The Funny Side of "24"

When we're watching uber-agent Jack Bauer on "24" we never know whether to laugh, cry or worry.

Since "24" was shot in Washington this season, we get to giggle over the silly transitions that take place around town.

Last night, Jack was pursuing a rogue Secret Service agent. The agent, being tracked by his cell phone (this is something that canbe done, even if it is "off"), was reportedly on the Beltway, headed to Andrews Air Force Base. Jack was downtown, near the Capitol building. Needless to say, he was going to have a hard time catching up with this guy in D.C. traffic.

Fortunately, the FBI guy gave him a good tip: take Connecticut Ave. Only Connecticut Ave. goes in the wrong direction. Oh well. Good ol' Hollywood worked it out--Jack drove around the block and caught up with this suspect by driving the wrong direction down a one-way street.

We bet a lot of Washingtonians would like to figure out THAT shortcut to Andrews Air Force Base!

We also liked when the FBI guy insisted that Jack meet him "by the reflecting pool." To most Washingtonians, that would be the pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. But Jack met him at the reflecting pool in front of the Capitol. Now, if the writers wanted to be funny, they could kill some time by having Jack show up at one pool while the FBI guy went to the other. They could then call and yell at each other!

Last week, Jack broke up a terrorist operation in D.C. We'll bet the Canadians were surprised to learn the African terrorists were working out of the Canadian Embassy.

After the lead terrorist had his whole operation shot up, he calmly walked out onto the street. Then he took Metro home, fixed himself some tea, talked to his girlfriend and then managed to have a henchman (the rogue secret service agent) kidnap the President's husband. It all took about 13 minutes. That guy is efficient, we'll say that for him--he'd never survive at a government agency.

Last night, while the lead terrorist was in the middle of forcing the President to stop an invasion by threatening her kidnapped husband, he suddenly got a call on his cell phone. It was his girlfriend's sister, who doesn't like him. She had some info that she was going to blackmail him with. So while his guys are torturing the First Man, he LEAVES to go deal with his girlfriend situation.

Now really, couldn't he have waited another half hour to take care of the girlfriend's sister? Like we said, this is one cool customer.

He also seems to have an unlimited supply of henchmen. Bauer has already killed off at least 20-30 of them, but he's got more waiting, all over town. Again, quite the model of efficiency to manage all these henchmen so well!

The show's only one third of the way through the 24 hour day, so this terrorist is going to need about 400 men when it's all said and done.

Mrs. Curmugdeon asked a good question last night: why doesn't SNL do a parody of this show? We think the answer is that it already is a parody of itself!