gallimaufry

Yes! Love 24 but they used this exact episode at least four times and it wasn't exactly their best to begin with. Johannesson and Harbinson collaborated on the last 24 outing of this plot with Renee but, to be fair, weren't on staff any of the previous times. Hopefully they'll dig a bit deeper. Enjoying the way the season's going. The Russian stuff feels chillingly topical and well-acted although I was disappointed to see Saul's contact offed so quickly -- I liked the old/new Russia tension they were just starting to explore. And the exposition on the way fake news is generated and distributed was excellent. Carrie's trap for Dante was excellent. I was spoiled for the possibility that Dante was a traitor which is a shame because that twist was served perfectly. I'm not convinced he is though although I can't see how it would be anything other than anti-climactic if he weren't. Keane's death-smile at Wellington was priceless but I can't figure out the dynamic between these two for the life of me. His betraying her a few episodes seems to be completely forgotten? It looks like they have but I can only hope there's a really excellent pay-off for that plot twist because right now it just makes the whole White House dynamic look deeply stupid (and not a dramatic, dysfunctional way). Still, the show is on good form again. Can't wait for next week.

Interesting episode. I'm not sure I bought the business with Keane and the funeral but I guess it was a nice grace note. Slightly worrying that Keane only seems to have one advisor around. O'Keefe seems to be on his way out although I'm interested to see if there's more in his storyline. And Russia is touted as a link but nothing is conclusively proved. After its wobble by betting on the wrong candidate last year, the show manages to seem eerily prescient once more. Surprisingly, the most interesting plot is Carrie's. Good to see Lee Ashworth off Broadchurch in the mix. It was a nice bit of spy stuff. So who's Simone working for? Russians presumably. Keane possibly as she tries to keep an eye even on Wellington (who, to be fair, showed himself to be treasonously unreliable not two episodes ago although this seems to have been forgotten already) but this seems a bit arch even for this show.

Excellent episode. Second season in a row the show has had a really ropey start but rallied in the fourth episode. The Wellington plot is still ridiculous - both he and the general should be awaiting trial for treason. And Carrie's upper and downer story still feels like a slow ticker. But the siege plot was excellent. I thought the dog shooting was believable and reasonable under the circumstances. The fake news photograph was an inspired way to twist the knife. The only ridiculous thing is that O'Keefe's signal wasn't jammed and no attempt appears to have been made to do so. But it all felt grimly inevitable. This episode is in general a hit but even when it's missing, I love that Homeland still feels ambitious and cutting-edge. I wish 24: Legacy had bottled a bit of this instead of being so generic.

Mixed feelings about this season so far. I'm kind of in awe that the threats in the show are now almost entirely domestic and it completely works. I do like the O'Keefe plot although it feels like it's moving quite slowly. I like Carrie's illness resurfacing -- it's been years since it's been a major part of the drama and in such a paranoid world, it makes a lot of sense. My problem is that so much seems to route in characters behaving stupidly. Carrie got herself in hot water last week by being careless and while this turned out to be a character point, we basically had the same character point this week that she put herself in danger and nearly lost everything. I didn't need it twice. Moreover, the stuff with Wellington and the General is utterly ridiculous. It's the sort of twist you can get away with on 24 because of the extreme tension of the day and you know it'll be addressed within an hour or two (but even then, they literally had a whole story arc about the Chief of Staff acting to force the president's hand to launch a strike). Keane has the potential to be an interesting president but at the moment the show is struggling with the credibility gap of wanting to tell a Trump story with a superficially similar but actually quite different president. I thought at the end of last season they'd managed to pull off the impossible and re-cast her as a paranoid authoritarian but it's hard to stick the landing.

