24: Season 1, Episode 1: 12:00 AM - 1:00 AM Review
12:00 AM - 1:00 AM
Original Airdate: November 6, 2001
Writers: Robert Cochran & Joel Surnow
Director: Stephen Hopkins
When 24 first went into production, they certainly didn't expect to be more than an exciting action show. However, after 9/11, some questioned the show's content. Would America watch a show that had terrorism play such an integral role in the storylines? Is a show like 24 appropriate? 24 wasn't the only show facing this problem. Alias and The Agency also premiered that fall. The Agency was canceled after this season and Alias preferred a more fantasy based espionage saga. As this first season is concerned, 24 managed to tell their story while avoiding real life parallels. The center of this season is the story of two men who must balance work and family crises. Everyone can relate to that.
One nice touch this show did was that they didn't start the real time thriller in the time zone the action would occur in. A shot of The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur opens the show. This was one of the things changed in the pilot episode after 9/11. I've read that it was originally supposed to start in Italy. It wasn't likely changed because of offending people, but rather to do a tribute. These two towers would obviously remind the audience of the World Trade Center.
The first minutes of a pilot are extremely important to establish who the major characters are and what problems they will be facing. On 24, they decide to introduce the threat first. In Kuala Lumpur, Victor Rovner discovers that terrorists plan to assassinate Senator David Palmer. Rovner is an intelligence agent. He rushes into an empty building, where he has his equipment. Frantically, he calls up the Los Angeles Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU). Rovner transmits the data he found to a data miner in LA. The agent in LA relays this information to Richard Walsh. The characters we see in this scene aren't as important as the information they give the audience.
We meet the target, David Palmer, preparing a speech on the balcony of his hotel room. This room is shown from the perspective of Sherry, David's wife, delivering some coffee for the staff. The tracking shot ends as Palmer critiques the wording of his speech. He's the first black man with a real shot of winning the presidency, but is reluctant to overplay the occasion. Palmer's characterization isn't really started for a few hours, but this helps show that he isn't an arrogant man. As for Sherry's characterization, well, this characterization doesn't mean much in retrospective aside from comparisons to how it changes later.
Our hero, Jack Bauer, plays chess with his daughter Kim. He's just moved back with her and her mother, Jack's wife Teri. Kim has some attitude, referring to Teri with an emphatically nasty "she". He doesn't like this behavior. Jack tells her to respect her mother and sends her to bed. Teri is working on a computer in the kitchen, where Jack eats a rare snack. Kim's rudeness doesn't please Teri, so Jack suggests they both talk to her. Jack playfully hugs Teri on the way to Kim's bedroom. This is where Jack's peace ends. Hope you enjoyed it Jack. Now begins the longest day of your life. Kim has sneaked out of the house.
Nina Myers, Jack's co-worker, interrupts Jack and Teri's discovery. CTU needs him in because Walsh is in LA, which means it is big. It upsets Teri, but Jack tries to assure her that it'll be a quick hour-long meeting. Of course, he doesn't know that this show is called 24 and it's the first episode. Nina hangs up and speaks with Jamey Farrell, who looks fresh off a night of clubbing. Jamey doesn't seem to be as interested in her job as Nina is, as Jamey makes a crack that Nina doesn't have a social life. Nina walks over to Tony Almeida, who can't find any information about why they've been called.
Kim left to meet with her friend Janet. They're meeting with two college guys at a furniture store where one of them works. Janet's dating Dan, the scruffier of the two. Dan's the more aggressive one, whereas Rick soaks in what is happening. Being a supportive friend, Janet makes out with Dan immediately while an awkward Kim introduces herself to Rick, the other guy. He's sitting in the van outside the entrance and there is a bond. They go in and start to party, drinking and dancing on a table.
Jack arrives at CTU, trying to calm Teri on the phone. She suggests that they send Kim to counseling. Unfortunately, he has to cut his call short when he heads into the office. Immediately Jack gets into action, telling his staff to start looking into Palmer and those close to him. Tony calls him on his hunch, but Jack defends it saying that he's the most likely target because of his race and the fact that he is in town.
