Loved the season. Great episode too -- good sequence at the docks, good exit for Cheng, great material with Kate. The final scene for Heller is a real emotional wham moment; the show used to have more of these and I miss them but this was worth the wiat. Overall, the season's not as good as the best of the classic series (1, 5, 7) -- the uberfast pace worked against emotional depth at times -- but it's tighter and more consistent than some of the messier seasons. Also, the closing act, while good, lacked the impact of previous seasons which came to really powerful grace notes (notably 1, 4, 6, 7 and 8). I liked the symmetry with 8 though -- Jack saving Chloe and facing justice, and that it's so open-ended.
I agree that the time-jump was basically pointless. I think they realised it was a mistake mid-way through and decided to burn it off at the last opportunity they had. While there seems to be an echo chamber consensus around 12 being better for the show, I do think LAD suffered from not being a full 24. There's something about the rhythm of the show and having a full day that's missing when you skip 12 hours. I didn't think I'd mind as much. Still, any '24' is gold dust so if this is the new format, I hope they do the best with it. Everything crossed for S10.
