Category: Observation

Well, it’s a bit complicated. but this terrorist wanted to blow someone up who was in hospital. So he gets into the building wearing a bomb vest, but he’s sussed by the good guys and they transmit a blocking signal so he can’t explodipate himself with its trigger. Should have been a wired system mate – much more reliable.

Anyway, plan foiled, they chase each other Benny Hill style around the hospital and the baddy corners himself into a pressure chamber which he locks himself into to give him time to rewire the vest, enabling him to explodipate himself manually so the cops can’t take him alive. I told you it was complicated. Wake up and keep with it.

So, they estimate they’ve got maybe twenty minutes to get into the chamber before he’s able to blow himself up. It’s 1″ thick steel, but they can’t drill through in time. Ooooh – what to do?

Well, this is where my training as a pressure vessel designer comes in.  Simply by adjusting the pressure and/or gas mixture in the chamber, they could have rendered the bady unconcious in less than five minutes.  Nobody in the hospital or any of those clever FBI bods thought of it. They should have rung me.

So, after his miraculous recovery from being stabbed in the stomach last week (which in 24 time is about 15 minutes ago), Jack finds himself in the hands of the Russian arms dealers.

They hang him up by his wrists to a water pipe and start torturing him by repeatedly sticking electrodes in the knife wound he sustained a few minutes ago. He remains conscious, of course, and after about the tenth shock he obviously gets pissed off with it and, using only his legs, overpowers the bloke with the electrodes and sees how he likes some of his own onions.

After just one shock, the bad guy is unconscious and without being heard Jack kicks the water pipes down with his bare feet, frees himself and is able to keep on shooting people.

I half expected him to break out into the Black Sabbath song… “I am Iron Man“… Daaaa Daaaa da da da, da da da da da da daa, daa daa daa!

Well, Jack was right, as usual. That psycho bird who he said was unstable did in fact flip and stabbed the baddy – the only lead they had, by the way (what’s the chances of that happening on 24?) – about twenty times with a six-inch blade. When good ol’ Jack tried to stop her, she gave him some too, right in the stomach. Now I’ve never been stabbed before, but I bet that shit really wokkas and of course he fell to the floor. You would, wouldn’t you?

Another baddy comes in the room to see what the fuss is all about and less than ten, yes TEN, seconds after he has been stabbed Jack has knifed one baddy in the throat and shot at least a couple more. He patches up the wound with a bit of cotton wool and plaster and two minutes later he’s walking round like new. What a fucking soldier.

This week Jack got twatted by a Tazer, strapped to a chair and repeatedly punched in the face. Just fifteen minutes later, he was driving a car, coherent, without a sign of blood or any apparent bruising.

Meanwhile, another ex FBI agent, who’s still experiencing major trauma from her last undercover job six years ago is also roped in to work for CTU without a badge or any proper authority. Now that’s magic!

Woohoo! The waiting is over. Jack’s back and 24 has exploded back on to our television screens. I say exploded – It was more of a phhhhhht! really. A bit like a wet trouser cough. Only more violent.

Anyway, within the first ten minutes there was a firefight in the middle of L.A. involving three blokes using automatic weapons. Street sprayed with bullets, one chap shot in the shoulder, one smashed up car, loads of noise, blood and pain. No bystanders saw or heard anything. Well, if they did, the dimwits didn’t think to call the cops.

Over to the shiny new headquarters of C.T.U. (Counter Terrorist Unit). It got explodipated in the last series so they had to build a new one. I think it’s a studio set really.

Now I don’t know this for a fact, but as I can’t use a mobile phone in a hospital, library, police station or even some pubs, I think it’s a pretty safe bet that you wouldn’t be allowed to use them to take personal calls from terrorists in a top-security establishment such as CTU. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Similarly, I don’t know whether they’ve got a work dress code but I suspect that bird wearing a sleeveless little black party dress and sky-high heels was stretching the rules a bit.

I’ll overlook the fact that Jack, even though he doesn’t work for the Government anymore, is allowed into CTU without clearance and walks round like he owns the place, because you know he going to save the day single-handedly. And that makes it OK.