Kasia says:
um did you watch this week’s video
Matt says:
I sure did
Kasia says:
good
are you with me?
Matt says:
all I can say is I TOTALLY believe it
Kasia says:
good
i’m glad we’re together on this
Matt says:
Almeida is GOD
Here are some highlights from an interblog chat between the webmasters of two of 24’s most dedicated fansites. Delve deep into the Tony Mastermind theory, and relive some classic 24 discussion as well.
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Kasia says:
the season isn’t a referendum on torture
but it is an exploration about how the world and people’s ideas about “ends justifying means” have evolved since the war on terror began
Adam says:
true- I’d say it’s a moral set of questions- how far does a nation go to protect itself without surrendering its own moral authority
Kasia says:
precisely, yes
Adam says:
I give the showrunners credit for discussing this stuff
—
Kasia says:
it was weirdly synchronistic. the show had been in development for awhile before 9/11 and then the attacks happened shortly before the scheduled premiere
Adam says:
that’s right
Kasia says:
but it’s strange because maybe in the end, that is what catapulted it from a cult thriller to an international blockbuster flagship drama
24 and Terrorism with a capital T hit America at the exact same time
Adam says:
I think it caught fire in the States because there was this whole mentality of “We need to be on the offensive” and Jack Bauer was the poster-child for that sentiment
Kasia says:
but in my mind, especially in the early years, that wasn’t REALLY what the show was about
at its heart, it was about the individual men and women
and how they were affected by their experience
As longtime readers already know, we here at AIG have been long time fans of Aaron Pierce. Ever since Season 1. Like from the beginning, not just after it became trendy to love Pierce in Season 5. The Aaron Pierce Fanlisting was one of the very first Fanlistings we founded back in the day. *sniff, Fanlistings*. Anyway, this excellent Q&A with Glenn Morshower, who portrays the stalwart and noble Pierce, features some candid and entertaining stuff! Highlights:
On foreign fan insanity:
There are other countries, by the way, where 24 is far more popular than it is here. If any one of us goes to Japan, it’s like being one of the Beatles. It’s insane in the UK. It’s that way in Australia as well. I flew to Bulgaria to do a movie two years ago. Nobody speaks a lick of English there. But you get off the plane and people are there to greet you in the airport saying, ‘Aaron,’ with wide open arms. They don’t want a handshake. They want a hug. It’s pretty great.
Canada is chop liver, Glenn???? Anyway, now we move on to perhaps the single greatest quote anyone from 24 has ever given to the press, on “shock and awe” in Season 5 and Pierce’s near-death experience:
Howard Gordon, our executive producer and now show-runner, called me and said, ‘I want to give you the heads up. It’s Aaron’s last show. He dies in this one. I didn’t want you to have cardiac arrest when you read the script.’ He assured me it had nothing to do with me personally, which I knew. Basically, they were running out of people to kill that the audience cared about. And after I hung up, I actually cried. It hit me like a ton of bricks. What a sad thing to put this character, who I so enjoyed playing, to rest. And I thought about it and thought about it. And I phoned Howard the next day and said, ‘I think it is a colossal mistake to kill Aaron Pierce.’ This was the season that we killed David Palmer. We’d also killed Tony. Of course, Tony came back from the dead, but we didn’t know that would happen. We’d killed Michelle. We’d had Edgar die in that gas-related situation. Now what are the chances that all of these deaths would occur on the same day in separate incidents? I said, ‘If you’re not careful, the show is going to wind up becoming cartoon-like.’ I said, ‘Let me assure you I’m not trying to lengthen my stay on the show. I’m saying don’t kill Aaron because I think it will hurt the show. So if you’re done with Aaron Pierce, give him the dignity of sending him off in retirement. You don’t need to kill him.’ Less than a week later, Howard called and said, ‘You’ve jolted me with your conviction. My whole take on this has changed and I’m going to bat for you.’ He went to Fox and pitched his newfound feelings and by noon they had destroyed that script.
