An Underwhelming Season of 24

I can't express how truly disappointed I was with Season Six of 24. For anyone who reads my blog knows, you know that 24 is probably my favorite show on TV. I love Jack Bauer. I own all 5 seasons on DVD and have watched all of them 2 times a piece. That's 240 hours of TV for those of you counting at home.

Needless to say, I was completely excited for Season 6 to start. I blogged about it. I gushed about it. I held my 2nd annual 24 Bad Guy Draft with my buddy and put money on it. The first few hours were decent. Some of the plotlines were interesting. I wondered where the season would go.

But after the 12 hour mark or so of Season 6, I found my "must watch TV" feeling of 24 waning a bit. By the 18th hour, I was truly slogging through episodes, just to keep up with my 24 Bad Guy pool and simply out of my undying love and dedication for the show. Something happened to change that though this season. The plotlines became stale. The cliffhanger commercial breaks too predictable. The characters too shallow.

In past seasons, I'd be on the edge of my seat and a 4 minute commercial break would literally last a hour. Now that I have a Tivo, that 4 minute commercial break has evaporated to something like 1o seconds between the action. That might be the reason, but I really think it's the fact that the producers are working with stale storylines, stale characters and the loss of Elisha Cuthbert - as Jack's smoking hot daughter - which hurt the show more than anyone else could possibly imagine.

Tonight's 2 hour season finale was completely underwhelming right up until the last scene where Jack looks over a cliff and you're wondering is he going to jump? Is he going to blow his brains out? The answers to both were a resounding no. All that Jack did was look out into the distance and look like he was going to cry while the screen faded to black. I could have swore that I saw a jumping shark in the distance.