Forum:24 Sucks?

Forum: The Situation Room > 24 Sucks?

Seriously not trying to troll or vandalize or anything, I'm actually a wiki administrator on other wiki's, but I would like to debate with some of you admins and fans of the show.

Let me explain my position. I used to be a hardcore 24 fan, watched every season and was hooked on it for years. I even made edits back in 2012 on another account on this wiki and updated pages frequently. However, now I am older and have recently watched some of the episodes again, I am finding the whole show pretty awful.

Season 8 is just abysmal, there are so many plot holes I am beginning to lose count and trying to even struggle to finish it. I've found myself shouting at the screen on multiple occasions just over how terrible some of these episodes really are. I would like some of you admins to defend the show and debate with me. Main points I have are these.

Tarin Faroush - in the limo with Omar Hassan, yet when the assassination attempt goes wrong, he does absolutely nothing to kill Hassan?

Dana Walsh - This story is ludicrous. She was working with terrorists the whole time and for the first half of the season acts completely paranoid about everything. Then when she finally shows her true colors, the whole character changes from nervous to calm and cold. As if she would waste time dealing with Kevin in the first place, why didn't she just call Samir and get one of his men to take them out? It's absurd.

The Nina Myers twist is also pretty dumb considering Gaines orders Jack to kill her earlier on in Season 1. It's like the writers are just making this stuff up as they go along. There are other ridiculous subplots I won't go into, mainly the fact when Hassan switches vehicles in Season 8 and the fact that the car just drives freely out of the parking lot without anyone from CTU stopping them.

Honestly I'm not trying to troll or anything but I used to be a hardcore fan and now I'm older and watching it again I'm finding it truly awful when you think about how ridiculous some of these twists are, they make absolutely no sense. I would like to debate with some of you fans about this and let me know what you think. Just want a peaceful debate nothing more, curious to know if some of you also feel this. Seriously try watching Season 8 again knowing what happens and see how you feel.-- (talk) 14:05, April 22, 2016 (UTC)

I agree that season 8 wasn't very good. But I disagree that the Nina Myers twist made no sense in Season 1. Nina wasn't working for Gaines, and Gaines had no knowledge that Nina was working for the Drazens. If Gaines knew about her, why didn't she leak info to him instead of getting Jamey to do it? Nina hired Jamey, and Jamey was provided to Gaines as the "CTU mole" by the Drazens in order to protect Nina's cover should everything go south. Nina killed Jamey when she was in custody to stop her leaking the fact Nina was dirty. It makes sense to me at least.--Acer4666 (talk) 16:03, April 22, 2016 (UTC)

You would think Jamey would tell them to leave Nina alone though, given that Gaines nearly killed the Drazen's main mole, you would think they would have told him about another deeper undercover mole and to just be wary of harming anyone else in CTU. Plus I'm pretty sure I remember reading that the writers didn't decide that Nina would be the mole until like episode fifteen. When I watch season 1 again a lot of stuff Myers does to help Jack doesn't really add up.-- (talk) 18:25, April 22, 2016 (UTC)

Jamey wasn't aware she was ever in danger until Gaines messaged her saying Nina was dead. They may not have decided until then, but I think it makes sense - I actually once tried to write an explanation of the various moles' actions during Day 1. Essentially Nina was not actively doing anything except preserving her cover for the majority of Day 1, and it wasn't until the final hours that the Drazens were ordering her to do things to aid their plot. That is my interpretation of what happened and it seems to make sense for me. I think Season 1 of 24 is some of the best television, but I do think after that season there was a sharp drop in quality. There's some other good stuff in some of the other seasons, but I wouldn't defend it as a perfect TV show--Acer4666 (talk) 20:15, April 22, 2016 (UTC)

My Response

(Made a new section since this is kind of long ahaha).

Lemme throw my 2 cents in. First off, thanks for the politeness, it wasn't easy for me to not imagine this was a troll comment when I saw the title xD Anyway, I got into this series last summer (August 2015). I'd known about it and briefly checked about it in the 3-4 preceeding months, and I spoiled myself massively before I got into the series which actually made me a lot more interested. I am a fanboy of the show, and the fact that I could watch all the eps in succession (as opposed to weekly waits) absolutely helped me. I love the show.

Now in the future, I will become disinterested a lot in the show probably. Idk how often this is for people (it's a very strong/frequent phenomena for me), but time will change my perspective on media a lot. I'll probably lose my fanboyism.

And frankly, the plethora of info as well as my frequent edits on this wikia have seriously helped cultivate my interest. To you other guys like Acer, does editing advance your interest?

