a good show

Why do the phones never work on the TV show "24" when you want them to? You could almost set your clock by how predictable the show is during certain situations, such as when the phone works or not. On one hand, Jack Bauer (the show's hero) could be 10 miles below ground and only 2 minutes beyond surviving a nuclear blast, but somehow his phone would work if the scene called for it. On the other hand, if a whole crisis could be settled with one phone call, then Jack's phone would be out of order. "They've jammed the frequencies!" he'd proclaim.

This is just an observation, not a complaint. I love the show and will miss it when it's finally gone. I love how it brings back past characters that haven't been seen in a long time. Remember that likable secret service agent who was in a handful of episodes in Season 3? Well, there he is again, popping up for a few scenes this season. It's like seeing an old friend again.

The character I miss now is the show's first president, a big and strong figure who just happened to be black. I've heard jokes about how the show actually paved the way for the U.S. to elect Barrack Obama, because white voters were made comfortable by seeing how effective a black president could be on "24". I thought that the actor who played the president was named Dennis Hastert, but it strikes me now that Dennis Hastert is the name of a retired GOP politician from Illinois.

There has been a whole handful of presidents on "24". There was the first one--the black guy--and then the current one (a woman). There was the Dick Nixon look-alike. There was the actor who played Rev. Jim Jones in the late '70s TV movie. Jim Jones was the guy who convinced all his followers to drink poisoned Kool-Aid at his church compound in Africa. (They all died.) There was the second black president, who was the brother of the first black president. There had to be a few more that I've forgotten about.

One thing I got a kick out of during a past season was when there was a nuclear blast in California. The location might have been Los Angeles. I didn't get a kick out of the blast going off, of course, but by the fact that in a later episode there was a scene of people at a crowded intersection just going about their way, waiting for stoplights and window shopping and that sort of thing. That was actual real life, of course, meaning that the people who produce "24" just positioned their cameras to film a generic background in the city. But c'mon, do you think that if a nuclear blast went off in your town, you'd be stopping for some window shopping? Well, neither would I.