I think there are many places for the comic to go. Once they start getting some proper vehicles in place and transport opportunities open up, we can look at how different communities have evolved and how the dead are dealt with in different locations. Yes, I think there will be wars but also I'm interested in how they rebuild society. Is there a sense of people belonging to countries any more or will new countries be forged? Will they ever go to the White House? There are mysteries do with the nature of the dead: Eugene early on was investigating why some roam and some lurk plus there were observations about how they respond to winter and how some seem to keep going lost past when they should have rotted; I don't think they'll get too deep into pseudo-science but this could be the basis of a scientific management strategy. Also, what happens when all these dead congregate into an ultra-herd -- imagine a vast moving seam of the dead across America. And there are all sorts of weird and wonderful enemies we could see: cannibals, doomsday cultists, militia groups, etc. As the level of technology ramps back up, we could start to see the dead being used as spies or manipulated in a much more precise way than the whisperers managed. I'd like to see them rebuilding a city. And you know what, eventually, if there are 500 million or so dead in North America and maybe 50,000 survivors in total, assuming some bigger communities are out there... that's 10,000 to dispose of per person. Which, yes, is a lot but the likes of Rick, Michonne and Maggie must already have disposed of thousands each. Over a few decades, we dedicated, armoured and armed teams, it should be possible to drastically reduce the threat from the dead. Beyond that, from a character point of view, I kind of want to see Negan's redemption. I do think he and the Princess seem a perfect couple and I do think Negan will outlive Rick. It's the Negan/Carl relationship that's fascinating to me and although we haven't seen it in play for a while, I think it will come back.

The casting wasn't great but it was the writing that really messed things up by trying to slip too closely into the old show's shadow without having plausible characters. An anthology series pushing the series in a different and fresh direction would work. I do think the 12 hour format may suit other real-time plots besides terrorism. Having said that, S7 was originally going to move away from terrorism and it ended up successful but still very rooted in terrorism. So who knows.

There's precedent in legend for magical children ageing at an unnatural rate -- Merlin, for example. I think Goliath and Elisa made a lot of progress in the comics -- it took them 65 episodes just to kiss. It's not a surprise Elisa would have second thoughts. She makes a mistake out of fear, realises she's made a mistake and sorts it out quickly. It's a shame we didn't get more than the 12 issues so we could see more sides to their relationship but remember that the whole of #3-5 is the equivalent of one episode and a subplot within an episode at that.

I'm really sad to agree with the consensus. Even the S6 finale centred around the insane plot with the Bauer family ended incredibly strong with that Heller/Jack scene. This had nothing of interest because the characters were so undercooked. Tony was wasted. Donovan... it seems like we want to think he's another Palmer but Palmer was shrewd and actually a lot more moral than Donovan is turning out to be (in a twist that was way more interesting on "Homeland"). None of the CTU crowd are of any interest -- Locke didn't even merit a line. It's nothing to do with Jack. Kiefer's amazing but the show could survive without him. What it can't survive is the repetitious plots and dull characters. I still hope against hope that there's a S2. The format is phenomenal and these writers have pulled it out of the bag before. I certainly hope that they remember how they got panned for S6, learned from their mistakes and came back with a very strong S7 instead of thinking that all is okay. And while I've enjoyed Eric, a whole-cast reboot wouldn't be a total loss -- there's no burning need to see any of them back.

Great episode. Helped that there was no Nicole & Isaac and no Papa Donovan. And while John was still a bit annoying, his principles were really put in a vice here which was fun. He's no David Palmer though. Mullins stepping up was brilliant and the Tony/Eric confrontation is awesome. I agree the compressed time is annoying and it's been like this all season. The original show did this as well but it seemed to cover it better a lot of the time. Rather than have a single time skip to make it 24 hours, I'd almost rather they just said that each episode represents 2 hours and use the act breaks to absorb the extra time.