Walsh arrives and informs CTU that Jack was correct. Before the end of the day, someone will try to kill David Palmer. They don't know who yet, but they're guessing it's an American hate group backing European freelancers. Walsh dismisses everyone except for Jack. Then he drops a bombshell: someone in the agency may be working with the terrorists and Walsh trusts Jack to find the leak. Jack's reluctant only because he himself busted agents for taking bribes. However, Jack will be interacting with multiple agencies and Jack is the only one Walsh trusts. Having a mole adds a lot to the intrigue. Unfortunately, after the first season, they sometimes relied on moles to cover up plot holes, but this season they did it well.
While this happens, a mysterious German man wonders when the plane he's on will land in LA. He calls Palmer's assistant, Patty, who asks if he'll be on schedule. The man, Martin Belkin, is going to be one of the photographers at the breakfast later that day. Mandy, the alluring woman sitting next to him, asks him about Palmer and they flirt. Of course we're lead to believe that the photographer is the assassin, but Mandy's inquisitiveness makes the subsequent twist not mere shock value.
Jack meets George Mason, who updates him about the threat against Palmer. Mason provides information, but when Jack asks for the source, he refuses. He agrees to call Chappelle to cover Jack's end. Jack heads downstairs to a file cabinet, asking Nina to connect him to Mason's call. To confirm Jack's suspicions, Mason's calling an automated voice service. Nina asks what Jack is doing, when he takes one of the tranquilizer guns back to his office.
In this pilot, it's important to show how Jack isn't willing to compromise to accomplish his goals. It's what Jack does the rest of the series. Major lesson learned: don't play Jack for a fool. When Mason tries to pass his lie, Jack shoots him with a tranquilizer dart. Nina's horrified. Jack tells her that he believes that Mason may have taken some money from a drug dealer they busted. He wants to find out so he can blackmail Mason.
Teri is further frustrated when she discovers marijuana in Kim's room. Jack tries to help her, but he can't leave work. She does get help when Janet's father Alan calls looking for his daughter. She agrees to go out with Alan to look for them. Meanwhile, Kim and Rick enjoy some time on the roof of the store. She tells him that her father is dead. Though she said she was glad that he moved back in, she is still harboring feelings from Jack and Teri's temporary split. This rebelliousness certainly was spawned from her parents' problems.
Having Alan on the show intensifies Jack and Teri's problems. Although Jack and Teri decided to give their marriage another shot, it is still shaky. Now Jack is preoccupied with work while their daughter is missing. Unlike Jack, Alan is available to help search for Kim and Janet. Perhaps Teri would've been happier had she settled with someone with a less demanding job. Someone who works or has worked in his profession can only understand Jack's work. That person happens to be Nina. At CTU, we learn that Jack and Nina were together before. Jack and Nina's relationship is one of the biggest parts of the first season and this first episode does a good job planting that to expand later. Now both of the Bauers are with other people in situations of dire urgency.
Back at Palmer's hotel, he takes a break from his preparation to cuddle with his wife. Patty interrupts. Maureen Kingsley, a journalist, is on the phone and wants to speak with David. He takes the call. We don't hear her side of the conversation, but Palmer is outraged at what she says, cutting the conversation short. When Sherry asks what the call was about, he doesn't say, but he rather heads to the balcony for a quiet moment. This little bit of mystery works because it lures in curious people. What would make a calm, lighthearted Palmer turn hostile and quiet so quickly?
Jack asks Nina to have Tony look through the bank accounts. Tony is apprehensive about searching the bank accounts and grills her about if she's still sleeping with Jack. She doesn't say "yes", but she doesn't say "no" either. We learn more about Tony and Jack's relationship, which has been strained since Jack's arrival to CTU in the first act. This hostility stems from his suspicions that Jack is still sleeping with Nina, Tony's girlfriend, and that he busted his own people, as if that makes Jack honorable.
Elsewhere, Jack gets Jamey to hack into Kim's e-mail to find her password. He calls Teri to tell her Kim's password is LIFESUCKS. She accesses Kim's e-mail and finds out about her plans to go to the furniture store with Janet. With Alan, they head out to the store to find them. At the furniture store, Kim and Janet prepare to leave with the boys, but Kim wants to head home. The guys don't want to, and Janet is under chemical influences. They offer to drop her off, and she accepts. However, they don't, and Kim realizes that this is more than a mere wild night out.
