Entertain Me, Dear Reader

I arrived on campus today with just enough time to be bored before class but not enough to actually do anything substantive, like work out, which I have been trying to do for days. Darn it. I turn to you now, dear reader: entertain me! Say something funny, tell me a story!

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Right. I guess the idea behind this blog is that I’m supposed to be entertaining you. Good point. Okay, I like a challenge…

Have any of you visited this website Hulu.com? It’s tremendous. You can watch many of the newest, most popular television shows for free with only sparse commercial interruption. I’ve been using it to dabble my feet in “24″ again, a show which I am continually on the fence about. Let me give you the pros and cons of this episodic thriller:

Pros:

-Kiefer Sutherland is pretty ballin’. He is the only man alive who can give Clint Eastwood a run for his money in the gravely voice department. 

-Despite what the show creators may say, “24″ is actually soap opera. If you look at the plot structure–the random deaths, improbable resurrections, wildly divergent loyalties, etc–it’s plain to see that this thing is “Days of Our Lives,” and absolutely no less ridiculous. The genius, therefore, is dressing it up for a completely different demographic, all of whom fall for it hook, line and sinker. Men who would scoff at “General Hospital” will gasp at their friends and cry out, “Tony is back from the dead! They gave him some kind of special government injection!” 

I love it.

-It’s a Republican show, and that takes some balls in the entertainment industry. Just recently I watched the two-hour prequel to “Day 7,” which featured Jack living in Africa with an old army buddy and a guy from the UN. The latter was portrayed as a limp-wristed, Euro-trash pansy who displayed open cowardice and a desire to “stay neutral” (read: run away) while Jack Bauer slaughtered whole truckloads of bad guys. Hint, hint. Normally that might annoy me, but since every other movie and television show ever is overtly liberal, I take it as a breath of fresh air.  

-The whole real-time thing. Clever.

Cons:

-For goodness gracious sake, can we take it easy on the torture? This freaking show has more torture than “Hostel” and “Hostel: Part II” put together, and their ad campaigns make it uncomfortably clear that they’re happy with this fact. Every other episode, either Jack is getting bamboo shoved up his fingernails or he’s doing it someone else, and people who watch this show know that is NOT an exaggeration. And while the regulations of TV only allow for a limited view of the grisly details, we are treated to solid minutes of screaming in agony, writing in pain, etc. It kind of bothers me that the longer the show lasts, the more excuses they find to torture people, because it suggests that the fan base likes this stuff, and that’s just messed up. As long as it persists, “24″ will never have my consistent support.

-They’re out of freaking plots. Every single season is some kind of terrorist cell, they just change the nationality and what the bombs are being hidden in. It gets to the point where I want some characters to start asking each other, “What in the hell is going on here?” I want to see some consequences of all these homeland security skirmishes. “24″ needs to feel real, no matter how absurd it gets, and that reality flickers like a dying candle every time they do yet another season with yet another lone, crazed sleeper cell from France, or Paraguay, or where the hell ever. 

You know what I honestly think should happen? I think “24″ should initiate a world war in its universe, or maybe just some kind of Cold War all over again. We need a persistent enemy on this show, because switching them up all the time and then having everyone look surprised when the bombs go off is beginning to feel stale.

-The actors playing the villains. By and large, these guys are professional scenery chewers who never imbue their characters with real menace. It’s probably not their fault, the script gives them very little to work with, but I’d like to see some truly cunning adversaries. Jack needs an arch-enemy, a Joker to his Batman, someone who calls his whole existence into question. Season One (referred to as “Day One”) was one of the best televised dramas I have ever seen, and a large part of the reason for that was the utterly chilling (SPOILER) Nina Meyers. Here was a cold, brutal villain, one you could hate and fear deeply because she felt so human, and because we really believed she was on our side (SPOILER END). We need more bad guys like that.

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Right, well I’ve burned some time now, I think class should be starting soon. Thanks for hangin’ out with me, Dear Reader. You’re too good to me.