A question of timing

Before I get to my thoughts about this week’s 24, a note about timing:

It’s been said that in comedy, timing is everything.  Timing, at least in that way, is good.  But there’s also such a thing as bad timing.  And after watching the first 3.5 seasons of 24 with the Civee (to get her caught up), I’d like to say that 24 (specifically, the scenes at CTU) is a treasure trove of bad timing.

Consider the following scene, for example:

[the timer clicks from 8:34:35 to 8:34:42 as we open in CTU, a random CTU employee approaches the CTU director, who is holding two phones up, one to each ear]

CTU Employee:Mr/Mrs. Director, I have this hangnail

CTU Director: What next?!  (all attention goes to a big ass viewscreen on the CTU wall) OH NO! Terrorists just detonated a nuclear device on the Kentucky Nub and have assassinated the Secretary of the Interior! Well, we gotta prioritize…let’s tackle that hangnail.

Stuff like that happens all the time.  And it isn’t just your CTU employees who are the victims or perpretrators.  People from walks of life ranging from crackheads to relatives of the President of the United States have not realized that a national emergency trumps their little world.  But at least today, Bill Buchanan tried to avoid it.  His initial attempts were successful, but he caved after being repeatedly bothered by Nadia and Milo.  We here at the Kingdom wish Buchanan the best in instilling in CTU a better sense of timing.
Other thoughts about this week’s episode:

Kind of a ‘meh’ episode, at least from my viewpoint.  The biggest flaw with this episode was that it needed more Jack.  Also, I don’t like where this whole Tom (not the King) thing is going.  They’ve already done the highjacking the presidency bit back in season two.  I like this season so far, but let’s hope this hour was this season’s weak point.

Some other thoughts:

-I like the casting of James Cromwell as Jack’s dad.  I didn’t realize he was that tall.  He towers over both of his sons.  I think the only way they could have picked an actor other than Donald Sutherland to play Jack’s father was pick someone three feet taller than Keifer.  That way, the father would have some sense of authority over Jack.

-Unintentionally funny line of the night this week was from Jack’s father: “I’m trying to keep my son out of prison.”  Considering where Jack was just a few days ago, I’d say that Gray/Graeme/Lobot/Whatever the hell his name is Bauer has nothing to worry about.

-And just another note about the evil Bauer:  When he turned heel, he should have popped in the earpiece and poured himself a glass of scotch or whatever he was drinking last season.

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