[24H] Day 7: 11:00am - 12:00pm

TV Programme: 24
Season: 7
Episode: 4
Date I watched this episode: 10/02/2009
Time since I last watched this programme: Less than 1 day.

After the mind-blowing previous episode, an episode to set the scene and move the general story forward was needed. The timing of it, while it doesn't bother me particularly, was surprising since this was the last part of the "4-hour premiere event" as the episodes were originally shown. I would have expected something a bit more thrilling to end this event and compel viewers to tune in again the following week.

Well, after gloating about my accuracy in last week's review, I am now rather forced to concede defeat. Tony really WAS a terrorist, and this is the real shock of the episode, certainly throwing Jack off guard. Fortunately, things that happened in the past don't tend to affect viewer's perceptions of a character, and so the writers can continue telling stories about Tony's past brutality, without destroying the persona they worked to create.

Chloe on the other hand seems to be somewhat naive this season. Since they have been working on this for at least a couple of months, you would have thought that Bill and Chloe would have faced some tough decisions, and that Chloe would know what was at stake. Her resistance to the idea of allowing Motobo's capture is not very believable.

Renee seems to have found it within herself to be a bit more brutal in her interrogations. She has found an inner anger with herself for trusting Jack (perhaps amplified by the fact that she's clearly interested in him) and is good at channeling this anger to push herself to a place that she couldn't have got to alone. Seeing this develop will be interesting, and I have no doubt she'll be back on Jack's side before too long.

Every time we have a new president, head of CTU, etc etc, they don't know what an absolute legend Jack Bauer is, and so tend to act in the wrong way until they have this figured out. It has happened so many times before that it's just getting boring. I wonder how long it will be until Jack gets on the phone with the president!!

Emerson really came into his own in this episode; he had been something of a background character before. I actually quite like him; he is a good villain, and not your stereotypical British actor on an American show. He is pretty believable, very intelligent, and has the potential to be very three-dimensional. I'll look forward to seeing more of him (now having said that he will probably be killed off in the next episode...)

There is something very suspicious going on with Ethan and Secret Service Agent Gedge. Either one of them might be a mole. I would imagine it's Gedge, as he has not been around for very long. If so then that's pretty bad because he's perfectly positioned to do pretty much whatever they want to the First Gentleman. I don't much like Ethan's character actually, it is a bit dry. I did like his argument though that a superpower should make sure it stays intact itself before worrying about anyone else. This makes some logical sense.

I couldn't finish without mentioning the reference to the law firm Gage-Whitney-Pace. This fictional law firm is a staple of Aaron Sorkin's, appearing in The West Wing and Studio 60. It's interesting to see it appear in a series Aaron didn't create, and perhaps a testament by the writers to Aaron's undisputed genius.

This episode set up story mostly, but you need those from time-to-time. It has given us some all-important answers, developed some characters, and generally paved the way for some first-class drama to come.