24 4.1: "Day 4: 7AM - 8AM"
Written by Joel Surnow and Michael Loceff
Directed by Jon Cassar
In which a Middle Eastern sleeper cell initiates a terrorist plot involving a train, a briefcase, and the Internet, all on the day that Jack Bauer happens to be visiting CTU…
Status Report
The fourth season begins with something of a fresh perspective. Gone are most of the accumulated characters from the first three seasons; Jack Bauer is the only high-level character left out of the bunch, as one would expect. Any number of reasons could be offered for this decision, and the likelihood is that all parties realized they had something to gain. Part of that is a symptom of any show that begins to creep towards the syndication goal of 100 episodes, thus invoking network budgetary concerns, and part of it is a sign of the writers’ weaknesses.
In the commentary for one of the early episodes of the third season (on DVD), one of the writers is more than happy to note that there was little or no sense of direction for the plot. The writers had spent a great deal of time setting the stage for the season, but beyond the first few episodes, they had only the most vague concept of where the story should go. Fans of the series are not shocked to know this; the first half of the third season is a cautionary tale of epic proportion. The bungling of last season very nearly derailed the entire future of the series.
The result was a loss of audience, which placed the producers/writers in a difficult position. The longer a series runs, the more production costs shift to the networks. A large cast means a huge amount of budgetary resources devoted to pay increases. A series like “24” is hard to sell into syndication, because the networks cannot switch up the episode order as easily. Thus the networks cannot hope to make up some of the investment with a lucrative syndication deal at the end of the fourth season, and the difference has to be made up somewhere.
So the writer/producer core came to the realization that the networks wanted to dump as many characters as possible from the main cast. Bringing them back as guest stars is less expensive in the long run, after all. The writers also had to admit to themselves that they can’t plot out the episodes on the fly nearly so well when the characters are so established that strong creativity is the order of the day. It’s far easier to take the network darling, Jack Bauer, and use him as the familiar and oddly comforting center of a new and chaotic situation.
Already, this season is a test for the writers. Despite the late premiere, shifted to mid-season to allow the series to run straight through the winter and spring without scheduled interruption, the production started on time. That should have granted the production schedule some slack, but it didn’t. As one producer has already publicly admitted, the writers are so far behind that they are working about half an episode ahead of the production schedule. This is a disaster waiting to happen, because that basically means that the writers are under even more pressure to make things up quickly. This is not how a series like “24” should be made, and if the season falls flat on its face come March or April, there are no excuses. The writers have done it to themselves by failing to hash out the plot/character arcs ahead of time.
Having a new cast, and subsequently a new set of character dynamics, ought to help to a certain degree. Characters like David Palmer were utterly squandered in the third season, and since there was an existing fan base for the character, that error was compounded. It’s a lot easier to ignore a bad character arc when there’s no investment in that character, and the chances are high that the character won’t come back. The massive changes in cast also reflect a return to the logic of the second season, where cast changes were assumed to be part and parcel of each new season.
Whatever the case, the writers had to use the first hour to sell the concept of the fourth season as something very different from what has come before. The first three seasons were essentially a trilogy of stories about a concerted effort to destroy David Palmer and Jack Bauer, thanks to their involvement in a previous black ops mission. In a surprising move, the writers actually let the terrorists achieve that goal, even if the terrorism itself was thwarted. Palmer was forced to leave after one term, Jack was forced out of the CTU, and their allies are all out of power. (Not all the connections are severed, however; look closely at Sharek’s file, and the words “Second Wave” are plainly visible!)
Instead of rehashing the past, this season appears to be developing into something like a terrorism “perfect storm”. According to the producers, the situation at the beginning of the season may or may not be connected to the situation by the end of the day; in other words, more than one group could be using the actions of one another and the subsequent response to their own advantage. This speaks to the fears of the American populace, bringing back memories of anthrax attacks coming in the days after 9/11, when a domestic terrorist took advantage of a battered intelligence community.
