On the Seventh Day of Christmas

Santa gets the Jack Bauer treatment. Awesome!

New York is about to have a really bad day.

The New York Post has a picture preview of the new season of 24. Woo!

Mary McDonnell should be the next President!

Check it out: Leoben has followed Starbuck to 24:

Battlestar Galactica vet Callum Keith Rennie, who played Leoben Conoy on the sci-fi series, will be joining his former co-star Katee Sackoff on the new season of 24, premiering in January 2010. Callum, who also had a recurring role on Californication and played Harper's Island killer John Wakefield, will be playing Vladimir Laitanan. Co-exectuive producer Brannon Braga describes the character as a Russian syndicate mobster who debuts around episode six or seven.

Weird! If he first appears in episode 6 or 7, I'd bet good money that he's dead by episode 8!

Psyched!

Starbuck and Jack Bauer inhabiting the same TV space?

Won't that cause, like, a rip in the bad-ass continuum?

Season 8 won't be the same.

I miss you already, Bill!

This story would be so much less confusing if the other guy wasn't named Jack.

Will Kiefer Sutherland head-butt delay '24'?

The action-drama is set to start production on its eighth season at the end of the month, but star Kiefer Sutherland is caught up in an action-drama of his own that threatens to interfere with production.

Sutherland allegedly noggin-knocked clothing designer Jack McCollough at a New York club on Monday night. No charges have been filed, though The New York Daily News and The New York Post are reporting that prosecutors plan to charge the actor with minor assault and that Sutherland intends to surrender as early as tomorrow. Fox, 24 producer 20th TV and Sutherland's publicist had no comment.

While this made for a fun blog post yesterday, it really isn't very funny if he was drunk when it happened. And I really don't care if 24 is delayed, as long as he gets his sh*t together. There were times when I was watching 24 this season where I swore he was drunk. I wonder if the writers exposed Jack to the bio-toxin in order to disguise the slurring? I hope not.

TV Talk: Roundup

24's latest plot twist has me shaking my head. I have no problem with Tony being a bad guy - I never really cared for his character anyway - except I'm not sure if his new apparent evilness jibes with what he's done so far this season. He may very well have some heroic reason for working with the Starkwood guy in order to steal the canister of bio-toxin; but I can't think of anything that would justify him killing Larry Moss in cold blood. With his bare hands, no less.

So has anyone else been watching Harper’s Island on CBS (they also have a companion site, harpersglobe.com)? It’s a 13-week murder mystery series set in the Pacific Northwest. A large group of people have assembled on the island for a wedding and in every episode leading up to the wedding a couple of people are murdered – in the most gruesome ways! I caught up and watched the first two episodes last night and I really like it. I recommend the show if you like the horror/murder mystery genre (the horror is of a toned-down variety, since it is on prime time TV). The series ends on July 2, with the reveal of the murderer. If the ratings overall are good, they will probably do another one, with a different cast and location.

My guilty pleasure Rock of Love Tour Bus ended last Sunday, with Bret Michaels choosing the former "Feature Dancer", now Penthouse Pet of the Year. Quelle surprise!! Things got kind of boring at the end because all of the interesting - and by "interesting", I mean trashy, stupid, drunk, violent and/or completely insane - participants had been sent home already. So how happy was I when I heard that most of the trashy, stupid, drunk, violent and completely insane women are going to be on VH1's Rock of Love Charm School?! Brilliant.

Finally, I plan to catch HBO's Grey Gardens, which premieres tomorrow night at 8:00. HBO describes it as "Based on the lives that inspired the Maysles Brothers' classic documentary, this HBO Films drama tells the story of "Big Edie" Beale (Jessica Lange) and her daughter "Little Edie" (Drew Barrymore), who forged a unique bond while living in a ramshackle East Hampton mansion."

If you have not yet had the pleasure of watching the Maysles' documentary, I urge you to. It is riveting.

TV Talk: Catching Up

A few very, very brief notes about TV stuff that isn't LOST or Battlestar Galactica (whose series finale was amazing - more on that later)...

Heroes - I never did rejoin the show after the winter break, and I deleted my season pass for it, but I heard that Bryan Fuller's first show aired last night, and I was wondering if it was worth him leaving Pushing Daisies? Seriously, was it any good, or any different?

24 - This season has been really good, in case you're wondering.

Fringe - The show returns to Tuesdays on FOX on April 7 (2 weeks from tonight). I'm really looking forward to it starting up again. I miss Walter and Peter, and I'm starting to like Olivia.

Castle - I've seen two episodes so far, and liked them both, mostly on the strength of Nathan Fillion's many charms. It feels like a throwback to 80s shows like Remington Steele and Moonlighting, which is OK. I just sort of wish that the crimes themselves were a little bit more interesting.

Kings - I have heard a lot of good things about this, and I would love to see Al Swearengen back on my TV, but I haven't taken the plunge yet.

American Idol and The Biggest Loser - I dropped both of these shows and I do not miss them at all. What a relief to have those bloated monkeys off of my back! (I just realized it sounds like I'm calling BL contestants "bloated monkeys" - I'm not!)

Rock of Love Bus - Yet I am still watching Bret Michael's Rock of Love Bus. Why? Because it's fascinating, in an almost anthropological way. With an occasional anatomy lesson thrown in for good measure.

