2424 : more of crap like this happened in the previous few months of production :
last time we checked in : Jack, uh, Keifer, had been kidnapped at missle point by an evil FOX tv producer and forced to rejoin the cast for season 5. Not to worry, season 5, just like all the seasons before it, is like all the seasons before it!
Jack and the cast are gathered in the CTU holding cell - ever notice how more CTU agents spend time in the holding cell than do terrorists, I'm just sayin'.
"Hey!" asks one writer, "how come we're always in the holding cell? Don't we have set engineers to give us some additional shoot locations?"
"No!" booms the same voice recently heard coming from the Black Hawk helicopter. "We are broke, we can't afford anything original any longer. "Haven't you noticed? Not only are we always putting the main characters in lock up, but we don't even blow up expensive shit anymore. How about 24/5 hour 2? Did you notice how we ended that exciting episode? Remember the old 1970's show SWAT? You know, the really original show where bad guys committed crimes and the SWAT team rushed out to surround them, save the hostages, and capture the bad guys, EVERY WEEK? Remember their van? Come on, a 1976 GMC full ton step-van, dark blue, with the cool music in the background as it squealed around corners? WE BLEW THAT UP ! Yeah, we blew up a 30 year old delivery truck as a season opener, how more exciting could we get? And what about THAT location? Well, yeah, it woulda been more sensible if we staged the hostage takeover at LAX, but some other network got a lock on that set, so we had to trek 50 miles east of LA to the warehouse district of Ontario, California. SURE! The Ontario airport, how more important to international terrorism could a place be than a suburban commuter airport?"
There was rumbling in the crowd of writers, they understood economics, but come-on, a van, and ONTARIO airport, for 24?
"Well", said one novice Hollywood writer, if we can't get original sets, how about original plots? I know this series has been criticized for always using Jack's daughter. She's always getting in the way, into trouble, and having to be rescued by her dad. Let's do something REALLY different this time! Hmmmmmmm! I KNOW!
Let's involve Jack with a single mom of a BOY! And let the BOY get in the way, get in trouble, and have to be rescued by Jack, cause, you know, Jack isn't really his father!"
oooooo, goood idea! murmured the others.
"Wait!" boomed the Black Hawk voice, "I know it's tough being on a budget, I know we have only been able to afford Bell Helicopters this season. Not real intimidating unless traffic choppers scare you, but HERE'S an idea to get everyone talking! This is going to broadcast the day before Martin Luther King Jr.s birthday holiday. Let's take a world reknowned public figure, the most moral, well respected, powerful, integrity filled black character on FOX network, AND ASSASSINATE HIM! Yeah! And we'll stage it IN A HOTEL ROOM! WHERE HE'S SHOT BY A SNIPER! God I LOVE being a writer of original ideas! Somebody give me a raise!"
The room fell silent, of course. They were in the presence of greatness.
But a slight voice spoke out. "I can top that". Eyes swung to the rear of the room where some dateless geek who has done nothing in his life but perfect the art of fan fiction slowly stood up. "OK, I know we are on a budget, I know we have to make this exciting. Let's try to add some real tension to the hostage situation. No special effects (oh ok, idenitfy the circuitry of a cell phone using an image taken from another cell phone camera and then use it to blow up a bad guy even if Jack can't be sure if the guy will be alone or not when his vest bomb is exploded). No heavy military hardware (we'll just gross out the American public by twice shooting a person in the head on national tv). No, let our protagonist, a TOP anti-terror agent who is known to the terrorist, talk to his headquarters on the phone while head terrorist listens in! YES! IN YOUR FACE BAD GUY! Jack will slip into the conversation a keyword like "HUT!HUT" 49 SOUTH! 23 ABLE! HUT! HIKE!", and maybe the bad guy won't recognize that Jack just gave out a CODE WORD, to his headquarters. As a matter of fact, not only will the terrorist be an effing idiot who fails to realize that Jack has repeated the same code word THREE freaking times in one conversation, but even the CHEIF OF CTU will not recognize it! HAH! THAT'S GENIUS, BLACK HAWK BOY!" and the geek does a geek writer dance in the holding cell to show his superiority at original writing.
Other writers were now grumbling in seperate groups, you could over hear snippets of brainstorming,
"hey, has 24 ever done a psycho wife of the president before? They have, oh well, lets do it again! Idiot fans will NEVER recognize the similarity of plot threads!"
Someone else says "What about this holding cell? Who hasn't been arrested and held in it yet?"
Another shouts :"I GOT IT! A MOLE! LET'S DO A WHITE HOUSE MOLE!"
Yet another carbon copy writer says "what about Tony and his girl friend? They never get killed off even when poisoned, shot, blown up, lets put them in jeopardy of dying!"
If you look closely, Keifer sits quietly in the corner, rocking back and forth, with a gun in his mouth.
DOINKDOINKDOINKDOINK.