As Mason is about to be awoken, Nina addresses Jack about her concern for his behavior. She's been kept out of the loop regarding Mason's meeting and feels that Jack is asking too much for her. We learn a valuable piece of Jack's psychology and what season one and the series would be about through this conversation. Jack doesn't want to compromise, because that will eventually cause him harm. The men Jack busted weren't bad men, but men who looked away just once and it cost them dearly.
Jack wakes Mason and asks for the source again. When Mason doesn't say, Jack mentions the $200,000 he believes Mason has. Mason thinks he's bluffing, but stops him from sending Chappelle the information with the source. It's important this early to show that the authority of CTU, unlike Walsh, resent Jack for brazen stunts like this.
Mandy and Martin have sex in the plane bathroom. She feigns interest in seeing him after they land, but he thinks that this is more of a one time thing. It is, as Mandy sneaks in the back to blow up the plane. This is one of the biggest twists early in the episode and it helped solidify Mandy's cult status. It doesn't feel like a cheat twist because the flirting we saw earlier was what Mandy needed to do to get this guy's trust and place her in a position where she could steal his identity.
The most controversial piece of the episode wouldn't have been had the show aired two months earlier. It was the shot of the 747 exploding. It would've been extremely inappropriate to have a plane exploding on a prime time show at that time. Instead, they cut away to Mandy skydiving while the only visible parts of the explosion are a few small pieces of aircraft and the glow. For the story's sake, they handled it the best way they could since they couldn't override a pivotal piece of this episode and the first arc this far into production.
So it begins, the first episode of still the best season of the show. It managed to avoid the pratfalls of the times, which eventually would be what 24 would draw upon for inspiration. Since it was too soon, they decided to focus more on a personal threat and the dilemma that many can relate to. There's an aura of mystery and promise for what's the come. The show's real time format has been done before, but never to this extent. The show's overall delivery, with innovative use of split screens, stylishly reinforces its concept.
Writers: Robert Cochran & Joel Surnow
Director: Stephen Hopkins
When 24 first went into production, they certainly didn't expect to be more than an exciting action show. However, after 9/11, some questioned the show's content. Would America watch a show that had terrorism play such an integral role in the storylines? Is a show like 24 appropriate? 24 wasn't the only show facing this problem. Alias and The Agency also premiered that fall. The Agency was canceled after this season and Alias preferred a more fantasy based espionage saga. As this first season is concerned, 24 managed to tell their story while avoiding real life parallels. The center of this season is the story of two men who must balance work and family crises. Everyone can relate to that.
One nice touch this show did was that they didn't start the real time thriller in the time zone the action would occur in. A shot of The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur opens the show. This was one of the things changed in the pilot episode after 9/11. I've read that it was originally supposed to start in Italy. It wasn't likely changed because of offending people, but rather to do a tribute. These two towers would obviously remind the audience of the World Trade Center.
The first minutes of a pilot are extremely important to establish who the major characters are and what problems they will be facing. On 24, they decide to introduce the threat first. In Kuala Lumpur, Victor Rovner discovers that terrorists plan to assassinate Senator David Palmer. Rovner is an intelligence agent. He rushes into an empty building, where he has his equipment. Frantically, he calls up the Los Angeles Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU). Rovner transmits the data he found to a data miner in LA. The agent in LA relays this information to Richard Walsh. The characters we see in this scene aren't as important as the information they give the audience.
We meet the target, David Palmer, preparing a speech on the balcony of his hotel room. This room is shown from the perspective of Sherry, David's wife, delivering some coffee for the staff. The tracking shot ends as Palmer critiques the wording of his speech. He's the first black man with a real shot of winning the presidency, but is reluctant to overplay the occasion. Palmer's characterization isn't really started for a few hours, but this helps show that he isn't an arrogant man. As for Sherry's characterization, well, this characterization doesn't mean much in retrospective aside from comparisons to how it changes later.