The episode begins as the plans of a sleeper cell of Middle Eastern terrorists come to apparent fruition. A train is bombed for the sole purpose of finding a briefcase being transported by an American agent (or so it seems). This is a nice set piece to begin the episode with, since it promises that the action will escalate from there. This promise is not necessarily kept, but it all works well enough to maintain a high level of tension.
Immediately, the focus turns back to CTU. Chloe, the only holdover from the third season besides Jack Bauer, notes that a Turkish terrorist named Tomas Sherak has been spotted in Los Angeles, and is also linked to a credible threat of an attack planned for exactly 8 AM. This is interesting on a couple of levels. First, Chloe seems a lot more competent this season, and her abrasive attitude has matured into an abrasive confidence. Second, this promises another nice set piece at the end of the episode. Third, it also makes one wonder why someone would so obviously toss out the exact time that a terrorist act would take place.
It doesn’t take long for Chloe to start putting the pieces together. In an interesting writing choice, Chloe becomes the voice of the audience within CTU, the one character that points out everything that the viewers have already figured out. Was anyone predicting that little perspective twist? At any rate, it’s immediately obvious that Erin Driscoll is a horrible, horrible choice for director of CTU.
Not that one can blame those in Division for putting her in charge. Only a year before, two directors in the same office broke nearly every rule in the book and managed to kill off their boss in the process. With Tony on the way to prison, presumably, it’s no wonder that Division assigned someone with an inflexible position on agent discipline to take command. What any talented maverick can plainly predict, of course, is that such a boss will inevitably lose all control when a crisis forces him or her to think outside the box. This is confirmed when she tells Chloe to focus on Sherak rather than see if the alert about 8AM is connected.
Speaking of talented mavericks, Jack seems to be relatively happy in his new role, working for the Secretary of Defense, James Heller. He’s not at all happy, however, to meet with Driscoll in Heller’s place. Ironically, Jack is carrying on a secret affair with Heller’s daughter Audrey, who also happens to be still married. Apparently Jack learned nothing from his daughter’s example in the previous season! The audience, on the other hand, knows damn well that Audrey is going to be lucky to make it to noon without major trauma.
In a move that has seriously pissed off some Islamic-American groups around the country, the writers place some focus on the Middle Eastern family at the heart of the sleeper cell. It’s all too easy for some Americans to assume that this is how all Islamic families spend breakfast. That said, the writers also make it very clear that this particular family is an extreme case, part of an extremist organization that has been working for years to bring their plan to fruition.
The depiction of this family is not all that subtle, either. The parents are almost comical at times, especially Dina, who chews on the scenery with obvious relish. These parents make the Salazars from last season look perfectly normal! It’s quite obvious that the relationship between Behrooz and Debbie is going to become a source of tension for the terrorists, as they will undoubtedly have to labor to keep Behrooz from undermining their plans. (The point being, it seems, that an Islamic mind free to consider Western advantages outside of religious indoctrination is less likely to agree with terrorism. Take that, bin Laden!)
Another seed is planted when Andrew Paige, a college friend of Chloe’s, notices some disturbing Internet activity when illegally downloading some server source code. Someone, it seems, is modifying the Internet service nodes, apparently with the goal of corrupting or co-opting the entire Internet. In the space of three minutes, Andrew manages to hack into the changes, run to a pay phone, and inform Chloe that some of the changes are written in some form of Arabic. Apparently Andrew is also a language expert, because he also thinks that the Arabic could be Turkish.
A good thing, too, since that gives Chloe enough information to realize that every frickin’ thing related to terrorism on this particular morning is originating somewhere in Turkey. Even as Chloe bemoans the relative naiveté of her co-worker Sarah, she tries to get Driscoll to recognize that there might be a bigger picture. Driscoll, blissfully unable to do so, tells Chloe to hand off Andrew’s lead to the FBI.
Shortly thereafter, Jack arrives at CTU and promptly gets the feeling he’s not wanted. The writers reveal Chloe’s other purpose for remaining on the cast when she serves to provide Jack with an inroad in the new organization. After a little small talk to quickly explain why Kim and Chase need never come back to the series, Jack gets to meet his replacement, Ronnie Lobell. One gets the rather ominous impression that Ronnie is not long for this Earth, and frankly, that Driscoll may not be far behind him.
