Below The Beltway

Over at Slate, Troy Patterson posts a review of the season premiere of 24 that shows a complete misunderstand of both the show, and why people watch it:

There’s depth to 24, but it’s all in the violence?the sight of an actual everyman who, unwillingly drawn into the terror plot, beats a man to protect his family; the sound of a terrorist explaining himself to a former friend: “It’s not what I want to do, it’s what I have to do. I’m a soldier.” Other people hold that the show has substance to it just because it makes regular twitches in the direction of the Fourth and Sixth Amendments. The coming season will keep the president’s sister, Sandra, busy as the nation’s conscience: “I’m not some idealistic flag-burner ? but once you start ethnic profiling, it’s a slippery slope,” and, “I wanna fight this, bring attention to the civil liberties that your administration has allowed to be violated,” and “Blah blah blah blah blah.” This talk is tedious but essential to the drama’s success?not because 24 wants to entertain actual consideration of the issues, but because Jack’s got to be fighting for something. The show is so dense with incident and relentless in its momentum that you don’t get to see much of the actual America, just its passenger cars and cellular phones. Sandra shoulders the responsibility for hauling out the cardboard signs that evoke its principles. The faux seriousness also provides cover for fans looking to dignify the fact that they get their jollies watching explosions and bloodshed.

Like conservatives who think that the success of 24 is somehow a referendum on the War on Terror, this person just doesn’t get it either. Like all good television, 24 is about the drama in the lives of the characters. If viewers hadn’t come to like David Palmer so much, his death at the beginning of Season Five would have been meaningless. Instead, over four years, we saw him grow as a character and we saw his relationship with Bauer become one of the central elements of the show.

If you really want to understand what 24 is all about, you need to go back and look at the first season. Jack was a different guy back then. A federal agent willing to take chances, yes, but more importantly a man willing to do anything to save and protect his family — which was the one weakness his enemy that day was able to exploit. Jack has became more ruthless over the years, but it’s clear that’s only because of what has happened to the people around him and what he’s been forced to do.

In other words, the show isn’t about terrorism and violence, it’s about how the characters, and more specifically one character, have reacted to the terrorism and violence around them and what it’s forced them to become.

If you don’t get that, then you don’t know Jack.

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