How they killed Bill.

I'll miss you, Bill. You were an island of calm, rational thought in the big, fat sea of hyperactive insane action that is 24.

And you were hot.

Oh no they didn't.

The bastards killed Bill tonight.

Bill Buchanan was always cool under pressure, always had Jack's back and after 7 seasons, he was my favorite character on 24 (and one of my many TV boyfriends).

Damn!  Even Kiefer cried.  And Chloe is going to go ballistic when she finds out.

"With all due respect, Madame President, ask around."

That's Jack Bauer telling President Taylor why she should trust him, and it's the best line I've heard in this show in a long time.

I watched 3 episodes of 24 last night, got all caught up, and now I take back what I said before about feeling bored with the show. Yes, I did watch the DVR'd eps out of a sense of obligation, but by the time I got halfway through the second one I was a goner and they had me hooked. They're doing a good job of ratcheting up the tension and drama this season, and they certainly aren't shying away from the shocking developments (the image of the 2 planes colliding mid-air, the First Dude getting injected with a paralytic drug and then trussed up and tossed in a car trunk and then getting his finger chopped off and THEN getting shot in the chest!). The implausibility factor can still be somewhat jarring - Jack, Bill and Renee can have a private audience with the President without having to pass through White House security and the President would not only take a personal call from the terrorist but would also put it on speakerphone in front of her guests? - but that's sort of what makes this show such fun.

And instead of complaining about it, now I'm really wanting know who the moley-mole-mole is. The simpering chief of staff Ethan is way too obvious...

TV Talk: Winter Doldrums

I really haven't been watching all that much television in recent weeks. Granted that's partly because I've been buried in work from the office, but there's something else going on here. LOST and Battlestar Galactica are both still stay-at-home-and-DVR-high-def-and-standard-def-and-watch-it-in-real-time-appointment-television for me and, yay for that; but more often than not, I seem to be losing interest in some of my favorite shows. Or perhaps some of these shows just aren't as good as they used to be.

We all know how I feel about Heroes now, but I did give it another shot last night and watched it while I worked on some stuff I brought home from the office. I didn't even turn it on until about a quarter of the way through and it was essentially background noise. There was a time when that was unthinkable, and Heroes was appointment TV like LOST and BSG. Not anymore. And you know what? I don't feel like I missed a thing.

I have two episodes of 24 on the DVR, and I really am not in any hurry to watch them. I was never a big fan of Tony's and I think the fact that they brought him back is actually kind of cheesy, so that's a big stumbling block. I love me some Bill Buchanan and Chloe, and I love that they're operating "off the grid", but I really hate that they've put into place the same "who's the mole" scenario at the FBI and the White House, again. Perhaps if the characters this season weren't so boring, I could handle the repetitious set-up. Bring back the Logans, I say!

Fringe is the other show that has been letting me down. The two episodes they've shown since they came back from the holiday break have been mind-numbingly boring and clumsy, with gaping plotholes and poorly drawn new characters - assholish FBI agent in charge, I'm looking at you. And what's with this sister all of a sudden? This is a show without a plan, and it's starting to really show. It's like they want to be a crime procedural like a CSI and a show like LOST or The X-Files with an overarching mystery and mythology and I don't think the combination is working. There is a lot to love - Asteroid, Walter and Peter, Massive Dynamic, kick-ass Olivia - so I will still watch. But they had better get their act together soon!

Sigh. Thank God for Rock of Love Bus.

'24' Reboot isn't all that different from what it was before.

I've been a bad 24 fan: The November movie Redemption has been sitting on my DVR unwatched since it aired, and I completely spaced and forgot to record Sunday's two-hour premiere. I'm working on fixing that, however, and I managed to watch all of Redemption and the new season's first hour on Hulu last night. (Say it with me: "Yay, Hulu!")

Redemption was good. Not spectacular, but it did a good job of filling in the gap between season 6 (which ended a year and a half ago!) and Sunday's premiere.

As far as the first hour goes...At first blush, things are different: CTU is gone, Jack's been brought in front of a Senate committee investigating his, er, extreme methods of interrogation, and the action has moved from L.A. to D.C. There's even a new president - a woman! - and a whole new set of White House back-stabbers to get to know.  Eventually, hoever, things started to get familiar again, and people who were supposed to be dead are now alive and evil (although I think Tony's undercover) and Jack's sticking pens in peoples' eyes and all is right with the world.

Kiefer's starting to show his age - and he's looking more like his father - but then again, aren't we all?  He's still bad ass as Jack, even though he doesn't have his man purse.  I think he may have left it in Africa.  I hope he has time to get a new one.

So anyway, I'm caught up in the story now, and I'm looking forward to watching the next three hours, so they must be doing something right.

New trailer for Season 7 of '24'!

"So help me God I will kill you and this time you will STAY DEAD!" Yeah!

Kiefer done with jail.

Kiefer Sutherland got of jail today after serving all 48 days of his sentence, and with nary a complaint.

"The actor was also sentenced to five years probation, and must complete an 18-month alcohol education program and attend weekly therapy sessions for six months."

I hope he's able to stay on the right track now.