24:Live Another Day (May contain spoliers!)
Well, just watched 24 : Live Another Day yesterday. All 12 episodes that were Sky+'ed earlier this year, end-to-end.
Now I love 24. True it has had its great and not so great seasons but on the whole, pretty good fare.
I was looking forward to watching this, indeed I've waited so long because I wanted a whole day to sit and immerse myself. And yes, I am aware of the irony of putting aside 24hours to watch 12!
I was hoping for a Jack Bauer meets MI5 meets SAS meets SBS sort of thrill ride. Oh boy.
To say I'm more than a little let down with this offering would be an understatement.
Now I know that 24 requires you to suspend your belief for the show, but the general content is not too much to "believe" in terms of tech - you know, phones that never need charging, guns that shoot 50 bullets from 1 clip, Chloe O'Brian knocking out code that hacks in to a nuclear reactor in c50 seconds etc, etc.
However my biggest bugbear with this last one was more to do with the fact that it was set in London, I mean why? (yes, yes I know the story that the original 24 was conceived in London and was initially meant to be set there...).
I have nothing against London, I mean for starters it serves in keeping all the dross out of the North! :-D
No, my problem mainly stems from the fact that the UK didn't seem to have a functioning Armed Service, Military Intelligence or Police force throughout the run of the show. Add to this Stephen Fry's Prime Minister character, who came across as a complete bell end. I'm actually annoyed that Stephen Fry actually acquiesced to play the role that way.
For instance, why the hell did the PM have to go to where the US President was for updates and meetings? Surely, the President would be summoned to No10...I mean, he was the visiting dignatory and all that - and the man whose country was responsible for the very real threat of an attack on our capital.
The Prime Minister made 1 decision throughout the entire series and that was to sanction a bungled MI5 mission to covertly shadow Jack Bauer - and then Jack lost his **** with MI5 and basically told them to feck off, whilst walking away carrying a loaded weapon!
Speaking of which, how was the CIA able to run around London pumping thousands of bullets into anything moved and not have anything said? I mean at some point, the number of stacked up bodies/bullet holes would have started to smell (clearly there was no curfew...the main baddies daughter was knocked down by a bus - if there was a curfew, was this bus on not-so-covert driver training or something?). Shouldn't the PM be saying "Oi, Mr President...we have this thing called The SAS. They're quite handy...in fact quite a few countries have borrowed them as a template to set up their own special forces and all that. Any way, they are WAY better than CIA field agents and, here's the killer, THEY are actually cleared to bear arms on British soil...so, you tell your monkeys to get back in their box."
Near the beginning, US soldiers were killed in "friendly" fire incident that also claimed the lives of 4 UK Officers that were being escorted to their units (errr, speaking of which did our transport run out of fuel or something? Bloody cutbacks!). When the PM confronted the President about an explanation, all he got was a tirade about how US soldiers had died (at that point it looked like it had been done by a US soldier too). Instead of the PM saying "Couldn't give a crap retard, I want an explanation about MY boys!" the character backed down in such a fashion as to say "Yes, sorry...your men mean more than all of ours put together...".
These examples are not exhaustive, so, harking back to my original question...why not just set this bugger in the US and not have any of that crap going on?
Now I love 24. True it has had its great and not so great seasons but on the whole, pretty good fare.
I was looking forward to watching this, indeed I've waited so long because I wanted a whole day to sit and immerse myself. And yes, I am aware of the irony of putting aside 24hours to watch 12!
I was hoping for a Jack Bauer meets MI5 meets SAS meets SBS sort of thrill ride. Oh boy.
To say I'm more than a little let down with this offering would be an understatement.
Now I know that 24 requires you to suspend your belief for the show, but the general content is not too much to "believe" in terms of tech - you know, phones that never need charging, guns that shoot 50 bullets from 1 clip, Chloe O'Brian knocking out code that hacks in to a nuclear reactor in c50 seconds etc, etc.
However my biggest bugbear with this last one was more to do with the fact that it was set in London, I mean why? (yes, yes I know the story that the original 24 was conceived in London and was initially meant to be set there...).
I have nothing against London, I mean for starters it serves in keeping all the dross out of the North! :-D
No, my problem mainly stems from the fact that the UK didn't seem to have a functioning Armed Service, Military Intelligence or Police force throughout the run of the show. Add to this Stephen Fry's Prime Minister character, who came across as a complete bell end. I'm actually annoyed that Stephen Fry actually acquiesced to play the role that way.
For instance, why the hell did the PM have to go to where the US President was for updates and meetings? Surely, the President would be summoned to No10...I mean, he was the visiting dignatory and all that - and the man whose country was responsible for the very real threat of an attack on our capital.
The Prime Minister made 1 decision throughout the entire series and that was to sanction a bungled MI5 mission to covertly shadow Jack Bauer - and then Jack lost his **** with MI5 and basically told them to feck off, whilst walking away carrying a loaded weapon!
Speaking of which, how was the CIA able to run around London pumping thousands of bullets into anything moved and not have anything said? I mean at some point, the number of stacked up bodies/bullet holes would have started to smell (clearly there was no curfew...the main baddies daughter was knocked down by a bus - if there was a curfew, was this bus on not-so-covert driver training or something?). Shouldn't the PM be saying "Oi, Mr President...we have this thing called The SAS. They're quite handy...in fact quite a few countries have borrowed them as a template to set up their own special forces and all that. Any way, they are WAY better than CIA field agents and, here's the killer, THEY are actually cleared to bear arms on British soil...so, you tell your monkeys to get back in their box."
Near the beginning, US soldiers were killed in "friendly" fire incident that also claimed the lives of 4 UK Officers that were being escorted to their units (errr, speaking of which did our transport run out of fuel or something? Bloody cutbacks!). When the PM confronted the President about an explanation, all he got was a tirade about how US soldiers had died (at that point it looked like it had been done by a US soldier too). Instead of the PM saying "Couldn't give a crap retard, I want an explanation about MY boys!" the character backed down in such a fashion as to say "Yes, sorry...your men mean more than all of ours put together...".
These examples are not exhaustive, so, harking back to my original question...why not just set this bugger in the US and not have any of that crap going on?
Post edited by STeaM on
Comments
Loved it back in the day but I have no incentive to get back into it again.
I must admit, when I saw the trailers for the 'London' 24 it just looked quite poor so I never bothered.
I probably won't either.
Cheers for the summary though!
I suspect that as the programme was made primarily for a US audience, it inevitably becomes USA-centric in outlook. Yes, you're probably right that as visiting dignatory the US President should have gone to Number 10 not vice versa, but this approach would cause consternation and confusion for Bob from Buttf*ck, Texas, so it couldn't possibly be filmed in any other way than it was.
Sad but true.
Still, the door is open for another series given the ending at least
Very true. The next one will probably be set in Paris or something...cue live action version of Team America! :lol: