With the premiere of season six of
24 less than a month away, I thought I'd report to all you readers where I, personally, am at in terms of anticipation. You see,
24, while not the "best" show on television, is the most entertaining. It's the most fun, and it's the best show to watch in a group or discuss with peers the next day.
Jack Bauer's exploits are at once ridiculous and life-affirming. He is the most dynamic, hardened, bad-ass character to ever grace network television.
As the seasons have gone along, and popularity has increased, the plots have had to get more and more extreme, while at the same time benefiting from budget increases every year. Knowing this, and knowing the way that season 5 ended (setting up beautifully for season 6), one can understand how excited
24 fans are for the January premiere.
The FOX promo showing Kiefer Sutherland sporting that ridiculously long, fake beard was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. So, I suppose you could say that my level of anticipation is, as of now: DANGEROUSLY HIGH.
My only trepidation coming into the season is that this will be the first season of
24 that I haven't watched on DVD. For all
24 fans introduced to the show via the wonder of DVD, you can understand where I'm coming from. On DVD, I don't watch commercials and, more importantly, I can watch as many episodes in a row that I want. And, sometimes, "as many as I want" ended up being upwards of eight episodes. One of my friends likened watch
24 on DVD to "hitting the crack pipe". I don't know if I can physically wait a week between episodes, let alone endure the minutes between commercial breaks.
So, while I can't wait for Jack Bauer to shoot terrorists in the kneecaps and use interrogation techniques that MacGyver wishes he could've thought of, I also fear that I'm not personally cut out for
24 in non-DVD form.
What am I saying? I'm sorry. I'm wrong. Nothing could ever mitigate my excitement for
24. I'm sorry, Mr. Bauer, for even showing the slightest bit of doubt over my fandom. Of course I can handle the commercials and the week between episodes. After all, FOX is airing the first four episodes in the two-day premiere. That's more than enough to prime us for the rest of the season.
That's it, I've convinced myself: I'm raising my anticipation level. It is no longer DANGEROUSLY HIGH, but LUDICROUSLY, BORDERING-ON-CATASTROPHICALLY HIGH.
For lots of us, Christmas comes on January 14th.
-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer