24 - Seasons 2 and 3 Thoughts SPOILERS
 

PLEASE NO SEASON 4, 5, 6 or 7 SPOILERS

Like others are watching other TV shows from scratch, i'm watching 24 from scratch having not watched any episodes before

I enjoyed Season 1 but it took me a while to get into Season 2. The Kim and the guy she was babysitting for drama put me off to start with. Still when the season got going it was great. Sara Wynter's character Kate being a highlight of this season. What is good about 24 is there are multiple villians per season with bigger and badder ones being revealed as the season goes on, meaning lesser ones can get killed off, but Peter Kingsley popped up a bit too late on to be considered very threatening. Don't like any of the Sherry Palmer stuff. George was a good character this season.

Season 3 - KIM BAUER WORKING AT CTU ! WTF ! This stood out like a sore thumb. I know 3 years had passed but going from school/babysitting to being a systems analyst at CTU even with the nepotism was a bit far fetched. Kim must have done the fasttrack program at MIT !
Still even with this glaring thing, Season 3 was great. Pretty terrifying, heaps of collateral damage. Didn't like seeing Nina Myers again, the shock value of that has been warn out, enjoyed her being killed by Jack. I still can't believe The President authorised and Jack killed Ryan Schapelle, that was probably the most shocking scene i have seen on TV, just the thought of a President ordering the death of an innocent man. I kept thinking it was set up with a fake body, fake fingerprints etc. And then what hypocrisy by Tony putting millions of lives in danger to save his one wife after not batting an eyelid at Schapelle having to be killed for the same thing ! Chloe was an interesting character this season, both Tony and Jack treated her like sh*t but she saved the day several times. I had hoped they had gotten rid of the Sherry Palmer character but no, can't stand her and not in a good way. Was great seeing her get shot at the end. I didn't like the way the David Palmer stuff was not really directly related to the main story, i do love the David Palmer character, hell i would vote for him if he were real!. Steven Saunders was a great villian, reminded me of that Bond movie with the rogue agent as the villian. They do pack a hell of a lot of story into a season. you really appreciate this when you watch it all in one hit.


ok my rankings for first three seasons

Season 3 then Season 1 then Season 2

Now onto Season 4 :)

What did you think about the secret plan by Jack, Gael and Tony? For me Gael seemed like a cool new addition to the show, and I was sad to see him go.

Season 3 was my least favorite season (until Season 6 came along), mainly because it didn't really grip me until they got to the hotel, at which point the season took off and finished strong. There were too many weak/ridiculous elements: The Kim/baby plot-line, the Jack-caused prison riot (though the actual escape was interesting), the amazing heroin addiction cure, etc.

Other than the ridiculous Kim story, I thought Season 2 was better as a whole. It lost a bit of steam after the nuclear bomb went off, but I'd still rank it as my 2nd favorite season after the 1st.

I agree with your rankings, though I have to say I MUCH prefer Kim working at CTU vs. running around in the wild. It was a stretch, but it worked ok for me. The foray into Mexico at the beginning and the inclusion of Chase were definite pluses for me.

I'd say season 3 is my favorite, especially with the memorable stuff that happens with the virus in the motel.

24 seems to lose its way every 3rd season. Seasons 3 and 6 are the weakest IMO. But at least Season 3 kicked some serious ass once the events in the hotel went down. Season 6 had only one decent episode after the first four hours.

The 2nd half of season 3 saved it for me. The whole Kyle Singer storyline, which was a pretty good idea that went bad, pissed me off. I also thought the whole story about Wayne's affair with Alan Milliken's wife was a pointless soap-opera type element that seemed more or less like filler. Same goes with Palmer's doctor girlfriend who was being blackmailed by her ex.

Loved the events that transpired at the hotel. Loved Reiko Aylesworth (Michelle)...she was such a badass.

I guess I'm in the severe minority. Season 3 is actually my favorite of the series. Those couple of hours with Jack starting the prison riot were awesome.

Gael was a cool character, his wife killing Saunders at the end, i saw that coming a mile away as soon as her character was introduced.

It's mindblowing what these guys have done in the line of duty. Another thing is plainly obvious, they are short staffed !

Prison riot was awesome, again a lot more collateral damage !

If I had to rank the seasons, it'd be:

1
2
3
5
6
4

Season one stumbled after the rescue and the introduction of the Drazens and their endless supply of minions and pulling the "Nina as mole" twist out of their ass, but it was still interesting because it was new to us.

Season two stumbled after the nuke went off and they tried to make the whole thing some massive conspiracy with like a thousand different people all in on it in some way, and throwing Sherry Palmer into the conspiracy was just plain idiotic. The whole VP vs. President subplot because they NEEDED to nuke the unnamed Middle Eastern countries ASAP was laughable.

Season three started out awful and the three-man conspiracy (Jack, Tony, Gael) twist for the sake of having a twist was a major misfire. It picked up a lot after they got out of Mexico and introduced Saunders, but the Palmer storyline was just a complete waste. And the CTU interoffice bickering was just awful too.

I never really had a problem with Kim at CTU. As I recall, we were never given any info regarding her background, so she may have been a computer whiz. Who knows.

Man you couldn't be more my opposite. I loved the Sherry Palmer and Nina Myers scenes, they are some of the best female divas I have ever seen on tv since Angela Channing, I just loved hating them! Kinda added a dimension to the show appealing outside the usual nerdy male action demo but perhaps that was the problem. I could only wish they could find a way to have villains that great on the show again.

i just watched first ep of Season 4, all new characters to get used to , aarrrghh !

Just wait.;)

For me:

1 - great, fresh, still adheres to real time and wasn't formulaic. Jack was actually tired and even ate some food. Was still, you know, human, not a super hero.

5 - brought in one of the greatest villians, and interesting secondary characters and plots we actually cared about. Seemed to bumble along until the big reveal, but was well worth it in the end.

2 - Took everything they learned from season 1 and expanded on it and made some riviting television. The Warner's were interesting, Curtis actually had a purpose and the political stuff was still interesting.

3 - overall good, but didn't kick in until too late (hotel) and then it was over too quick. Has two of the most exciting parts of the entire run of the show(Michelle at the hotel and Chappelle's unfortunate end). Too bad they wasted Michelle after that. She had the potential to be a female equivalent to Jack. The political side of the show took a nose dive this year.

4 - the pinnacle of formulaic. Every episode has some asinine cliffhanger and the bad guy just escapes Jack by seconds every episode. ugh. And the 'football' - :lol:

6 - recycled plots, boring characters, contrived plot devices . Bad from episode 5-24. Started out the first four hours with so much potential but took a nose dive, fast. Easy to write off this season just for the amount of stupid contained in that little spoiler.