24

Ah, well - something new, supposedly. Tired of those movies where 007 steps into an airplane in broad daylight in NY and leaves the plane, a couple of minutes later, also in broad daylight in London, looking disgustingly fresh and shiny? Well, if this has ever bothered you a bit then 24 might be a welcome alternative since each episode happens in "real time" - including the commercial breaks. So in a one hour episode (actually more like 42 minutes and 18 minutes commercials) one hour passes for both the viewers and the actors.

Of course - they cheat too ... or America has changed dramatically from when I last visited. You see the lead character (in broad daylight) enter a car and 15 minutes later he is in the countryside on a hill overlooking the city ... whatever happened to traffic jams? Well, apart from those cosmetic time squeezers things happen relatively slow and thus you have nice scenes where you have a split screen on your TV showing three or more threads as they advance simultaneously. Nice idea, though bad for cappers. :)

When shown in Germany I was pretty disappointed, part of that came, I'm sure, from the episodes being aired every day - how are you supposed to follow a series each and every day when you belong to those people who have to work and for whom 8 p.m. is usually still a business hour? Now that I've got the whole thing on DVD things are nicer and more easy to watch and I have to admit I like it a lot better now. Apart from the missing 18 minutes or so since they did not include the commercials in the DVD edition. :)

DiD-wise it's a series with a pretty good yield and the second season, which is currently on air here in Germany, seems to be pretty promising too. Since the compression on RTL 2 is a bit too high for my taste I'll not do caps of season 2 from tape but wait 'till it's available on DVD. So, let's take a look at the Damsels before you go into the episodes:

	Elisha Cuthbert plays the character of "Kim Bauer", the lead guy's unruly daughter who escapes from home to have some excitement and who sure finds more than she ever hoped for, being abducted twice and whatnot. A pretty blonde she plays a rather convincing part in the first season. In season two she has already been arrested once and if I know American law enforcement officers she should have been cuffed as well - we'll see when I get the DVDs and look them over.
	Leslie Hope plays Kim's mom, the lead character's wife. She gets some DiD treatment as well being abducted by the bad guys and being tied up later on by the bad girl. Pretty good acting from what I've seen so far, unfortunately not really my type.
	Karina Arroyave plays a CTU employee which makes her a colleague for Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland), the lead character. She's obviously a bit short on money and thus sells inside information to the bad guys. Her treason is found out eventually and we see her in cuffs for some time. She's very cute imo and soooo tiny. But she's got a very determined look - I'm in love, I guess. :)
	Sarah Clarke plays the role of CTU agent Nina Myers, a fellow agent to Jack Bauer. If you haven't seen the series yet, I won't spoil things for you (unless you check out the comments for episodes 22:00 - 23:00 and 23:00 - 00:00!). Let's just say that there's more to her than meets the eye (initially) and that you have to wait until season 2 to get a DiD scene with her.

I'd really like to recommend this series - it's a pretty good whodunnit with a fast pace, good actors and some surprising twists. The numerous and lengthy DiD scenes add a little spice on top of an already pretty good meal.