24: Season 8, Episode 11: "2:00-3:00am"

"24″: Season 8, Episode 11: “2:00-3:00am”
Grade: 6/10

This week’s episode of “24” was a step up from essentially the entire season thus far. While the majority of it was the mediocre to bad quality of television that us fans have become used to sitting through, towards the end of the episode we were given a 10 minute segment that was a breath of fresh air, easily the best of the season so far, which showed us that “24” can still provide genuinely interesting and suspenseful situations.
Bringing on Mare Winningham as the mother of the son who had a bomb strapped to him was a very smart move. There have been countless occasions when the audience is asked to care about characters we meet for maybe an hour and 99% of the time the show fails at bringing any level of genuine sympathy and attachment to the table in its efforts to make us invested in people we will only know for one hour. Or even several hours; for example, not once were the Russian brothers anything but a waste of time, yet we were supposed to care. Bringing on an actress we know and an actress that can evoke immediate sympathy draws us in very quickly and the situation then becomes something to invest in. Throw in the classic “24” scenario of a young fellow who has convinced himself that America killed his father resulting in the bomb strapped to him which then allows Winningham and Bauer to try to convince him to stop, and we have a bona fide great scene folks. And that’s what those 10 minutes were; great. This season has essentially been a joke; I’ve laughed more than anything else. It’s just bad. I’ve been watching this show since it premiered nearly 10 years ago so I am not about to stop now but the level of excitement in me when I know a new episode is coming is now at an all time low. However there are two things that hopefully signify a rise in quality this season. One are those 10 minutes which prove to me these people still have something left in them. Two is the preview for next week which actually looks decent especially with whatever seems to be going down at CTU.
Now that those 10 minutes which ended in tragedy have been covered, we can go over the rest of the episode. I have decided that I wish that Dana and Cole’s subplot was purely comedic. Think about it; this subplot sucks beyond comprehension and there seems to be no end in sight for it. “24” should have conducted an experiment in genre television by having the rest of the show be as serious as it normally is; don’t change anything. Then, every time we see Dana and Cole it would be like a Laurel and Hardy thing. Think of the hilarity that would ensue when they try to drown the bodies? How about the screwball comedy of trying to hide all of these phone calls that Dana has to take? It would be a huge failure, but it would be one of the most famous stunts a show ever pulled and either way it would be genuinely hilarious or gloriously awful. Think about it; at least it would be more interesting.
Anyways, Dana continued to be a moron this hour especially when she took that phone call. She is a moron for not assuming that this guy had information. And what did he have? Not much. He has proof that a few phone calls took place. Not that they met, not what was in the phone conversations. All she needed to say was he was an old friend of mine and we talked a few times. But no; she had to deny, deny, deny. Then she calls Cole because she made a boo-boo. I loved how annoyed he was when she called. And the “Lie; we both know you’re good at it?” Well guess what Dana; if you both get out of this okay (which you won’t) then you have a lovely lifetime of quips like that to look forward to. It was also funny how everyone made the rounds of taking a shot at Dana. First it was Head-Tilt Hastings, then Chloe and then Arlo who is the worst character of all time. Also, way too much time was given to Dana this week, even more than usual. The scene in which Head-Tilt Hastings lectures Dana in his office was unnecessary; we just had this scene 10 minutes before when Head-Tilt Hastings lectured both Dana and Cole. It was the same scene twice.
What else happened? Not much. We found out that the Tarin is in fact a co-conspirator which was pretty obvious. This continues to prove that if a couple are having sex during any part of the show, that one of them is bad and that we will find out in the form of a post coital hotel shower scene. It’s happened countless times on this show and it happened again. I have to admit though that the President’s daughter is one of the best I’ve seen at not showing how scared she is. Bravo.
Hassan and his wife yelled at each other. And is that it? I think that might be it. Character wise, nothing interesting is happening with Jack. I wonder how long Renee will stay at his apartment before something goes down. We shall see. Next week looks to be interesting actually. As I said, anything going down at CTU is welcome by me.

