Flatliners

Okay, if you don't want to know about 24, this would be good time to get the hell out, before it's too late!

Read that last part in your best gruff Kiefer Sutherland voice, just for effect.

Has any character in the history of television actually died as many times as Jack Bauer? I think Buffy only died once, unless you count the whole alternate universe thing. Fox Mulder comes to mind, but even in Colony/End Game, I thought it was more of a long string of very close calls. The franchise probably died more times than the character. Of course, there's Aeon Flux, but I'm excluding cartoons, because then you have to include Wile E. Coyote, who couldn't possibly have survived all those falls.

By my count, Bauer is up to three short journeys into the great beyond, and counting, presuming that he didn't disconnect the EKG machine before going all Hannibal Lecter on that terrorist. Red meat for conservatives, indeed!

Anyway, I don't buy into this "24 as neocon fantasy" story one bit. If anything, I think the writers are doing a pretty good job of making the government's actions in the face of domestic terror look a bit dubious, at best. Mostly by emphasizing the good Muslims (and didn't Alexander Siddig have blue eyes when he was on Trek? And why do I feel like I remember that?) and making the president's sister a much stronger, more likeable character in fighting for civil rights than Peter MacNicol's sniveling little weasel.

I also suspect the matter of torture is going to flip on the right-wing fans of the show before this season is over, now that Jack has spent almost two years at the mercy, or lack thereof, of the Chinese.

There's enough going on here to make the show a bit more of a Rorshach Test for any ideology, and that the right gets so enthusiastic about it, and actually use the show as a justification for their real-world belligerence, says more about them than it does the show. To paraphrase Olbermann last night, to believe this relates directly to reality, one would also have to believe there's a cheerleader in Texas who can't die.

Knowing it's not real doesn't make me roll my eyes at the notion that Jack's been locked in a cell and beaten for twenty months, but is able to run at a full sprint after an hour or two of the restorative powers of the California sun. And if CTU gets one more conveniently-timed tip from out of nowhere, I might give up watching altogether.

Except that I won't, of course. I'm hooked.