 7 years ago I actually watched it.
Anyway I have been making my notes and so far have remembered a lot about the first season so nothing is really shocking. I will start from the beginning though so if anyone reads this and hasn’t seen 24 but wants to – maybe don’t read it! I am not going to keep secrets if any big things happen.
You have been warned!


Events occur in real time… See already know the introduction! I’m a good wife.