S01.E04: 3:00pm - 4:00pm

[Stratego]

6 hours ago, Bill C. said:

I'm guessing they wanted to make a clean break for this semi-reboot (for all we know, though, they may have asked Yvonne Strahovski to come back and couldn't make it work), and I'm still generally okay with that...but I tended to think that anybody that stepped into Kiefer Sutherland's admittedly large shoes would have had a rough go of it in general, and so far Corey Hawkins is right there.  He's not bad, IMHO, but he's not great either.  It doesn't help that Ashley Thomas seems to have more overall presence than he does, albeit in the smaller doses we get.

All that said, I'm still cool with the secondary stories...warts and all.  The primary story has Miranda Otto, and I'm there for her (and to see exactly when dumbass Ben gets whacked, because he pretty much has to get whacked).  Action Bae earned a pass when she clocked Aisha with a pipe.  Oddly, though, I think I'm most invested in Amira's story--in part since it contains perhaps the only other person who is pretty much guaranteed to die, Mr. Harris.

I believe the "top CTU operative" (the one shot) is a dead man walking--he's holding the job that Corey Hawkins will hold in Season II.

[gallimaufry]

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.