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A DVD Review of...
Images (C) 20th Century Fox, 2002 |
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Cast: Kiefer Sutherland, Sarah Wynter, Elisa Cuthbert, Dennis Haysbert, Penny Johnson, Xander Berkeley, Carlos Bernard
Synopsis: When terrorists threaten to detonate a nuclear bomb in the Los Angeles area, now President David Palmer calls in retired Jack Bauer to once
again head up the CTU to counter this threat and find out whose responsible. Bauer however isn't so keen, the death of his wife has left him shaken whilst his daughter is now living with a foster family and wants little to do with him - although she is about to find out the true nature of her new 'dad' this very day. Palmer himself soon learns there are people in the Government working against him to usurp his position and may have to turn for help to the one person he most despises - his ex-wife. Meanwhile, a young woman named Kate soon learns that members of her family may have ties with the people behind the threat and must find out the truth. Events occur in Real Time over the course of a 24 hour period.
TV Show Review: With great old regulars like "Buffy", "The Simpsons" or "The X-Files" having ended or dropped
in quality, its been up to the networks to come up with fresh product to keep people interested. The sad truth is that they've not delivered for the most part, with whole new seasons coming and going without anything of note. TV at the moment
is filled with a lot of crap, more surprising though is that there are quite a few good quality, highly enjoyable shows out there but they're just not compelling enough to cancel dinner plans or organise your whole night around. Once
great bastions of good writing like "Will & Grace", "Sex & The City", "The Sopranos", "Six Feet Under", "The West Wing", etc. all started out superbly but 2-3 seasons in they suddenly lost that edge which made them compelling TV.
In the first few years of the 21st century, there's only been two new network shows which I would consider a must watch and determine to catch every week. Both shows started in 2001 and are very similar to each other in fact - praised by critics, they're great big story arc-driven shows where you have to watch every week to keep up with the very complex plots & subplots. They're both extremely fast paced, superbly acted, well written, feature some big name guest stars, and are both utterly compelling and thoroughly entertaining television. They also both not only shocked us all with amazingly break-necked paced debut seasons but managed to improve on that in their second to produce some of the best TV I've ever seen. The first of these shows is the brilliant "Alias", the other is this.
The first season of "24" is still a guilty pleasure for me. I saw the pilot back in mid-2001 before its US airdate and really liked it, but the show didn't begin airing here til mid-2002 which meant the DVD release was scheduled to hit after only a few episodes were aired. Thus I held off from watching it, imported the UK discs (the first country to release it)
and sat down over a long weekend and experienced the whole thing in three large chunks. I have to say that in terms of shows for the DVD format, this is arguably the best suited for it. The cliffhangers, the pace, the widescreen/split screen format etc. all looks and works on DVD far better than the full screen once-a-week broadcast pattern.
As much as I love the first series its still has faults - most notably the last 1/3 of the season as Jack is forced to
take on a bunch of East European killers lead by a terrible Dennis Hopper, whilst daughter Kim gets into trouble again
just to keep her in the series which was overkill as the kidnap drama subplot with her mother is one of the entire
series best. For all its creativity, it couldn't sustain its energy much beyond the halfway point and although
it had a small reprieve towards the end it was too little too late. Still with such high quality on offer, I tuned
in each week this year to see what they could do to sustain it.
The second season had no such drop in quality. Even at the 2/3 mark after a significant event happens which ends one the main subplots, it never drops in pace and not only keeps the energy going which kicked it off, but in fact pushes it into overdrive to result in a truly unforgettable last few episodes. Like last year the real-time gimmick is present but its more effectively in the background a little more and enhances the story rather than becoming a crux at certain points. Characters weave in and out of the day more freely and with more credibility than before. Writing, acting, etc. improved all round with Sutherland, Haysbert, Johnson-Jerald, etc. all at the absolute top of their game and beating their work last season. The various girls at CTU this season leave little impression (they're no Nina or Jamie), but other newcomers this time around including "Star Trek: Next Gen" regular Michelle Forbes as the President's advisor and Sarah Wynter as a woman inexorably tied to one of the bombers deliver powerhouse performances.
The one fly in the ointment which screws up this season is Kim. Elisa Cuthbert is a superb young actress, but the writers
struggle all season to fit her into the action effectively and sadly often fail. Starting her off with a decent domestic violence sub-story, she ends up getting lost in the woods for much of the season and here things turn ridiculous as not only is she hounded by a cougar, but every person she comes across is a complete freak job from the survivalist nut who wants to keep her in a bomb shelter, to a convenience store robber with an inferiority complex. Whenever we cut from Jack's gripping chase to find the nuke or Palmer trying to uncover the conspirators around him, we end up with 'Kimmy Goes Camping' and whilst its watchable it feels vasty inferior to everything else going on in the show.
Overall its production values are superb, its pace is insanely fast, the characters are all effectively molded and very human, and so on. The only credibility the show pushes is that these people lead insanely hectic lives (more happens to them in one day than to most people in 3-4 years) but that's expected for the format. This is not a deep thought show and in fact if you closely examine it I'm sure you'll find faults and inconsistencies, but it never gives you breathing room to think too much about some things which is surprisingly beneficial. Its rare that shows peak so early but this season of "24" on the whole is an example of TV at its absolute best. - Garth Franklin
"24: Season Two DVD Collection"
DVD Details In Brief (Region 2)
Rating: 15
Runtime: 1041mins
Aspect Ratio: 1.78: 1
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Language & Sub-Titles: English
Commentaries: Episode-by-episode tracks by Kiefer Sutherland, Dennis Haysbert, Sarah Wynter, Sarah Clarke, Xander Berkeley, Penny Johnson Jerald, Michelle Forbes, Joel Surnow, Bob Cochran, Jon Casser and Howard Gordon.
Documentaries: "24 Exposed" two-part documentary,
"On the Button -The Destruction of CTU" featurette
Clips: 45 Deleted Scenes (w/ commentary & branching)
R2 vs. R4: Standard NTSC/PAL Differences. |
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DVD Review: The first season of 24 comes in one of the best looking sets I've ever seen. The discs themselves contain four episodes on each, accessible through very hi-tech looking menus suited to the series. Video quality is excellent with realistic use of colour, smooth edges, excellent contrast and only the occasional bit of grain or desaturation (mostly during night exterior 'fly over' shots which is more about the film quality than the transfer itself). For what is only a stereo track, the audio is surprisingly encompassing with an excellent mix of sound FX and music whilst dialogue is nice and clear throughout. Each episode is in wide screen and the constant split screen boxes trick used looks spectacular.
Extras wise there's only two things sadly, though not surprising considering the series only just ended before this set went into production. The first is a 2.5 minute alternate ending which shows the other most logical way the final devastating twist in the story could have gone. Its presented in the same quality anamorphic widescreen as the rest of the show and honestly I think it should've been used as the real ending remains a somewhat muddled affair (though this isnt' much more relevatory). The 90-second "Season 2 Preview" has Kiefer standing in front of a black curtain and recounting what happened in the first series before promising only "more conflict and more intrigue" - that's it, no story details. Its a pity more time wasn't spent on developing this last disc on the set as this is a show whose behind-the-scenes production elements would be quite intriguing. Still the series itself and the menus look great on disc and are VERY well suited to the format, definitely worth checking out and watching in a few back-to-back marathon style sessions. - Garth Franklin
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