Our hero, Jack Bauer, plays chess with his daughter Kim. He's just moved back with her and her mother, Jack's wife Teri. Kim has some attitude, referring to Teri with an emphatically nasty "she". He doesn't like this behavior. Jack tells her to respect her mother and sends her to bed. Teri is working on a computer in the kitchen, where Jack eats a rare snack. Kim's rudeness doesn't please Teri, so Jack suggests they both talk to her. Jack playfully hugs Teri on the way to Kim's bedroom. This is where Jack's peace ends. Hope you enjoyed it Jack. Now begins the longest day of your life. Kim has sneaked out of the house.
Nina Myers, Jack's co-worker, interrupts Jack and Teri's discovery. CTU needs him in because Walsh is in LA, which means it is big. It upsets Teri, but Jack tries to assure her that it'll be a quick hour-long meeting. Of course, he doesn't know that this show is called 24 and it's the first episode. Nina hangs up and speaks with Jamey Farrell, who looks fresh off a night of clubbing. Jamey doesn't seem to be as interested in her job as Nina is, as Jamey makes a crack that Nina doesn't have a social life. Nina walks over to Tony Almeida, who can't find any information about why they've been called.
Kim left to meet with her friend Janet. They're meeting with two college guys at a furniture store where one of them works. Janet's dating Dan, the scruffier of the two. Dan's the more aggressive one, whereas Rick soaks in what is happening. Being a supportive friend, Janet makes out with Dan immediately while an awkward Kim introduces herself to Rick, the other guy. He's sitting in the van outside the entrance and there is a bond. They go in and start to party, drinking and dancing on a table.
Jack arrives at CTU, trying to calm Teri on the phone. She suggests that they send Kim to counseling. Unfortunately, he has to cut his call short when he heads into the office. Immediately Jack gets into action, telling his staff to start looking into Palmer and those close to him. Tony calls him on his hunch, but Jack defends it saying that he's the most likely target because of his race and the fact that he is in town.
Walsh arrives and informs CTU that Jack was correct. Before the end of the day, someone will try to kill David Palmer. They don't know who yet, but they're guessing it's an American hate group backing European freelancers. Walsh dismisses everyone except for Jack. Then he drops a bombshell: someone in the agency may be working with the terrorists and Walsh trusts Jack to find the leak. Jack's reluctant only because he himself busted agents for taking bribes. However, Jack will be interacting with multiple agencies and Jack is the only one Walsh trusts. Having a mole adds a lot to the intrigue. Unfortunately, after the first season, they sometimes relied on moles to cover up plot holes, but this season they did it well.
While this happens, a mysterious German man wonders when the plane he's on will land in LA. He calls Palmer's assistant, Patty, who asks if he'll be on schedule. The man, Martin Belkin, is going to be one of the photographers at the breakfast later that day. Mandy, the alluring woman sitting next to him, asks him about Palmer and they flirt. Of course we're lead to believe that the photographer is the assassin, but Mandy's inquisitiveness makes the subsequent twist not mere shock value.
Jack meets George Mason, who updates him about the threat against Palmer. Mason provides information, but when Jack asks for the source, he refuses. He agrees to call Chappelle to cover Jack's end. Jack heads downstairs to a file cabinet, asking Nina to connect him to Mason's call. To confirm Jack's suspicions, Mason's calling an automated voice service. Nina asks what Jack is doing, when he takes one of the tranquilizer guns back to his office.
In this pilot, it's important to show how Jack isn't willing to compromise to accomplish his goals. It's what Jack does the rest of the series. Major lesson learned: don't play Jack for a fool. When Mason tries to pass his lie, Jack shoots him with a tranquilizer dart. Nina's horrified. Jack tells her that he believes that Mason may have taken some money from a drug dealer they busted. He wants to find out so he can blackmail Mason.
Teri is further frustrated when she discovers marijuana in Kim's room. Jack tries to help her, but he can't leave work. She does get help when Janet's father Alan calls looking for his daughter. She agrees to go out with Alan to look for them. Meanwhile, Kim and Rick enjoy some time on the roof of the store. She tells him that her father is dead. Though she said she was glad that he moved back in, she is still harboring feelings from Jack and Teri's temporary split. This rebelliousness certainly was spawned from her parents' problems.