Hardly any Tony -- he's been wasted for four episodes at this point. Henry Donovan is mostly shunted aside - good but the plot was daft. Don't really care about John. Isaac and Nicole are okay but it feels artificial to include them at this point. Until I read this thread, I forgot about the DNI guy and I only finished the episode a few minutes ago. Doesn't bode well for a memorable plot but we'll see. I did like "I'm going to need a few things" - a classic Eric Carter line that I don't think Jack would have said. And although Rebecca's plot is hare-brained, I enjoyed it. Two triumphs: 1. The Rebecca/Eric conversation in the car was great character stuff, well-performed. 2. Bin Khalid pulled a Victor Drazen. Predictable, sure, but it's a classic "24" staple and actually made Jidallah much more interesting. Almost a shame it looks like he's now dead but he wasn't THAT good a villain. Still, I am quite disappointed at this stage. I don't feel they've managed to get into a good groove with it.

I really liked this although it felt like it needed another 20 minutes. I haven't liked Keane all season but the final twist with her was golden and allows the show to slot much more neatly into the current climate without fundamentally changing anything about her character. It reminds me of Greg Itzin talking about how in "24" many people found Charles Logan's turn from incompetent to villain redemptive (although I loved him in all modes). Having a paranoid, inconsistent, dangerous head of state is going to make for an interesting backdrop to S7. I really liked the way the Saul/Keane scene played the whole Prince Hal scenario and then immediately undercut it. Peter's death was really surprising and sad but I had wondered how they could credibly bring him back for another season and he went out brilliantly. He'll leave a big gap in the show. Rupert definitely deserves an Emmy. I think the writers deserve credit too for not backing down on the consequences of last season. I hope there aren't any dream sequences. I would have liked more on the memorial. I don't see any evidence of some dark conspiracy around his leaving -- they killed off Brody for similar reasons and it seems evident that they were ambivalent about even putting him in S6 until they knew they had a role for him. This is perfectly sensible and he basically inherited Brody's role in the show. Max frustrates me. He's been quite an important character at times this year and now he's back to being a footnote character to support an emotional moment for Carrie. I feel like in 6 years, he's never really had much presence. Dar also got short change here. I wanted to see him finally brought to justice. I did like that he wasn't quite as extreme as it seemed during the season. Terrific character and I hope he'll be back in S7 somehow. Carrie and Franny... difficult to really feel connected to this. The social worker is contemptible but otherwise I felt like it took up time from more interesting things. I hope they can sideline Franny as much as possible next season. The hotel set-up, whatever its deficit of plausibility (and I don't watch these shows for procedural plausibility but as a "black mirror" on world events so none of that particularly bothers me), was a terrific action scene. Made me think that this is the sort of thing 24: Legacy should have been doing. Overall, the season started slow but overall is probably the strongest in the show's run. I really enjoyed it.

Oh dear... eps 6-7 looked like it might come together but now it's spinning apart again. So next week will be the third consecutive episode with a different spouse as hostage. John is dull and so is his dad. The CTU agents are all bland. What was with Nasiri's woman agent -- in it for all of 5 seconds? The hostage was annoying more than sympathetic. I feel like the original show would have been more likely to blow her up. There's an interesting wrinkle in the villains but overall it's weak stuff. So disappointing.

After two weeks showing solid improvement, this was a definite backslide. The problem with doing a show with three parallel torture plots is that the comparisons count. Having the terrorist give up his boss's location really easily but the heroes makes the villains less credible and the whole thing falls to pieces. Also, the Henry plot is beyond boring and even Tony (so far, very underused) isn't saving it at present. Smits did some good scenery-chewing but the whole torture or not storyline feels so 2009. Eric's plan was pretty crazy and, true to form, it looks set to backfire. Isaac coming to the rescue was cheesy but cool to watch. The bombing looked cheap -- the show needed an equivalent of the gas explosion hero shot from S5 to cement Carter. But the handover from one boring terrorist who, at least, has some kind of past connection with Carter to another one who is only distinct because he seems like he might know parkour just makes me roll my eyes. Who cares? The trouble with doing a 12-episode run is that the show needs to find its groove quickly and well. I have no problem with a post-Bauer 24 whatsoever -- some of the strongest storylines over the years have been the non-Jack ones (especially Logan). But the characters are all boring or stupid or both, the plot feels undercooked and trite and the show just doesn't have its mojo. It's so disappointing and I hope it doesn't close off opportunities for more 24 in future.