By the time the scene shifts to Heller and his motorcade, it’s not hard to guess what might be happening at 8AM. The writers play it straight, however, and that adds an unnerving element to the rest of the episode. It’s one thing to see something horrible plainly foreshadowed; it’s another to have the very strong feeling of where something is going with the characters utterly unable to see it coming. (There’s a subtle difference between the two, of course.)
Because the writers couldn’t go very long without making Driscoll look like an idiot for firing Jack, not only does Jack dispute every stupid budget-slashing idea that Driscoll throws his way, but he quickly becomes the only person observing the field op to the Tuskish dry cleaning business to realize something is Very Wrong. It’s the kind of scene that is either intended to highlight Driscoll’s shortsighted hiring practices or to reinforce that Jack is God’s gift to the intelligence community.
While the writers went a long way towards displaying Palmer as something of a “practical liberal”, there was never any doubt that the series was grounded in more conservative soil. That comes through loud and clear during the argument between Heller and his son Richard. Richard is depicted as the stereotypical clueless liberal youth, so wrapped up in his ideals and fervor that reality can’t get through his thick skull. William Devane plays the Rumsfeld part rather well, right down to the righteous indignation that his own son would let himself be used in a smear campaign.
When Andrew gets back to work 20 minutes after Chloe dumped the Internet concern over to the FBI, he finds his co-workers being slaughtered by a Middle Eastern cleaner team. Not only do they know about Andrew, but they want him very dead, very quickly. It’s not hard to figure out that the sleeper cell is getting help from someone within the FBI, which is a nice spin on the usual “CTU mole” plot point. It’s also not hard to suspect that Navi Araz, Behrooz’s father, is the FBI agent in question.
As if dispensing with any drama that might have been attached to the foregone conclusion, Jack immediately recognizes Sharek as a suspect in European bombings several years earlier. Jack recalls (rather admirably) that Sharek was more of a handler than a bomber, which leads him to conclude that the train bombing was only part of a much larger operation. Driscoll, still firmly entrenched in her myopic point of view, dismisses his concerns.
It’s at this point that a disturbing concept springs to mind. There’s very little information about Driscoll thus far, and yet she is in serious danger of looking like a complete and utter fool. Two obvious reasons come to mind. The rather obvious conclusion would be that she is, in fact, the rigid disciplinarian she seems to be, way over her head in the fog of war. But it’s also possible that she’s yet another mole, intentionally hindering the investigation. At least that would give her moronic decisions something approaching a reasonable basis.
Despite under orders by his own boss to let CTU handle the matter (since Heller probably knows what kind of firestorm Jack could create by apparently using a simple meeting as a pretext to take over the place), Jack somehow manages to sneak into Sharek’s interrogation and lock everyone else out. This brings up a couple of very good questions (like, how his codes worked, for one), but it’s classic Jack Bauer, as is the bullet to the leg.
Just to ramp up the tension, Sharek actually breaks under this pressure, something that is more than a little disappointing. Wouldn’t it have been more dramatically effective to have the rocket shoot past, and then cut to Sharek gleefully revealing the target, when it was too late for Jack to even make the phone call? But this is “24”, and Jack has to be able to listen to his current love interest become embroiled in the exact kind of situation he was desperately trying to avoid reliving.
As season premieres go, this was rather effective, placing all of the various players in a recognizable context and establishing the pace for the rest of the episodes to follow. It seems just a little unlikely that the terrorists would choose to implement their plan at the very moment that Jack Bauer is sitting in CTU, but at some point, these absurd coincidences have to be written off as part of the series’ charm. It’s so much easier when one accepts that Jack Bauer is paying off karma at an accelerated rate.