Flash Forward: Season 1, Episode 6: "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)": 5.5/10

Flash Forward: Season 1, Episode 6: "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps): 5.5

This episode which does take place during Halloween is named after the Bowie song and features another bad cover, this time of said Bowie track from Sea Wolf. Whoopie. It, once again was a good scene but I guess using original tracks is just not something this show feels like doing or cannot do for assumedly various reasons. One cover that was featured in the episode though which worked very well was Rufus Wainwright's cover of Across the Universe. The scene was VERY typical (one of those penultimate scenes in an episode that shows us all of the characters individually thinking which is done all the time on like every show ever now) but the usage was nice.

Anyways I am more intrigued with the show with each passing episode even though I still think the character development and characterization in general is DREADFUL! I don't know these characters any better than I did in the first episode and I did not know them at all in the first episode...WHICH MEANS I DON'T KNOW THEM NOW!!!

Thankfully my favorite character survived. The mystery of the show is continually set up very well and I hope they can follow through on a lot of the promise they have shown us with the story (because goodness knows they are not following up on anything involving character). We were finally shown a few scenes with Dominic Monaghan's mysterious character. I'll just get this out of the way right now; he is completely miscast. I absolutely cannot take him seriously in this role. He is just not convincing to me at all whihc is a shame. I still thought the opening scene with the cross cutting between Monaghan explaining The Double Slit Theory and Janice being operated on was the best moment in the episode. The Blue Hand stuff was pretty good as well. Overall another decent episode with some nice plotting but still unsatisfactory character development and now we have a key character who is completely miscast.

Dexter: Season 4, Episode 5: "Dirty Harry": 8.2/10

Dexter: Season 4, Episode 5: "Dirty Harry": 8.2

This season is really just getting better and better. As I have said before this show can easily feel like it is on repeat but I really do feel like we are starting to delve into some new and interesting material here. Particularly in the way that the season has connected Dexter and the Trinity Killer in the issues involving family. At the end of this episode we and Dexter learn that the Trinity Killer who we assumed was a lone wolf because Lundy (RIP : ( ) assumed it, is actually a family man. Dexter is also now a family man. It brings up a lot of really fascinating stuff for Dexter and I cannot wait to see how the show explores these issues of family and being forced to maintain connection to humanity as both Dexter and the Trinity Killer do what they do and more importantly why the Trinity Killer is able to do this.

Something else I really loved about the episode is that you would expect this to be a pretty low key episode that mainly deals with the fallout of the shocker at the end of the previous episode but in fact a great deal happens here. Deb and Anton broke up, Rita found out Dexter still keeps his apartment and confronted him on it, Deb had a breakdown (which I will get to), Angel is being transferred, the Trinity Killer killed again, Dexter found out who the Trinity Killer was, etc. A lot happened which was nice.

My favorite scene of the season to date occurred in this episode and it was Deb's breakdown. I have said before that I think that Jennifer Carpenter is entirely unappreciated and she is without a doubt more talented than a great deal of the actresses working today. She gave us a very refreshing on screen breakdown that moved me to tears not only because of what her character was saying and how badly I felt for her but because she had a breakdown in the way that real people have breakdowns. She starts hyperventilating and everything; it was so real and exactly the way it actually is and she absolutely nailed this scene which was so extremely emotional. I hope Deb can pull through and I think she can because even though she is such an emotional person who really feels everything she is also very very strong. Her dialogue in that scene hit pretty hard. She has such a low sense of self worth and we rarely get to see that she does so when it all comes out it is slightly hard to take. I love Deb.

Anyways this was a really great episode and I think they are doing a much better job at keeping up momentum and intrigue than last season and the first season as well. Thinsg are just getting more and more intense and I really hope this season can end with some actual consequences or a cliffhanger because I am sick of each season ending with everything perfectly wrapped up. You would think Dexter is controversial but it is actually so easy to watch and it really pulls back a lot of the time. I want it to do something drastic at some point. Last week's end was pretty incredible though.

There are still things I do not like very much particularly Quinn and his stupid girlfriend but at least we got rid of one weak link this week; Anton. He sucked. I think the show has always struggled with making any supporting character stuff as interesting as the Dexter storylines.