feeling listless

TV And so 24 ended in a scene from a seventies political thriller directed by Alan Pakula. You almost expected Warren Beatty or Robert Redford to turn up in a corduroy suite with some other piece of evidence they’ve picked up. For some reason it felt slightly wrong that after all the corridors, rooms and basements that the final scenes should take place in the baking sun and wide open spaces of a sports stadium. It created angles and vantage points, and places to pick people off, but overall it was a bigness which didn’t seem true to the rest of the series somehow.

Which sounds like I was disappointed, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. There was a quality to the script which is missing from many season enders – the character pay off. Everyone got a moment: “Either fire me or get out of my chair.” “You’ll think you’ll be safe out there. You won’t.” “Mr President!” It took time to resolve the relationship arcs, such as Michelle and Tony, little things but they helped to give the entire series a shape.

Of the ending, ending – since I’d already known about this months in advance, I was mostly waiting to see how it would be accomplished and I wasn’t disappoint. Mandy was a great character and it was good to see her back, and cleverly in such a way that the new audience wouldn’t be lost. Will Palmer die? Hope so. What I mean to say is, the governmental influence has been done. I’d like to see the next series play out on a much smaller scale, perhaps a Magnificent Seven sort of thing with Jack, Tony, Michelle and Kim in a sort of alliance with Nina and Mandy on some kind of mythic quest deal into a jungle; something different which plays about with the format. Seasons One and Two had very similar structures and they need to try something new otherwise it could become quite old and stale.