Final Analysis
Overall, this episode was a strong if slightly predictable beginning to the fourth season. The writers gained some easy ground by bringing in a mostly new cast, forcing Jack to deal with less of a support system as the day unfolds. There are some concerns about whether the writers are up to the challenges they’ve set for themselves, but so far, there’s enough happening to keep the audience intrigued.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 2/4
Final Rating: 8/10
Season Average (as of 4.1): 8.0
Directed by Jon Cassar
In which a Middle Eastern sleeper cell initiates a terrorist plot involving a train, a briefcase, and the Internet, all on the day that Jack Bauer happens to be visiting CTU…
Status Report
The fourth season begins with something of a fresh perspective. Gone are most of the accumulated characters from the first three seasons; Jack Bauer is the only high-level character left out of the bunch, as one would expect. Any number of reasons could be offered for this decision, and the likelihood is that all parties realized they had something to gain. Part of that is a symptom of any show that begins to creep towards the syndication goal of 100 episodes, thus invoking network budgetary concerns, and part of it is a sign of the writers’ weaknesses.
In the commentary for one of the early episodes of the third season (on DVD), one of the writers is more than happy to note that there was little or no sense of direction for the plot. The writers had spent a great deal of time setting the stage for the season, but beyond the first few episodes, they had only the most vague concept of where the story should go. Fans of the series are not shocked to know this; the first half of the third season is a cautionary tale of epic proportion. The bungling of last season very nearly derailed the entire future of the series.
The result was a loss of audience, which placed the producers/writers in a difficult position. The longer a series runs, the more production costs shift to the networks. A large cast means a huge amount of budgetary resources devoted to pay increases. A series like “24” is hard to sell into syndication, because the networks cannot switch up the episode order as easily. Thus the networks cannot hope to make up some of the investment with a lucrative syndication deal at the end of the fourth season, and the difference has to be made up somewhere.
So the writer/producer core came to the realization that the networks wanted to dump as many characters as possible from the main cast. Bringing them back as guest stars is less expensive in the long run, after all. The writers also had to admit to themselves that they can’t plot out the episodes on the fly nearly so well when the characters are so established that strong creativity is the order of the day. It’s far easier to take the network darling, Jack Bauer, and use him as the familiar and oddly comforting center of a new and chaotic situation.
Already, this season is a test for the writers. Despite the late premiere, shifted to mid-season to allow the series to run straight through the winter and spring without scheduled interruption, the production started on time. That should have granted the production schedule some slack, but it didn’t. As one producer has already publicly admitted, the writers are so far behind that they are working about half an episode ahead of the production schedule. This is a disaster waiting to happen, because that basically means that the writers are under even more pressure to make things up quickly. This is not how a series like “24” should be made, and if the season falls flat on its face come March or April, there are no excuses. The writers have done it to themselves by failing to hash out the plot/character arcs ahead of time.
Having a new cast, and subsequently a new set of character dynamics, ought to help to a certain degree. Characters like David Palmer were utterly squandered in the third season, and since there was an existing fan base for the character, that error was compounded. It’s a lot easier to ignore a bad character arc when there’s no investment in that character, and the chances are high that the character won’t come back. The massive changes in cast also reflect a return to the logic of the second season, where cast changes were assumed to be part and parcel of each new season.
Whatever the case, the writers had to use the first hour to sell the concept of the fourth season as something very different from what has come before. The first three seasons were essentially a trilogy of stories about a concerted effort to destroy David Palmer and Jack Bauer, thanks to their involvement in a previous black ops mission. In a surprising move, the writers actually let the terrorists achieve that goal, even if the terrorism itself was thwarted. Palmer was forced to leave after one term, Jack was forced out of the CTU, and their allies are all out of power. (Not all the connections are severed, however; look closely at Sharek’s file, and the words “Second Wave” are plainly visible!)
Instead of rehashing the past, this season appears to be developing into something like a terrorism “perfect storm”. According to the producers, the situation at the beginning of the season may or may not be connected to the situation by the end of the day; in other words, more than one group could be using the actions of one another and the subsequent response to their own advantage. This speaks to the fears of the American populace, bringing back memories of anthrax attacks coming in the days after 9/11, when a domestic terrorist took advantage of a battered intelligence community.
The episode begins as the plans of a sleeper cell of Middle Eastern terrorists come to apparent fruition. A train is bombed for the sole purpose of finding a briefcase being transported by an American agent (or so it seems). This is a nice set piece to begin the episode with, since it promises that the action will escalate from there. This promise is not necessarily kept, but it all works well enough to maintain a high level of tension.