Carlos Bernard does a Q&A with TV Guide Magazine to get us pumped for the finale. Thanks to site regular JustABill for the heads up. Highlights:
On the “good” and “bad” labels:
I think it’s too simplistic to say he’s a bad guy or a good guy. With a character like Tony, you have to look at the emotional circumstances he’s in. There are reasons for these big dramatic turnarounds.
On issues of believability:
What’s so great about 24 is that nothing is what it appears to be, and once we worked out a believable storyline for Tony, and gave him some bad-guy facial hair (laughs), the changes made sense. Fans watch this show too closely for us to do something half-assed.
On which single episode of 24 he would like to see canonized in an “end of the world” scenario:
I’d have to point to the interrogation this season where Jack Bauer’s strangling me to the point where we find out I’m working undercover with Bill Buchanan. It’s that idea of never being sure who you can trust that always keeps the show so fresh.
On amazing 24 Swag:
This year, they sent me a 24 Pachisuro machine from Japan. It’s a slot machine with animated scenes from the show on it. So cool!
When asked if we will learn Tony’s fate at the end of this season:
We…will.
In the aftermath of Larry’s murder, Tony realizes that he needs a credible way to explain why Galvez took out Larry but not him. Knowing the FBI are already on their way and will arrive any second, he grabs a nearby 9mm and shoots himself in the gut, being careful not to wound himself fatally, in order to make it look like Galvez had shot him as well. While this plan clearly has some logistical issues attached, such as why Galvez would stop to swap weapons in the middle of an ambush, we still have to give massive props to anyone with the cajones to shoot himself voluntarily. Supreme ungodliness! After fielding a call from Galvez and telling him what’s what, Tony plays lame by lying on the ground pretending to be semi-conscious just as the FBI backup team screeches in.
As a medic on the scene evaluates Tony’s gunshot injury, he suggests that Tony go to the hospital, noting that the bullet could have nicked an artery. Tony refuses. The medic then offers Tony some pain meds (heavy-duty, we’re assuming). Despite the sheer agony he is in from shooting himself at close range, he again refuses, saying he wants to keep his head clear. That’s pretty badass. Tony wanders over to where Baker Ripoff is running tactical, and distracts him with ersatz concern over catching Galvez while he sneaks a peek at the FBI deployment grid on Baker Ripoff’s laptop. Quickly, he slinks away and dials Galvez. He gives Galvez a clear route to avoid FBI patrol, and then instructs him to use the remaining C4 in the bag he gave him earlier to rig a large structure in the area, lure as many agents inside as possible, and then blow them away. Wow, that’s fucking COLD, Tony. When Galvez expresses concern that this plan won’t help him get through the perimeter, Tony merely instructs Galvez to obey and leave the rest to him. Even in badness, Tony is still all-knowing. with no tolerance for amateurs.
Question: After seeing 7×19 and letting it sink in a little, where do you sit on the whole idea of Tony Almeida being truly evil?
24% (44 votes) – I’m still reserving judgment until I know more about his motives.
22% (40 votes) – I hate it, but not enough to stop watching.
15% (28 votes) – I don’t love it, but I have an open mind. It could turn out cool.
13% (24 votes) – Finally, the season has balls!
12% (22 votes) – I’M DONE!!! THIS TIME I MEAN IT!!! (in other words, appalled)
8% (14 votes) – I love it in spite of myself.
6% (11 votes) – I can appreciate it, but I will never accept it.
Rob Salem of TheStar.com has written an interesting op/ed in which he compares the subjective (as in, in his opinion) success and failure of two of TV’s most outlandish dramas — Heroes and 24 — in executing suspension of disbelief credibly. In addition to the similarities that Salem highlights in his piece, it is also worth noting that these two shows also share another important similarity — they both have voracious and committed fans who love to dissect even the most minute details of what the showrunners put out to the public. Which I think makes the success or failure of the show suspending the audience’s disbelief credibly even more important. Anyway, highlights:
Fox’s 24 and NBC’s Heroes, respectively, do have superficial similarities – both started off this season coming off an all-time creative low, a season so bad even their creators had to cop to it, and promised an immediate return to form.