Excellent episode -- a second successive high-water mark. It's a shame the season doesn't seem to have been better received because it's showing promise. I do think the reprise of a couple of classic scores helped (heard a hint of Jack/Audrey in Nicole/Isaac). Having Tony back is terrific. Such an incredible character and he's in a fascinating place now -- the ghost of CTU past. The Nicole/bin Khalid scenes were electric and I also liked the stuff with Andy. It's all vintage CTU - sacrifice, desperate measures, hostage exchanges, but it's really well done. But yeah, Tony/Rebecca doesn't make any sense in the timeline if it's after Michelle died. If we put Season 1 in Spring 2000, he met Michelle in 2001, they were married by 2004, she died in 2007 and he was "presumed dead" until 2013 when he emerged as a terrorist which would be career suicide for Rebecca to be anywhere near and her career certainly hasn't suffered. He was then in jail until at least 2021 (it says it's 8 years after he was sentenced so, more realistically, 2022) and that must make this 2024 to fit in with the presidential cycle. 2 years isn't "a long time ago". Oh well. On the plus side, there's a good chance that the sitting 24 president could be the first president to complete a full term of office since David Palmer (and even he was removed from office for three hours under the 25th amendment). Anyway, I'm glad the show is entering its second half strong. I do think it suffers from being 12 instead of 24. Also, there were quite a few moments where the editing was too tight for the real-time to be believable -- especially the consecutive scenes with Mullins/Donovan and Mullins/Rebecca. Sundown is still lightning fast too. Still -- niggles. I'm loving the ride.

Tony was never a terrorist for ideology. He simply took "the ends justify the means" to a terrible conclusion in pursuit of vengeance and to bring down the secret organisation which, let's not beat around the bush, killed an ex-president, tried to have another killed and sold chemical, nuclear and biological weapons as well as state secrets to multiple terrorist groups. Even killing Jack made perfect sense as a play. Tony at his darkest was only a hair's breadth away from Jack on the moral spectrum most of the time. As for the episode -- a big step up. The bridge sequence was tense and the guy on the bridge was brilliant (although it hit close to home after yesterday). Amira's plot finally clicked and then didn't overstay its welcome (although I was disappointed it didn't end up folding into the CTU storyline... Amira had been well-developed enough that there's more they could have done with her). Love the role of the dad and brother. Although kidnapping Nicole and Isaac is a little hackneyed, they're more interesting as hostages than in their own storyline. I'm cautious though that this is the third contrivance to make Eric go rogue in the space of six episodes. "24" would do this to Jack a couple of times a season but doing it in such quick succession feels like there's not momentum behind the storyline. Donovan's plot also seems really aimless. Anyway, it may not be top-tier in the whole history of the show but it's certainly a high-watermark for Legacy and with Tony playing a part, things can only get better.

A better episode but the show's still not catching fire. Grimes was annoying and deserves to go. The Gabriel plot felt redundant of similar Jack storylines in S8 and S9; not awful but a little stale. Couldn't care less about Mullins and Andy. The bin Khalid plot is shamelessly treading water. Nicole and Isaac seem peripheral and the plot doesn't intrigue. And the Donovan plot is really daft and dull -- a bunch of plot twists rather than characters. That said, the arrival of the Russian dad provided some good scenes which felt new to the show. And I thought the compound attack was well-done and the final twist was brilliant. It's a shame as I think Corey Hawkins is a good lead and there's a lot of potential in this show; I just hope the writers can get some of the old "24" magic back before the end.