Immediately, the focus turns back to CTU. Chloe, the only holdover from the third season besides Jack Bauer, notes that a Turkish terrorist named Tomas Sherak has been spotted in Los Angeles, and is also linked to a credible threat of an attack planned for exactly 8 AM. This is interesting on a couple of levels. First, Chloe seems a lot more competent this season, and her abrasive attitude has matured into an abrasive confidence. Second, this promises another nice set piece at the end of the episode. Third, it also makes one wonder why someone would so obviously toss out the exact time that a terrorist act would take place.
It doesn’t take long for Chloe to start putting the pieces together. In an interesting writing choice, Chloe becomes the voice of the audience within CTU, the one character that points out everything that the viewers have already figured out. Was anyone predicting that little perspective twist? At any rate, it’s immediately obvious that Erin Driscoll is a horrible, horrible choice for director of CTU.
Not that one can blame those in Division for putting her in charge. Only a year before, two directors in the same office broke nearly every rule in the book and managed to kill off their boss in the process. With Tony on the way to prison, presumably, it’s no wonder that Division assigned someone with an inflexible position on agent discipline to take command. What any talented maverick can plainly predict, of course, is that such a boss will inevitably lose all control when a crisis forces him or her to think outside the box. This is confirmed when she tells Chloe to focus on Sherak rather than see if the alert about 8AM is connected.
Speaking of talented mavericks, Jack seems to be relatively happy in his new role, working for the Secretary of Defense, James Heller. He’s not at all happy, however, to meet with Driscoll in Heller’s place. Ironically, Jack is carrying on a secret affair with Heller’s daughter Audrey, who also happens to be still married. Apparently Jack learned nothing from his daughter’s example in the previous season! The audience, on the other hand, knows damn well that Audrey is going to be lucky to make it to noon without major trauma.
In a move that has seriously pissed off some Islamic-American groups around the country, the writers place some focus on the Middle Eastern family at the heart of the sleeper cell. It’s all too easy for some Americans to assume that this is how all Islamic families spend breakfast. That said, the writers also make it very clear that this particular family is an extreme case, part of an extremist organization that has been working for years to bring their plan to fruition.
The depiction of this family is not all that subtle, either. The parents are almost comical at times, especially Dina, who chews on the scenery with obvious relish. These parents make the Salazars from last season look perfectly normal! It’s quite obvious that the relationship between Behrooz and Debbie is going to become a source of tension for the terrorists, as they will undoubtedly have to labor to keep Behrooz from undermining their plans. (The point being, it seems, that an Islamic mind free to consider Western advantages outside of religious indoctrination is less likely to agree with terrorism. Take that, bin Laden!)
Another seed is planted when Andrew Paige, a college friend of Chloe’s, notices some disturbing Internet activity when illegally downloading some server source code. Someone, it seems, is modifying the Internet service nodes, apparently with the goal of corrupting or co-opting the entire Internet. In the space of three minutes, Andrew manages to hack into the changes, run to a pay phone, and inform Chloe that some of the changes are written in some form of Arabic. Apparently Andrew is also a language expert, because he also thinks that the Arabic could be Turkish.
A good thing, too, since that gives Chloe enough information to realize that every frickin’ thing related to terrorism on this particular morning is originating somewhere in Turkey. Even as Chloe bemoans the relative naiveté of her co-worker Sarah, she tries to get Driscoll to recognize that there might be a bigger picture. Driscoll, blissfully unable to do so, tells Chloe to hand off Andrew’s lead to the FBI.
Shortly thereafter, Jack arrives at CTU and promptly gets the feeling he’s not wanted. The writers reveal Chloe’s other purpose for remaining on the cast when she serves to provide Jack with an inroad in the new organization. After a little small talk to quickly explain why Kim and Chase need never come back to the series, Jack gets to meet his replacement, Ronnie Lobell. One gets the rather ominous impression that Ronnie is not long for this Earth, and frankly, that Driscoll may not be far behind him.
