My Tivo is Broken

... Which means that I don't know if Jack Bauer tortured anybody on 24 last night.

And I really don't care.

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I stand by my earlier reviews of this season. (Click 24 in the LABELS below.) USA Today writer Robert Bianco seems to have figured out what I strongly suspected after Hour 1.

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President Logan: Now More Than Ever

Today is a big day: Millions of Americans will celebrate President's Day with parties, gift-giving, large family feasts and street festivals. It's one reason why President's Day has become in recent years not only a favorite of schoolchildren but also the 110th largest shopping day of the year, according to figures recently released and made up by the website The Cup of Joe.

So tonight, as you gather with friends and family for your annual President's Day observences, you may want to flip on Fox's 24, because ex-President Charles Logan returns with "new facial hair and a new attitude."

There's no specific hint about just what the Nixon-esque Logan will bring to the plot tonight, but I think it has something to do with either energy policy or wage and price controls.

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24 Keeps Ticking, Like a BOMB

I'm sticking by my "pictorial review" from the last time Fox's 24 had a special two-hour episode.

Someone needs to set up a perimeter, find the men responsible for this year's writing by doing a grid search, and then move in for the arrest.

And fast, will ya?

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Is America Ready?

At near right is Wayne Palmer, the new president of the United States on this season of Fox's 24.

I've given this a lot of thought, but frankly I don't think America is ready for a president with facial hair.

The audacity of not shaving gives me no hope that Wayne Palmer could ever have survived the Iowa Caucus.

Jack and Jim See The Problem Clearly

I would bet that the very real Sen. James Webb and the very fictional Jack Bauer probably have the same Myers-Briggs test score: ISTP, as in "I See The Problem."

Unfortunately, it's going to take a lot more than 24 hours to fix the mess we're in.

Pictorial Recap of the First 4 Hours of 24

"Put down the script with the crappy dialogue NOW!"
-- Jack Bauer

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20 + 4 = Cure for Cancer?

A prediction for the upcoming season of 24 on Fox: Jack Bauer, in between foiling (by himself) simultaneous terrorist attacks in major U.S. cities, also will end global childhood hunger, cure cancer and win the Nobel Prize for literature. (This is provided that Chloe is able to download the mainframe data to Jack's PDA in less than 10 seconds, before Bierko can reprogram the trigger mechanism for the stolen cannisters.)

And Jack won't even break a sweat.

You can watch the trailer for the new season at this link. And be warned: Things aren't looking so rosy for San Antonio and St. Louis.

No Coffee This Afternoon

Tonight is the two-hour season finale to 24. Watching this show makes me nervous, so we shut off early today the flow of delicious Sumatra blend because Coffee + 24 = Nervous. Will Chloe be able to load the mainframe backup to Jack’s PDA in 10 seconds (or less) so Jack can produce the recording that proves that President Logan was complicent in the assassination of President David Palmer? Frankly, it takes me longer to log onto AOL than it does for Chloe to hack into an encrypted system, determine all data anomalies over the last 24 hours and then cross-reference with several years worth of satellite photos. Bierko!