Fightin' Bill Buchanan and the "24" finale!

I finally finished Season Six of "24," and damn! Bill Buchanan turned out to be da man! Lesson for the audience: Don't fuck with the Irish!

I also couldn't help noticing that Jack Bauer had the chance to go on another Season One-style killing rampage this time around when he took out all(!) the Arab terrorists including ol' Baldy Fayed. That was a cool episode.

Unfortunately, TV Links didn't have Episode 22 in its listing, so I don't know how CTU managed to free itself from the Chinese strike force (perhaps they simply retreated once they had Josh Bauer?). But all in all, I'd have to say that Season Six seemed to enjoy about the same overall quality of scriptwriting and acting as Season One. The inclusion of a bunch of way-cool Old School actors didn't hurt, either: Powers Boothe as the randy vice president and James Cromwell as Jack's father were standouts, and the always-awesome William Devane did a great job as James Heller.

Still-unfinished business: poor Milo bites it in defense of Nadia Yassir, the lady he loves. Nadia didn't have the courage to stand up when the leader of the Chinese force asked who the CTU commander was. She fudged the event when Milo's brother came to pick up Milo's body, saying simply that Milo saw she was in danger and intervened to save her. On top of this, Nadia was romantically torn between Milo and Mike Doyle (Ricky Schroder, also good in his role), so it almost feels as though poor Milo really got shafted. I wonder how Nadia's going to handle all this in the next season.

Two major themes in Season Six were (1) it's important not to die in vain, and (2) damn the orders! Sometimes you have to do what's right! In Jack Bauer's case, it seems that going against orders is a five- or six-time-a-day business.

Anyway, I enjoyed the season, loved the suspense, and think that the scriptwriters could teach Dan Brown a thing or two about real tension. Gripping TV. I can unclench my balls now.


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