24 Season 8 Review (First 2 Episodes)

My review of the first of the new 24 and their collection of the latest and greatest cliches. Or, a quick and dirty 24 plot generator.


  • Jack is retired
  • Jack is trying to get back to normal life
  • Random un-named-but-brown-and-islamic country is on the verge of some great peace breakthrough with the USA [saluting]
  • [bad guys] do [bad things] in something unrelated
  • [random person] has information that he can only get to Jack
  • Jack still has a hotline to the Prez and calls in a favour
  • Jack has to get [random person] to a place far from where he is
  • Jack and [random person] opt to walk down the street 12 blocks instead of just taking a Taxi
  • At the last second more [bad things] from [bad guys] happen
  • Jack still tries to get back to normal life
  • Freddie Prince Jr.? WTF?
  • Starbuck works at CTU!? Awesome. She’s hot too.
  • Random interpersonal things happen at CTU to gie the illusion that there is character development
  • Random un-named-but-brown-and-islamic president seems good and noble but [close person] and [other close person] seem creepy
  • Cloe is still at CTU and all moody.
  • Cloe is suddenly crippled by a new system. “Ha ha look at the geek who doesn’t know stuff!”. Oh what an original plot twist.
  • Cloe says something ironic and 4th wall breaking… “didn’t this happen too fast?”
  • Jack is brought back to CTU when he just wants to get back to normal life.
  • Hey look, they may have solved it in the first 2 episodes! What are the chances there’ll be a [plot twist]
  • Random [bad guys] still seem to have unlimited money and personnel to do [bad things] and [bad guy leaders] are all placed high up as [trusted figures]
  • Technology!!
  • [Bad guys] appear to have a line to [really high up person]
  • [Good CTU agent] has a mysterious past and a work cell phone number available to [unsavoury people from the past]
  • More random interpersonal stuff happens
  • [Bad person suspect] is brought into CTU (I’ll bet Jack will get to interrogate [bad person suspect])
  • They won’t listen to Jack!
  • Jack is given the standard “I know you’ve been a good cop for [long time], but I’m just going to ignore your well thought out argument” response to a well thought out argument.
  • I bet Jack will go rouge!
  • Jack still tries to get back to normal life
  • Jack ignores going back to normal life
  • Cloe can’t pull up a user dossier, but hack hack into archives of [surveillance] and pull up imagery needed in a few seconds.
  • Technology. ENHANCE!!
  • Jack and Cloe get themselves into trouble with their own team (I’ll bet they have to go rouge!)
  • Jack convinces a government agency he doesn’t work for to give him support, personnel, weapons from the armory to [follow a wild and crazy hunch]
  • DRAMATIC PLOT TWIST!

Then repeat the last 3 steps for the rest of the season.