Having Alan on the show intensifies Jack and Teri's problems. Although Jack and Teri decided to give their marriage another shot, it is still shaky. Now Jack is preoccupied with work while their daughter is missing. Unlike Jack, Alan is available to help search for Kim and Janet. Perhaps Teri would've been happier had she settled with someone with a less demanding job. Someone who works or has worked in his profession can only understand Jack's work. That person happens to be Nina. At CTU, we learn that Jack and Nina were together before. Jack and Nina's relationship is one of the biggest parts of the first season and this first episode does a good job planting that to expand later. Now both of the Bauers are with other people in situations of dire urgency.
Back at Palmer's hotel, he takes a break from his preparation to cuddle with his wife. Patty interrupts. Maureen Kingsley, a journalist, is on the phone and wants to speak with David. He takes the call. We don't hear her side of the conversation, but Palmer is outraged at what she says, cutting the conversation short. When Sherry asks what the call was about, he doesn't say, but he rather heads to the balcony for a quiet moment. This little bit of mystery works because it lures in curious people. What would make a calm, lighthearted Palmer turn hostile and quiet so quickly?
Jack asks Nina to have Tony look through the bank accounts. Tony is apprehensive about searching the bank accounts and grills her about if she's still sleeping with Jack. She doesn't say "yes", but she doesn't say "no" either. We learn more about Tony and Jack's relationship, which has been strained since Jack's arrival to CTU in the first act. This hostility stems from his suspicions that Jack is still sleeping with Nina, Tony's girlfriend, and that he busted his own people, as if that makes Jack honorable.
Elsewhere, Jack gets Jamey to hack into Kim's e-mail to find her password. He calls Teri to tell her Kim's password is LIFESUCKS. She accesses Kim's e-mail and finds out about her plans to go to the furniture store with Janet. With Alan, they head out to the store to find them. At the furniture store, Kim and Janet prepare to leave with the boys, but Kim wants to head home. The guys don't want to, and Janet is under chemical influences. They offer to drop her off, and she accepts. However, they don't, and Kim realizes that this is more than a mere wild night out.
As Mason is about to be awoken, Nina addresses Jack about her concern for his behavior. She's been kept out of the loop regarding Mason's meeting and feels that Jack is asking too much for her. We learn a valuable piece of Jack's psychology and what season one and the series would be about through this conversation. Jack doesn't want to compromise, because that will eventually cause him harm. The men Jack busted weren't bad men, but men who looked away just once and it cost them dearly.
Jack wakes Mason and asks for the source again. When Mason doesn't say, Jack mentions the $200,000 he believes Mason has. Mason thinks he's bluffing, but stops him from sending Chappelle the information with the source. It's important this early to show that the authority of CTU, unlike Walsh, resent Jack for brazen stunts like this.
Mandy and Martin have sex in the plane bathroom. She feigns interest in seeing him after they land, but he thinks that this is more of a one time thing. It is, as Mandy sneaks in the back to blow up the plane. This is one of the biggest twists early in the episode and it helped solidify Mandy's cult status. It doesn't feel like a cheat twist because the flirting we saw earlier was what Mandy needed to do to get this guy's trust and place her in a position where she could steal his identity.
The most controversial piece of the episode wouldn't have been had the show aired two months earlier. It was the shot of the 747 exploding. It would've been extremely inappropriate to have a plane exploding on a prime time show at that time. Instead, they cut away to Mandy skydiving while the only visible parts of the explosion are a few small pieces of aircraft and the glow. For the story's sake, they handled it the best way they could since they couldn't override a pivotal piece of this episode and the first arc this far into production.
So it begins, the first episode of still the best season of the show. It managed to avoid the pratfalls of the times, which eventually would be what 24 would draw upon for inspiration. Since it was too soon, they decided to focus more on a personal threat and the dilemma that many can relate to. There's an aura of mystery and promise for what's the come. The show's real time format has been done before, but never to this extent. The show's overall delivery, with innovative use of split screens, stylishly reinforces its concept.
Score: 8/10
posted by Matt @ 12:36 AM
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