This may be 24’s most outrageous storyline yet, and that is saying something.
[...]
We have, by my count, now ascended to the fourth or fifth level of a still-enigmatic global conspiracy, which started with a brutal African dictatorship and came to embrace corporate American war profiteers, along the way assaulting the White House and assassinating the First Son.
[...]
we’re pretty sure Tony has embraced the dark side. Sure, he did, at considerable risk to his own life, single-handedly save the world. On the other hand, he also smothered a high-ranking FBI agent with his bare hands, which is never a good sign.
But who knows? Tony started out the season bad, then turned out to be good, and now apparently has been really, really bad all along. Stranger still, we accept that. Indeed, that’s more than half the fun.
This brings us to the real secret of suspending disbelief: emotional investment. You have to be invested in the characters, good and/or bad, to care what happens to them and how they respond, patently ridiculous as things may get.
It applies as much if not more to villains. A Batman without his Joker is just a big-winged Pez dispenser with anger issues.
Let’s face it, what really drove 24’s best-ever fifth season – the one before last year’s fall from grace – was Gregory Itzin’s Nixonian bad president.
Don’t get me wrong here: producer/star Sutherland remains the show’s reliably consistent solid rock (yeah, right, like he isn’t going to survive the nerve gas). But I for one was genuinely disappointed to see Jon Voight’s CEO of Evil pop the poison pill last week. Then again, he’s a sneaky guy, and I haven’t given up on him just yet.
So, I ‘ve just visited carlosbernard.com to see if anything new happened on the site, and lo-and-behold, there is now a NEWS section, which readers can subscribe to through an RSS feed. Needless to say, I did, right away. I wish I had discovered this a few days ago, though, because Carlos made an appearance at a Taco Bell restaurant in Los Angeles Wednesday, April 22nd, and I have a friend who is currently traveling through the US, and since they just arrived in Las Vegas, she just might have been in L.A. on Wednesday. But oh well… A close miss is still a miss.
Carlos’s appearance at Taco Bell was linked to a public awareness campaign in relation to the low numbers of American teenagers actually graduating from high school, above all Hispanics, African Americans and Native Americans. If you’re interested in reading about the campaign, Reuters has an article on it, or read a condensed version of it on Carlos’s site. If you’re only hot for the pics, check out StarPulse (the format isn’t exactly large, but at least the photos are right-clickable and not watermarked).
I apologize if there are readers living in or close to L.A. who would have not missed the opportunity to meet Carlos if they’d known earlier, I just didn’t see this until now. And it also seems like the post has only been made on Tuesday, 21st, which would have been short-notice anyway.
Be it as it may, during this gut-wrenching Dark Tony era, I thought the rest of you would be just as happy as I was to see some new pics of Carlos, so check ‘em out and happy drooling! 
.
Z on TV (David Zurawick) of The Baltimore Sun offers up a scathing op/ed piece on how, in his words, “24 has become a pathetic parody of itself.” His piece makes some valid points, but also some outrageous and ridiculous exaggerations that could only be made by someone who (once again, in his words) “tuned back in last week and Monday because friends and readers, who I consider to be smart people and savvy TV consumers, told me they are still regular viewers of 24.” OK, so the guy hasn’t watched the show all season, yet feels compelled to skewer it anyway. Nonetheless, maybe there is some value in the perspective of someone who watched the show through Season 6 but hasn’t watched at all so far this season as to how good it really still is. Let’s judge for ourselves.
Highlights that were relatively valid points:
I am no longer talking about 24 losing its cultural mojo as society changed and moved away from terrorists as the bogey men of the American night. That happened last year, and was the point of the Sunday Z on TV column I wrote ripping the prequel to this season.
[...]
This show should have been put out of its misery before last year’s Jack’s-family-is-evil story line. That narrative was merely pathetic.
Highlights that were outrageously wrong, disgustingly condescending, aggregiously exaggerated or a combination of all three:
