Some of the scariest people you will ever meet are the ones who watch 24 and talk about it as if it were a documentary. They'll talk as if Jack Bauer is a real guy and his actions should be taught as the preferred method for combating modern day terrorists. This attitude is so pervasive that it has even ensnared a Supreme Court Justice. I've written about this before and one thing I have never been able to understand is why? Why on Earth would you want to take Jack Bauer and hold him up as some poster boy for counter terrorism?
Mind you, I like 24. I've probably seen every episode even though its quality is very uneven. I wasn't at all surprised to read last year that the former Executive Producer, Joel Surnow, and his creative team didn't start each year with a tightly plotted season-long story arc and, in fact, didn't plot very far ahead at all. This explains why the story often lurches in wild, unpredictable directions. Still, it's usually a fun show to watch for Kiefer Sutherland's passionate portrayal of Jack Bauer and for the action scenes. I don't watch 24 for realism or for tips on how to protect my country. Why the hell would I? Under Jack Bauer's watch, thousands of people have died. We've had gas and biological attacks and TWO count 'em TWO nuclear explosions on American soil. In fact, the plotlines of 24 are some of the most unrealistic scenarios I've ever seen on television and that's saying a lot.
Here are some of the important plot points we've seen so far in this season and why they're stupid. If you are waiting for the DVD or have them all saved on your Tivo with a vow not to watch them till May, you might want to stop reading now.
First off, one of the designers of the firewall that the government uses on its computer systems gets kidnapped and is forced to build something called a CPI to breach that firewall. If there really was a guy who could do this, he would almost certainly have been kidnapped once a week since he first beta tested the system. Also, if one could really make something like this, I doubt you could do it in about an hour with what looked like parts from Radio Shack. Somehow, my computer has been kept impervious to any and all infiltrations using nothing but Norton Anti-Virus and Zone Alarm yet the systems used by the U.S. government are rendered useless by some guy who slaps together a couple of circuit boards and some AA batteries to create a device smaller than a Kindle. Still, that's what happens in 24.
Turns out the guy behind the kidnap-the-computer-geek plot is Ike Dubaku, second in command to an African dictator whose country, the fictional Sengala, is about to be invaded by the United States military. His plan is to use the CPI to take over the nation's air traffic control system and make planes crash unless President Allison Taylor gives in to his demands and pulls her forces away from Sengala's border. The President decides to take a firm stand and refuses to give in to the demands of a terrorist even when 300 people die in the first round of crashes. The President's decision is an act of bravery, character and firm leadership. It's also an act of stupidity.
They're told that, in about six hours, all the planes currently in the sky can be landed safely and that the firewalls can be re-established in about a day which would render Dubaku powerless. The proper thing to do would have been to wait, save hundreds of American lives and do the whole invasion thingie tomorrow. But oh no, President Douchebag figures that the invasion has to happen right the fuck NOW. The only explanation I've come up with is they were going to invade Sengala with a rented army that had to be returned by tomorrow or they'd have to pay extra.
Where is Jack Bauer in all of this? He was in the middle of getting grilled by Congress for his penchant of getting information by taking suspects and giving them hot lead enemas when the FBI pulled him out. It turns out that Jack's old friend, Tony Almeida, has been working as a mercenary since he faked his death four years earlier and is the guy who kidnapped the computer expert. When Jack tracks him down, Tony confesses that he's actually working as a double agent for Jack's old CTU boss Bill Buchanan and obnoxious computer genius Chloe Sullivan (one of the greatest TV characters ever, by the way). This is where it gets good.
It turns out that this trio has basically set up their own branch of law enforcement because of some sort of shadowy conspiracy that has infiltrated the government and is in league with Dubaku and his forces. So, do they take what they know to the relevant government agencies who would then launch an intensive investigation that would identify suspects by things like suspicious phone records or sudden large receipts of cash? HA! Shows what you know. Any idiot could tell you that the only way to stop all this is to go ahead and give Dubaku his CPI device so that he can put big ass chunks of the country at mortal risk in the hope that this will somehow lead them to the traitors. They can't involve anyone else because the source would then tell Dubaku that the jig was up to which I say: so what? One of two things are going to happen.
One: Dubaku's source immediately tips him off that the FBI knows all about his plot and he goes into hiding, no planes crash and the Sengala invasion goes off on schedule. The FBI would then find the person who suddenly had to go to the bathroom when he or she found out that Dubaku was about to go down, check this person's cell records and find out that Dubaku was in his or her Five. From there, the whole conspiracy would be unraveled or...
Two: The source, knowing that they now know of his or her existence, would shut the hell up and let the whole operation go down. As I said before, either the source or someone in the conspiracy that stretches to the highest branches of government would be caught and the whole thing would unravel. Maybe not everyone would be caught but the country's digital infrastructure would be safe, no planes would crash and hundreds of deaths would have been prevented.
Remember all this the next time some douchebag talks about Jack Bauer as if he was real. I don't know what the rest of this season of 24 holds for us but I'm sure it will involve equally ludicrous situations. It will probably involve Jack Bauer trying to uncover Dubaku's cohorts by releasing Hanta virus into the nation's water supply. But hey, at least he keeps us all safe.
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