Question: What is the best thing about Season 8 so far?

41% (83 votes) – Renee Walker’s emotional problems.
17% (35 votes) – Cylon mothership inspired CTU NY set design.
15% (31 votes) – Jack’s new, sophisticated manbag.
15% (30 votes) – Anil Kapoor’s hair … it’s so bad, it’s good.
7% (14 votes) – Katee Sackhoff’s legs in that dress.
3% (7 votes) – Chloe’s sheer, leopard print top. Was that a gift from Morris?

This poll has been running from right after the 4 hour premiere aired to now (just over 1/3 of the way through the season).  The results were overwhelming in favour of Renee Walker and her affecting (though far-fetched) emotional breakdown as the winner.  Jack’s new leather manbag and Anil Kapoor’s pompadour were pretty much neck and neck with only one vote separating them, but both were edged slightly by the new set design inside CTU.  As for Katee Sackhoff’s legs and Chloe’s horrendous wardrobe selections this season, no one seems to care much for them.

Don’t forget to vote in our new follow-up poll on the worst thing about Season 8 so far.

Summary

Josef manages to get a safe distance with the rods, but is contacted by CTU and his father. Just as they’re on the verge of working out an immunity deal with him, a sniper takes Josef out and Farhad and his people retake the uranium. Farhad becomes uneasy, however, when he learns that his associates are planning on attacking New York instead of their own country.

At CTU, Weiss calls Hastings and tells him that they’re going to need a scapegoat for all of the mistakes that have transpired in the past few hours, and suggests Renee Walker. He sends a woman over to CTU to try and coax Renee into admitting she killed Vladimir not in self defense, but because of the fact that he was an awful awful human being. Renee is sticking with her “self defense” story at the behest of Jack, but seems to find herself cracking. (more …)

Entertainment news site HitFix announced today that Carlos Bernard is slated to appear in Scoundrels, a new pilot scheduled to air on ABC this summer.

Based on New Zealand’s “Outrageous Fortune,” “Scoundrels” stars Virgina Madsen as a matriarch of a family of criminals facing life-gone-straight after her husband (Neal McDonough) is set away to prison.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Rambin (“Grey’s Anatomy,” “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”) and Marano (“Gilmore Girls”) will play the family’s two daughters. Bernard (“24″) will play a detective who keeps an eye on the family.

Unlike the other shows in this article, “Scoundrels” has already been picked up for a summer run on ABC. (more …)

I’m back! Thanks, Kasia, for filling in for me on 8×06. It’s been a busy couple of weeks and while I’m still on a BSG high, I haven’t completely abandoned my other shows – does fandom crossover get better than discussing 24 with President Roslin herself? Anyway, on with the recap…

Summary

Dana calls Kevin, who’s celebrating at a strip club. He asks her to join them, but she says all she wants is for him to leave her alone, like they agreed. “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen,” he tells her, and for some reason she’s shocked by this news. Arlo walks in and asks who she was talking to; he thinks she’s cheating on Cole, and threatens to tell him if she doesn’t do it first. (more …)

Editor’s Note – Sorry for the delay on the last couple of episodes.  Everyone here has had a lot on their plates this month.  We should be back on track now.

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Summary

Rob Weiss tells President Taylor she has almost unanimous support for the treaty. Jack is being taken to meet with Vladimir and tells Cole not to come in as backup. Arlo pulls up a traffic cam image of Jack in the car and notices he has control of the situation. Dana receives a call from Kevin, who has arrived at the warehouse to steal the money. Chloe tells Dana that Cole just checked in and that Hastings wants to see her in his office. Jack arrives at Vladimir’s location, holds Oleg at gunpoint and enters the room. Jack gets pissed at Vladimir for trying to take him out. Jack requests to speak to Renee alone. Lugo says they should take Jack out now but Vladimir says they need the deal. Jack tells Renee he’s going to pull her out but Renee assures Jack she is fine and that it will be worth securing the materials. Dana calls Kevin back and tells him he is good to go. She gives him instructions over the phone on how to infiltrate the facility and grab the money. Kevin gains access to the room and gets the money but his partner wants to stay a little longer and grab more stuff. (more …)

