[24H] Day 7: 4:00pm - 5:00pm

TV Programme: 24
Season: 7
Episode: 9
Date I watched this episode: 17/02/2009
Time since I last watched this programme: 1 day.

This was quite a predictable, but still enjoyable, episode. Sean is the mole!! Just as I thought at first. They tried to make you think it was Janis, but I never really thought that was likely. Janis's character is interesting in itself, but Sean needs something like this to add some extra depth to his personality. Despite this, I'm still bored by his character.

Another recycled storyline was the use of the police to capture Jack. Although here the capture was triggered by a mole rather than the police themselves, it's still basically been done before (e.g. in season 4), and I think the beginning of the next episode may turn out to be a boring rehash too.

Chloe's introduction into the FBI was interesting from a character development/interaction point of view. Chloe seems to have got a bit more confident, and her confident moody nature will not be well-received by Larry: but he's going to have to deal with it... (You never know, maybe this will be the start of a beautiful romance...)

This episode saw the return of two major recurring characters. Aaron Pierce, making his usual appearance as the only character other than Jack to be in every season (Tony has been in all but season 6). The other one was Morris O'Brien, who was in seasons 5 and 6. Both characters are looking in top form, and particularly Morris I hope we see again.

A huge amount of screentime in this episode was devoted to the Marika storyline, which again has been around in various forms for a long time (an innocent associate of the villain being drafted to help: Stephen Saunders's daughter, Alexis Drazen's girlfriend, Behrooz Araz, etc). There wasn't enough different about this situation. Renee reacted in the obvious way, although it would be true to say that this day is really catching up with her now, so I don't know where they're going with that part. Jack was convincing with her, although I thought his bluntness in saying that the man she loves does not exist, was a bit misplaced.

Dubaku on the other hand is showing he is streetwise about the mercenaries. This is not surprising given what he must have seen in Sangala. I hope we do get some more depth about that; there is not really any backstory to Dubaku at the moment, and we don't really know what the PFA (Juma regime) are fighting for. Also I think Dubaku is quite stupid at the end to let Marika continue to come to him: so he is not quite so streetwise after all.

That's it and I can't watch any further episodes of 24 til next week. 24 is a winning format - but let's not forget that the originality of the show was how it got where it is today. I just hope that something big can happen to make us remember this season for that rather than another "laundry list" of 24 plot elements.