That was seriously intense. The season is great but we'd better get some light soon. The CPS stuff was as grim and infuriating as any espionage scene. It does feel that Dar is over-reaching with this one and there's a lot going on; he tipped his hand to both Saul and Quinn here. I hope this isn't his last season though; even if he's exposed, there's still so much more to do with him. I'm glad Saul and Quinn are catching on and I'm sure Carrie will when she gets her head straight. I don't really get where they're going with Keane; she's not a bad guy but she's still pretty vile. The show has depicted plenty of villainous Muslims in its day (Javadi this episode!) so I don't mind the Israelis and the CIA being the big bad for a change, especially in a conspiracy show. "24" was similar in that it would swing wildly between conspiracy theories -- one season had oil barons and Washington hawks conspiring to hand terrorists a nuke so they could start a war and get rich off the profits while another season had the sweet Muslim family next door as terror kingpins and torture being the only solution. "Homeland" is a strange show. I don't enjoy it enough to ever revisit it (or when I have, I've not found it held my interest) and it takes a long time to ramp up but it can also be really good. I'm really excited to see where it goes in the final 5.

I like Eric Carter. I wasn't sure before the show started about Corey Hawkins but he's been great. However, I was disappointed by this episode. Love the show but every storyline seemed weak and none of them seemed to cohere. The drug deal is boring and seems as tenuously linked to the plot as any of Kim's storylines. The Smits dad storyline is vaguely linked but just stupid and I struggle to see why Smits found it so hard to believe his aide was corrupt and yet instantly seemed to identify his dad as corrupt. The school plot is okay but basically a bit dull and we're just marking time until it runs into the main storyline. As for Carter, he's an army ranger and yet seems fuzzy on orders. I like that Mullins is more of a bureaucrat but the Ben thing seems very flimsy. I know the classic 24 crew did some close to the bone things but touting weapon specs to terrorist supporters in the off-chance that a mentally unstable man might help them track down another group of terrorists seems... far out there. It doesn't help that the nature of the threat seems quite nebulous. I applaud them for not going for another WMD as the show had vastly overused them but the show still has the plot logic of there being a nuclear device in the city without one actually being present. If it were 24 episodes, I'd be more optimistic that it would find its groove. At 12, it's already a third over and shows no signs of pulling it together. Still, I love the show and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for it.

A few silly twists -- DeadBoyfriend getting up and walking, GoodCop believing Carter with absolutely no reason to and SmitsDad being the mole purely, it seems, to provide a twist -- took the gloss off this one. It feels like the twists are a bit mechanical and the main villain has no presence at all. I also agree that I can't see the timeline working with Edgar - any hacking wisdom he had would be ancient by now. However, this is as negative as I can bring myself to be. Carter is terrific and frankly he runs a lot more convincingly than Kiefer ever did. The Ben/Eric scene on the train was great. There are good action scenes and some nice elements. I'm slightly disappointed because episode 3 is often the one that really blows the doors off -- the CTU bombing, Tony being shot -- but it's still a strong run. My biggest concern is that the 12 episode format encourages everything to be so hyper-condensed. Old 24 felt like it had more breathing room and it helped develop the characters. Live Another Day suffered from this as well. Still, I'm hoping the show has time to find its feet. It has a lot of potential.

Loved the episode. It's ratcheting up slowly but surely. I like Carter a lot and although I do miss Kiefer, I will say that Corey Hawkins sprints a lot more convincingly. I especially loved his plan to exploit police profiling. The Donovan/mole plot is a bit weak. The main villain is okay but I really don't find Islamic radicals very interesting antagonists on '24'. I always preferred a greater range of villains and a greater range of motives -- Gaines, Salazar, Logan, Hodges and, of course, Tony were a lot more interesting in this respect. I really hope this goes to S2 and we return to the format of alternate seasons having a different kind of threat. The drug storyline is okay but could get interesting. The school storyline kind of spent the potential drama when the kid was killed, I felt; he's the only sympathetic character there. We'll see though.

