Zubeneschamali

I had pretty much decided not to watch 24 this year, because once you nuke L.A., how much farther can you go to grab the audience's attention?  Then I found out Tony was going to be back on, and that Chloe and Bill were running their own mini-CTU (although apparently they weren't able to take the ringtone with them), and I got sucked in again.

So far, I'm not terribly impressed.  I understand that they feel they have to deal with the criticism that they're desensitizing their audience to torture as a method of interrogation--which I do think is a valid criticism and is the other main reason I had decided not to watch anymore.  But you know what, to have Tony say he was working with the bad guys until he found out they were going to kill thousands of American lives, and that the President is weighing the lives of women and children in refugee camps against American lives, and to watch the FBI agent follow in Jack's torturing footsteps with only a modicum of self-doubt and still get results for doing so, all bug the heck out of me.  Stick to the action and let us sermonize about it within the fandom, 'cause we know you're going to have the characters do whatever it takes anyway.

OK, got that off my chest.  I also wanted to say how vastly different the show feels in DC than in L.A.  I lived in L.A. for four years and have spent lots of time visiting my parents in D.C., and it's amusing to see how well they're translating those differences onto the screen.  The architecture is more stodgy, inside and out; places seem closer together (Jack's constant refrain in L.A. of "I'm twenty minutes out" has become a running joke between Mr. Z and me), and then there's the landmarks.  Don't know if they're going to continue this throughout the season, but the fact that nearly every exterior shot includes the Capitol or the Jefferson or Washington Monuments is cracking me up.  It's like they're saying, "Look, look, we're really in Washington! "  So far, it does make the show feel a lot different, which is a good thing--cause the storyline so far has nothing new.

Which is not to say that I won't be watching next week...oh, wait, I won't, 'cause I'll actually be in DC.  Yippee!  I'll keep my eyes out for Jack.  :)