24, Past and Future

We thank gentle reader Rob for directing us to this paleodigital trailer of the early exploits of Jack Bauer:



We direct gentle readers further to the informative article on the travails of 24 production for Season 7 in this day's WSJ. Besides the writers' strike and the problems of keeping any television franchise fresh, producers are struggling with Hollywood culture's reaction to charges that the show has normalized torture.

And so we challenge the comic minds who created the video above to make a second that examines 24 in the political environment of the 1990s. Maybe Jack trying to stop a corrupt cattle futures or real estate deal, head off an extramarital tryst, or prevent a corrupt presidential pardon?

Meanwhile, it appears that the cursed Audrey has been revived and thanks to the trauma of her Chinese incarceration been transformed into a bimbo featured on Lipstick Jungle, a program whose name and publicity demonstrate it so patently execrable that we promise never to watch once or comment upon again. We do thank the show for one public service, however: the assurance of no more Audrey sightings on what's left of our favorite TV experience.