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Sorry, run that by me again? Injected with a hypothermic injection you say? You’re not dead and now you’re working with Bill Buchanan and Asperger’s Chloe on an undercover operation so secret and illegal even the intelligence community don’t know about it? Tony Almeida, we hardly knew you. 24 likes to open with a bang and in resurrecting Tony in the season premiere they’ve made a big impression and set a dangerous precedent. You can’t play the back from the dead card too often – it diminishes the impact of every death in the show and in a show where the body count is in the millions we can’t really afford to have that. Are all those great 24 deaths now in some grey area TV purgatory where a comeback is just a signed contract away? George Mason was obliterated by a nuclear blast. How is he going to come back? As Dr Manhattan?
“You can understand why Jack is a bit pissy for being questioned just because he decapitated a paedophile, kneecapped a suspect, suffocated his brother and shot Henderson’s wife in the leg.”
For now we have more pressing concerns. Jack is being questioned by the Senate for all them tortures he done. He’s not pleading the fifth; he’s not even taking legal counsel (how badass is that?) but he is all “talk to the hand senator” and when you’ve saved more lives than penicillin you can understand why Jack is a bit pissy for being questioned just because he decapitated a paedophile, kneecapped a suspect, suffocated his brother and shot Henderson’s wife in the leg. It’s political correctness gone mad.
“The CIP will fly planes into each other, pollute the water supply and make TV networks play the final season of Ally McBeal on a loop (these savages have no boundaries).”
But in the middle of Jack telling the Senate to get tae fuck he is subpoenaed thehell out of there by the FBI to show him security footage of Dead Tony Almeida helping terrorist bastards in a nefarious plan that’s just really mean. They get their hands on a high-tech tracking device known as a CIP which will fly planes into each other, pollute the water supply and make TV networks play the final season of Ally McBeal on a loop (these savages have no boundaries). So, Tony is now evil. Being dead will do that to you.
Except, of course he’s not evil. He’s working undercover with CTU! Except there is no CTU what with it having been disbanded for the routine torture and murder of, well, anyone going really. So it’s just Buchanan, Chloe and Dead Tony fighting against a conspiracy so evil it goes all the way to the President’s inner circle. And that’s why they can’t tell any agencies about it. The system really is rotten. In season six, the president was the Big Bad so who is there to trust?
The terrorist threats are all connected with the fictional African state of Bongo Bongo Land (Sangala to its natives) where General Suma is about to kill 300 billion more of his citizens in addition to the 30 million the already slaughtered before breakfast. President Allison Taylor, who is slightly shit, is very much agin the genocide of innocent fuzzy-wuzzies and mobilises a shitload of troops on the border to take out General Bastard. But of course it’s the Sangalan prez behind the CIP terrorising which doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me at he’s just assuring his country’s eventual annihilation but hey. There’s a subplot about the president’s son’s suicide perhaps being murder which looks like being a bit tedious and the intriguing casting of Janeane Garofalo (last seen supporting the Ooga-Booga Scientology-linked New York Rescue Worker’s Detoxification Program) as FBI Special Agent Janis Gold.
“In the fictional African state of Bongo Bongo Land, General Suma is about to kill 300 billion of his citizens. President Allison Taylor, is very much agin the genocide of innocent fuzzy-wuzzies and mobilises a shitload of troops on the border to take out General Bastard.”
The opening four episodes are better than you expect. The preseason prequel 24: Redemption was a bit weak and many people lost patience in the middle of season six, abandoning the show for good. But when all is said and done I do love me some Jack, Chloe, Tony and Bill. And when this 24 hours are up Jack has to go back to face the Senate at 8 a.m. the following day. That’s your season 8 right there.
The best thing about it: Chloe – there’s no one on TV quite like her.
The worst thing about it: They may have painted themselves into a corner with Dead Tony holding the brush.
The verdict on 24 Season 7: The show that made America feel good about torture again.
Marks out of 10: 7.5