By the time the scene shifts to Heller and his motorcade, it’s not hard to guess what might be happening at 8AM. The writers play it straight, however, and that adds an unnerving element to the rest of the episode. It’s one thing to see something horrible plainly foreshadowed; it’s another to have the very strong feeling of where something is going with the characters utterly unable to see it coming. (There’s a subtle difference between the two, of course.)
Because the writers couldn’t go very long without making Driscoll look like an idiot for firing Jack, not only does Jack dispute every stupid budget-slashing idea that Driscoll throws his way, but he quickly becomes the only person observing the field op to the Tuskish dry cleaning business to realize something is Very Wrong. It’s the kind of scene that is either intended to highlight Driscoll’s shortsighted hiring practices or to reinforce that Jack is God’s gift to the intelligence community.
While the writers went a long way towards displaying Palmer as something of a “practical liberal”, there was never any doubt that the series was grounded in more conservative soil. That comes through loud and clear during the argument between Heller and his son Richard. Richard is depicted as the stereotypical clueless liberal youth, so wrapped up in his ideals and fervor that reality can’t get through his thick skull. William Devane plays the Rumsfeld part rather well, right down to the righteous indignation that his own son would let himself be used in a smear campaign.
When Andrew gets back to work 20 minutes after Chloe dumped the Internet concern over to the FBI, he finds his co-workers being slaughtered by a Middle Eastern cleaner team. Not only do they know about Andrew, but they want him very dead, very quickly. It’s not hard to figure out that the sleeper cell is getting help from someone within the FBI, which is a nice spin on the usual “CTU mole” plot point. It’s also not hard to suspect that Navi Araz, Behrooz’s father, is the FBI agent in question.
As if dispensing with any drama that might have been attached to the foregone conclusion, Jack immediately recognizes Sharek as a suspect in European bombings several years earlier. Jack recalls (rather admirably) that Sharek was more of a handler than a bomber, which leads him to conclude that the train bombing was only part of a much larger operation. Driscoll, still firmly entrenched in her myopic point of view, dismisses his concerns.
It’s at this point that a disturbing concept springs to mind. There’s very little information about Driscoll thus far, and yet she is in serious danger of looking like a complete and utter fool. Two obvious reasons come to mind. The rather obvious conclusion would be that she is, in fact, the rigid disciplinarian she seems to be, way over her head in the fog of war. But it’s also possible that she’s yet another mole, intentionally hindering the investigation. At least that would give her moronic decisions something approaching a reasonable basis.
Despite under orders by his own boss to let CTU handle the matter (since Heller probably knows what kind of firestorm Jack could create by apparently using a simple meeting as a pretext to take over the place), Jack somehow manages to sneak into Sharek’s interrogation and lock everyone else out. This brings up a couple of very good questions (like, how his codes worked, for one), but it’s classic Jack Bauer, as is the bullet to the leg.
Just to ramp up the tension, Sharek actually breaks under this pressure, something that is more than a little disappointing. Wouldn’t it have been more dramatically effective to have the rocket shoot past, and then cut to Sharek gleefully revealing the target, when it was too late for Jack to even make the phone call? But this is “24”, and Jack has to be able to listen to his current love interest become embroiled in the exact kind of situation he was desperately trying to avoid reliving.
As season premieres go, this was rather effective, placing all of the various players in a recognizable context and establishing the pace for the rest of the episodes to follow. It seems just a little unlikely that the terrorists would choose to implement their plan at the very moment that Jack Bauer is sitting in CTU, but at some point, these absurd coincidences have to be written off as part of the series’ charm. It’s so much easier when one accepts that Jack Bauer is paying off karma at an accelerated rate.
Final Analysis
Overall, this episode was a strong if slightly predictable beginning to the fourth season. The writers gained some easy ground by bringing in a mostly new cast, forcing Jack to deal with less of a support system as the day unfolds. There are some concerns about whether the writers are up to the challenges they’ve set for themselves, but so far, there’s enough happening to keep the audience intrigued.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 2/4
Final Rating: 8/10
Season Average (as of 4.1): 8.0
posted by John Keegan | 08:47
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