Glorious to have 24 back (although annoying that the UK release is so delayed). Lots of great moments. Eric is a great lead so far and I really like Nicole being awesome at the start and the fight sequence at the end. Liked the callbacks; the Edgar reference was a bit on-the-nose but I loved the Jack/Mason parallel scene. Difficult to say much about everyone else just yet. The CTU staff don't have the instant charisma of George, Tony and Nina or many of their successors. Donovan intrigues me but we've seen so little of him at present. S1 had Palmer pre-presidency which was great and S4 only had the president as a minor character for much of it but generally the presidential plotline has been a staple of the show and I hope it's not going to be downgraded as it's often held some underrated plot threads. The school plot feels a bit hokey at present but often these plots in the real-world had the old show's best pay-offs (I particularly liked Kyle and the Chandler Plaza Hotel guests in S3). With an all-new cast to bed in, it will be a little while before we know if it really has the sizzle of the old series but the classic show was generally best when it wasn't trying overly hard to accommodate old characters. I do think the 12-episode format is a big problem. Yes, the middle of seasons could often get a bit hairy but the sense of a complete 24 hour cycle was huge for the original show and it allowed the show to have a breathing room that Live Another Day lacked, not to mention the chance for real character development. Didn't always work -- Alberta Green had more development in half a dozen episodes in S1 than Brian Hastings had through most of S8 -- but there are better odds. Nonetheless, this was a strong start. It's not yet as full-blooded as old 24 but that's an unfair expectation this early. Mostly, episodes 3-4 were the time that the old show would kick into high gear. The CTU bombing, Tony being shot, the Valencia nuke, Jack joining Tony undercover... if we can get even a flavour of that, I'll be psyched.

It's a year and a half on so I guess you've made your decision but personally I thought the later "Fables" stories were very disappointing. The Mister Dark was a bit on the nose but more or less held things together but afterwards, the stories just seemed increasingly aimless and dull. A shame because I really liked the first hundred issues or so.

Stephen Hopkins - wow! That's a surprise. Now we need to make sure Sean Callery is back and if they can get Joseph Hodges too. Kiefer's brilliant but Jack has been completely spent as a character. Series 9 didn't do him any favours by killing the third of his great loves, undermining the beauty of his Series 8 exit and sending him to the gulags. I'm sure all this is misdirection for his inevitable return in episode 6 of this season but there's no reason why the format can't support something different and new. That said, the 12 episode format doesn't appeal -- despite the traditional mid-season slump, the 24 episode format had a rhythm that 12 episodes just doesn't recreate.

I'm all for post-Kiefer "24" but S9 was not an ending for Jack for me. S8 was a much better ending. On the other hand, Kiefer talked before about building his ageing into the story so I reckon we'll see him back.

I've been a bit sad to see the negative reaction to this episode in the press -- I really enjoyed it. Yes, it was slow -- a coda rather than a climax -- and the plot with Carrie's mother was ostensibly out of left field (although thematically it makes perfect sense). But I liked that the suspense was purely psychological. I loved that they really captured the quiet of returning to life after the dirty, mucky and horrific world of the CIA. I liked how it repositioned Carrie, Quinn and Saul in interesting ways relative to each other. The Carrie/Quinn romance, which I feared would come across as forced, now feels totally earned to me. I also liked that, after last season's great success, the show had an unambiguous loss. And for the first time since the loss of Abu Nazir, we have a masterful enemy for Carrie in Haqqani. I'm giving the Dar Adal and Saul plot a bye to see how it plays out. Frankly, the idea of trusting a murderous terrorist not to release a video like that is preposterous -- they'd just wait until releasing it did more damage. But I would guess that Saul would have a long game and thought through that eventuality - Dar too, perhaps. Although I'm not sure I want to see Saul back in charge -- Season 3 was wonderful for this and Season 4 wisely went a completely different route with Saul. But we'll see.