Personally I love S8. It's got a great, high-speed plot; it felt more kinetic to me than the other seasons. Only big flaw with it in my eyes is the Kevin Wade subplot.

Okay, enough rambling, let's get to the point lol. Now I can understand why you hate this show now - different strokes for different folks, we all have our own opinions. Let's get to the debate of plot holes, this'll be fun lol.

1) Why didn't Tarin Faroush just kill Omar Hassan? He was trying to secure his cover. Faroush would've lost his cover, which in turn would've reduced the cell's capacity to carry out the Nuclear fuel rods plot, which was a lot more important than Omar's assassination.

2) What the hell was the deal with Dana Walsh? - This is an agreeable one. Why the hell didn't Dana just kill Wade herself, or have one of Sergei/Samir's boys do so? What leverage did he hold? And also though this is kind of a point of my own xD, it feels quite contrived that Sergei, despite the fact that he (as we learned in his final episode) was in contact with Dana, never thought to ask Dana who the hell this "Ernst Meier" was?

3) Jack ordering Gaines to kill Nina contradicts/contrives the Nina twist - I disagree with this one. First off, it could very well be that the Drazens (who hired Gaines) didn't think to tell them about Nina (and not to mention, I'm pretty sure the Drazens only knew Nina as a codename I believe).

About what you said later on with how Nina helping Jack doesn't make sense; I'd disagree politely. Maybe Nina's German contact didn't activate Nina until later on in the day. Quite frankly, Nina was extremely meticulous and ensuring the security of her cover. So I'd politely disagree.

I'd love to hear more counter-arguments and ridiculous subplots of yours, this is fun to debate :)--SuperbowserX (talk) 00:06, April 23, 2016 (UTC)

RE: My reponse

But Faroush was going to die anyway. They even mention this later on when Samir reminds him that he was "willing to die in Hassan's limousine earlier". So he must have known he was going to die by getting into that car with Hassan. Surely if he was that dedicated to his cause he would have just shot Hassan and then turned the gun on himself? Because he was willing to die anyway.

Glad you agree on the Dana one because that is my main problem with Season 8. Season 8 was actually the first season I ever watched back in 2010, and I remember distinctively at the time that I thought that twist was amazing, totally didn't see it coming and it shocked me. But when you watch the episodes again, it honestly doesn't add up.

Here's another point, if Dana had been at CTU and acting as a mole like she was supposed to, she would have known that Farhad would have really died when he got shot. Therefore they wouldn't have needed to send someone else to bomb the hospital and thus CTU would have had no leads. I think that is a really interesting point and just shows how ridiculous that whole plot really is. Why on Earth is she wasting so much time dealing with Kevin and his friend? It's absurd. Plus she would have known the events of the terrorists attacking the city would end pretty soon, so why not just tell Kevin: "come back next week or even tomorrow and I'll make you loads of cash." Kevin and his friend had done the heist and weren't going to be bothering Dana for a little while so why not just wait and deal with them another day when all this carnage will no longer be around?

I think my favorite quote from Season 8 just has to be when a CTU worker comes to tell Hastings about a parole officer wanting to speak to him? I laughed hysterically at that. After everything happening with the EMP, terrorist threat, and CTU without any power, he honestly would want to speak to a PAROLE OFFIER?! It's absolutely hilarious. -- (talk) 16:59, April 23, 2016 (UTC)

This forum really should be reserved for site discussions, but anyway... Yes, 24 is full of horribly contrived plot developments that make no sense. It has been from the very first episode; don't let anyone tell you differently. That comes from having to maintain an absurdly convoluted storyline with 6-7 different subplots over 20+ hours of television. It was impossible to plan out in advance because of the nature of TV development cycles, so you inevitably have characters and stories turning on a dime on the way to the finish line. Sure, it all falls apart if you look at it wrong but the show was never about the plot first and foremost - it's an over-the-top action delivery system with some terrific acting and character work to boot. The stable of writers, like them or hate them, pretty much perfected that combination of elements. Would it be nice if they could mix it up a bit more or inject a little more coherence? Absolutely, but it's secondary to making sure Jack Bauer has enough villains to behead or throw out windows. It suffers most when it's distracted from that goal, or when something clearly isn't engaging enough in its own right - like the subplots you're referring to. I'm probably a minority but I'm cautiously interested to see what happens with 24: Legacy which seems to be a much more ensemble-focused affair like the earlier seasons were. --Pyramidhead (talk) 17:46, April 23, 2016 (UTC)