Monday, July 17, 2006

Our next President

...at least on 24, will be Wayne Palmer, brother of the late former President David Palmer. I can't say this is a development that thrills me; 24 has done far too much with of playing musical Presidents, and it's hard to picture Wayne as being suited for the job after watching him screw up one thing after another during Season Three. Plus, it would have been nice to see some more of Ray Wise, who did a good job with very little to do it with in the relatively thankless role of playing Vice President Gardner last season; the character only existed as a red herring, but Wise gave Gardner some real depth in just a few episodes.

Still, if the creators of 24 felt like they had to go this route, I wish they'd at least have set Day Six on the day of inauguration, and somehow worked the shift in administrations into the plot. We've seen any number of scenarios in which an unplanned change of leadership has wreaked havoc in a crisis situation; why not explore how a shift that everyone on the planet knows is coming can change things this time around?

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