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24: Live Another Day ticks on with Episode 4, and as Jack Bauer created a diversion to get into the U.S. Embassy, Adrian Cross continues to talk in the same deep tones as Ming the Merciless.
Jack wants to get the flight key used by Lt. Tanner which will prove that he’s innocent and that he was set up because it’s one of those conspiracy things, innit. Naturally, the authorities, alongside Kate Morgan manage to turn up just a split second AFTER our hero has left the room. Without a way to get out of the building, though, he miraculously finds a way to extract data from the flight key without leaving the Embassy. Hurrah!
Margot keeps hassling her son, Ian (Liam Garrigan), about how long it’ll take to get this or that working with Yates’ drone-controlling device, and amazingly, continues to knock the outcome into the next episode as everything he needs to do takes “about an hour”. He should get a job for Vision Express!* (*old advert reference)
Meanwhile, there’s trouble in paradise for Simone and her husband, Naveed (Sacha Dhawan), as she’s forced to make a choice between absconding with him or staying with mother and helping end the world.
Jack’s problem is that he finds he’s using a really crappy computer in the comms room, in which he’s barricaded himself, to decrypt and transfer the data from the flight key over to Chloe, which means that for the most part of this episode, our action hero is sat at a desk constantly tapping at a keyboard…. despite the fact that the program’s already running to do what he needs it to do.
Adding to his problems are the Marines who want to blow the door open so they can kill him before the upload completes. At the same time, Kate appears like the Angel Gabriel, claiming that, after speaking to Tanner, she now believes him and offers to spirit the flight key away so she can finish the upload for him because the end credits are bound to kick in before his single-core machine does the honours. But can he trust her? Hmm?
Once again,any sluggish moments happen when Heller, Boudreau and Audrey are onscreen, this time discussing what’s to be done with Bauer. And, worse still, Boudreau has a godawful haircut! It looks like a Mr Whippy ice-cream on the top of his head!
A highlight comes when Margot decides to play a game with Naveed and Simone called “Shag, Marry, Chop Off Her Fingers”, and proceeds to un-digitise her daughter until Naveed, to her, sees reason.
Oh, but this week, not once does Jack shout “Dammit”…. Dammit!
Dammit count: 0
Score: 6/10
Director: Adam Kane
Producer: Iain Smith
Screenplay: Sang Kyu Kim and Patrick Somerville
Music: Sean Callery
Cast:
Jack Bauer: Kiefer Sutherland
Chloe O’Brian: Mary Lynn Rajskub
Simone Al-Harazi: Emily Berrington
Naveed: Sacha Dhawan
Kate Morgan: Yvonne Strahovski
Margot Al-Harazi: Michelle Fairley
Ian Al-Harazi: Liam Garrigan
Steve Navarro: Benjamin Bratt
Mark Boudreau: Tate Donovan
President James Heller: William Devane
Erik Ritter: Gbenga Akinnagbe
Adrian Cross: Michael Wincott
Jordan Reed: Giles Matthey
Captain Greg Denovo: Duncan Pow
Chris Tanner: John Boyega
Chell: Mandeep Dhillon
Audrey Raines: Kim Raver
Prime Minister Alastair Davies: Stephen Fry
General Coburn: Colin Salmon
Belcheck: Branko Tomovic
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.