24 Season 6: hrs 3-4: punches and promises

This is part of an ongoing review of the new season of 24 - I'll watch it in real time on Fox TV, and then post a review with 24 minutes of the show's completion. Expect spoilers.

Well, I was talking about punches in the stomach last night, and 24 just delivered two of them, in the last five minutes of Hour 4: Jack killed Curtis, to prevent him from killing Assad, who is cooperating. And ... a nuclear bomb finally went off in Los Angeles, mushroom cloud and all.

We have seen Jack kill a good guy before on behalf of a greater cause, but Curtis was more than a good guy. He was a brother in arms. And the fact that this happened so early in the day - rather than near or at the end - suggests that this will by no means be the worst ethical quandary Jack will find himself in. 24 continues to ply that seemingly straightforward but always difficult utilitarian principle that the good of the many must outweigh the good of the few.

And then the atom bomb. Sooner or later, we had to see one actually explode in Los Angeles. No story line can continually threaten us with that, and never follow through - not if it wants to maintain its credibility.

And 24 is, if nothing else and by no means perfect in this respect, credible like no other show in television history in following through with its implications and punches.

I'm glad I have a week to catch my breath.

No I'm not, I'd watch the whole rest of the season right now if I could... even though I said above that I intended to watch it in real time...

See you here same time, next week.

Listen to a podcast of this review: Levinson news clips