Carlos Bernard’s role as Gabriel on Burn Notice begins this week, airing Thursday Feb 25 on USA Network at 10/9c in the episode “Good Intentions”.  In a recent interview with CinemaSpy.com, Burn Notice producer Matt Nix described the role and the performance:

[...] a bad guy who is really sort of only removed from the characters on the show [...] under other circumstances he could have been one of the team, but he is willing to do certain things that they’re not willing to do and that’s a divide that they just can’t cross. But he’s a guy who’s really committed to what he’s doing, really cares about what he’s doing. It’s a pretty devastating performance.  He’s pretty awesome.

Continue on for the episode’s promo video! (more …)

Kat gave birth to her fourth son on the evening of Friday, February 5th.  Please join AlmeidaIsGod.com in welcoming Nathaniel Isaiah Kuhn into the world.  I will post pictures as soon as Kat puts some (some that are appropriate for this venue, anyway) up on Facebook  Congratulations to Kat and her husband on the new addition to their already beautiful family.

Greetings, all.  Normally this would be Avery’s week to do the OESR, but she’s across the pond gallivanting around Spain with Mary McDonnell, Edward James Olmos, and a bunch of other Battlestar Galactica fans, so we decided to swap writing weeks.  Avery will return for Episode 8 and then we will be back on our regular posting schedule again after that.

Summary

Jack advises Hastings to pull Renee out of the operation as soon as possible because he thinks she is unstable and no longer values her own life.  He suggests CTU can take Vlad into custody and coerce his cooperation another way.  Hastings still thinks Renee is their best shot at finding the nuclear rods and orders Jack to stick with the plan.  Vlad takes Renee back to his base of operations and demands details about the deal.  Renee gives him the cover information on Jack, fills him in on the uranium rods, and suggests he can use his contacts to find out who has them so they can make a counter-offer.  Vlad agrees to mine his contacts on two conditions — his men meet with the buyer first and the buyer provides a $5M “good faith” payment. (more …)

Gareth over at TV or Not TV has posted a fun (and perhaps slightly controversial?) review of Season 8 up to episode 4 (UK viewers are a tad behind).  Highlights:

24 is back and on these fair shores we are now 4 episodes in, my opinions of this season are forever going to be tarred by the lack of Tony Almeida but I’m trying to keep an open mind for Jack Bauer’s 8th “longest day of his life”.

I’ll watch 24 until the day it goes off the air for good, I’m strangely loyal like that, I stuck with Prison Break until it was mercifully put to rest and I’m still watching Heroes in spite of the utter gash they have been putting out recently, so Almeida or no Almeida I’m still a 24 fan.

Because let’s face it, even the debacle of day 6 (which was undoubtedly a debacle even if it did feature the return of Milo Pressman) which was 24 at its worst was better than 90% of the other rubbish on TV these days. (more …)

Summary

It’s 8:00, and Ziya’s thumb bleeds. Jack reprimands Renee, who responds that she’s still their only shot of getting to the uranium. Jack sneaks back to his car as Ziya wakes up. He’s understandably upset, but Renee coerces him into helping her get to Vladimir in exchange for a big payday. He brings her to the hideout, and Jack tries to establish cover with her, meeting resistance when he asks Renee about her past with Vladimir. So like any man in love, he gets a mutual friend (Chloe) to google details about her life online.

Elsewhere, everyone connected to Farhad Hassan is being rounded up. Farhad himself is currently being kept busy by a couple of prostitutes, and Josef convinces his father to let him seek radiation treatment for his dying brother. The two wind up at a doctor’s office, where Josef convinces the doctor to help them… at gunpoint. (more …)