Everyone Wants To Be Jack
It seems that anything with a modicum of success is cloned. For this entry I’m focusing on the cloning of Jack Bauer. At least, to me, it seems that is happening this year. For those of you who don’t know who Jack Bauer is, he is the hero in Fox’s 24.
I’ll be the first to tell you I didn’t catch onto 24 until last year. While I was working at Yahoo!, friends in my group would watch and talk 24 for days on end. Well, I checked out season 1 and 2 - easy when it’s on DVD - and I was hooked. I then quickly added season 3 and 4 followed in my Netflix queue. For the two weeks all farrah heard was the theme to 24 on our television screen.
This fall season there seems to be a series of shows that are, in essence, trying to capture the flavor of 24. Neither of them, however, successed on any scale.
First up is Kidnapped. I watched this show on DVD. It seems NBC wanted to release two of its pilots on DVD before the start of the fall season. The other show on the disc, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, looks very promising. But I’m writing to talk about Kidnapped. It stars the guffy likable Jermey Sisto from Six Feet Under as a man who can get retrieve a loved one who has been kidnapped. Get this: he only charges you if the kidnapped victim comes back alive. Oh, how nice of him.
Jeremy must also must deal with the FBI in the form of Delroy Lindo - who is basically playing the same role he did in the movie Ransom.
The parents of the kidnapped victim are played by Timothy Hutton and Dana Delany, both in pretty much wasted roles. You can see the writers trying to setup the twists-n-turns that will weave there way through the season (Why was he kidnapped? What’s the wife hiding? What did Jeremy Sisto’s character leave the FBI? Should I really be watching this show?) There is no ticket clock on this show, but I’m sure the show is set to resolve itself by season’s end.
The other kidnapped based show is Fox’s Vanished. It stars former Queer as Folk actor Gale Harold. Gale plays an FBI agent with “something to prove”, trying to find the missing wife of a US Senator. His acting in this show is pretty flat and emotionless. If he’s supposed to be the tough guy lead, at least exude some charisma, will ya? I’m not really going to get into this much, as the show is as flat as Kidnapped. The only thing going for this show is it has Ming-Na in it. Too bad they don’t give her much to do.
I guess I’ll turn off my television and wait until the new season of 24 starts.