24 - Series 2 - Complete (DVD)

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Good
How does it compare to similar films?	Outstanding

Advantages:	Good action, Good acting
Disadvantages:	Poor flow, Slow start

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Anyone who has read my review of the first season will know that I am a big fan of this program and after enjoying the first season so much it was only a matter of time before I watched the second season. Well the wait is over, I have just finished watching it so here is my review of the season as a whole.

** The Basics **

24 is drama series that is set during a single day. The series is 24 episodes long and (you guessed it) each episode is 1 hour long, give or take advert breaks. The drama is designed and written to be in real time. The actual episode length is around 40-45 minutes with strategically placed lapses for adverts when the series is being shown on TV.

** The History **

* WARNING: I don’t like to include spoilers in my reviews but if you have not seen the first season and intend to watch it then this review will contain spoilers for the first season. I can’t think of a way around this because of the relationship between the two series. You have been warned *

A year ago Jack Bauer pushed the limits of the law in an attempt to protect his family and presidential candidate David Palmer. Palmer was the subject of an assassination threat and Jack, being the director of CTU for Los Angeles, was tasked with keeping him safe. Jack risked everything when his family were dragged into the plot in an attempt to keep everyone safe and get to the people behind the treat.

Despite managing to save David Palmers life on a number of occasions, Jack has not been able to forgive himself for the death of his wife at the hands of his colleague Nina Myers, who had been working for the people behind the assassination attempt all along.

** The Story **

Picking up one year after the death of his wife, we join Jack Bauer at 8am. He has been having difficulty dealing with Teri’s death and blames himself for what happened. Jack is no longer working for CTU and has moved out of the family home he had created with Teri and Kim. Kim has been struggling to come to terms with what happened too and has distanced herself from Jack in an effort to deal it. Kim is now working as a live in nanny for a family in the suburbs.

David Palmer has won the presidential race and is in his first term in office. After suffering some marital difficulties during the election campaign David has filed for divorce from Sherry. Palmer has managed to keep most of his close staff from the electoral campaign and is using them during his time in office.

While on a family fishing trip, Palmer is called into the OC (Operations Centre) to deal with a national emergency that has arisen. The intelligence community has learned that a group of terrorists are planning to detonate a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles today. CTU are one of a number of intelligence agencies assigned to track down the bomb and find the group who are behind the attack.

President Palmer feels like Jack Bauer may be able to use some of his undercover connections to help get to the bottom of this crisis. Knowing Jacks previous experience Palmer feels confident that Bauer will be able to help CTU’s investigation. The only problem is that Jack doesn’t want to be contacted and it takes a personal call from the President himself to persuade Jack to have a look at the situation. Palmer has a lot of faith and trust in Jack after the incident a year ago and is able to use his position to get Jack’s cooperation.

By the time Jack is onboard CTU have identified a group that are most likely to be involved in the attack. As it happens Jack knows these people from his time working undercover and is asked to use these contacts to get some information. Meanwhile, there seems to be a little confusion in the OC over who is running operations today. The president soon finds that not everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet and must work quickly to resolve these differences.

Will Jack be able to infiltrate his group of acquaintances? Will they be able to provide him with the information he needs to stop the bomb? Will Palmer be able to get his house in order and working together to stop the bomb? One thing for sure is that there are sure to be some old friends coming back to have another say in matters and things are never as simple as they seem.

** The Characters **

Jack Bauer – played by Kiefer Sutherland (Taking Lives, Phone Booth), is an ex CTU agent who is having a hard time dealing with the death of his wife. Prior to joining CTU, Jack was a Special Forces soldier and has extensive experience of interrogation, combat and torture. Since the death of his wife Jack has become very withdrawn and has very little interest in helping a government and an organisation that wasn’t able to protect his wife.

Kim Bauer – played by Elisha Cuthbert (Love Actually, The Girl Next Door), is Jack’s daughter. Kim is working as a nanny for a nice family in the suburbs. Kim has found her relationship with her father difficult since the death of her mother and has needed her own space.

Tony Almeida – played by Carlos Bernard (Men In White), is now second in command at CTU Los Angeles. Tony likes to do things by the book and has a very professional approach to his work. He likes to know about everything that is going on.

Michelle Dessler – played by Reiko Aylesworth (Man on the Moon, You’ve Got Mail), is a senior agent in CTU. She has replaced Nina Myers after her arrest and is working with Tony.

David Palmer – played by Dennis Haysbert (Heat), is the first black President of the United States. He survived an assassination attempt a year ago thanks to the work of Jack Bauer. Since then he has gone through a divorce from Sherry and has got elected into the White House. He is a very calm person who likes to know all the facts before making a decision.

Lynne Kresge - played by Michelle Forbes (Escape From LA), is President Palmer’s assistant during his term in office. Lynne is very loyal to the president and will do anything to protect him.

George Mason – played by Xander Berkeley (Shanghai Noon), is the director of CTU in Los Angeles. Mason took over directing CTU a year ago when Jack started going outside the law to protect Palmer and his family. Mason is very career driven and has distanced himself from his family.

** Extra Features **

As an improvement on the first season DVD box set, this season comes with a raft of extras for fans. The extras are as follows and can be found on an extra DVD in the box set.

* Episode Commentaries
Commentary on the episodes from various members of the cast and crew.

* 45 deleted scenes

* “24 Exposed”
This is a two-part documentary on the making of 24.

* “On the Button – The Destruction of CTU”
A Featurette showing how some of the stunts and action scenes were produced.

* Multi-angle Scene Study
Allows you to watch a scene from a couple of different angles.

** Structure **

The box set is made up of seven DVD’s, six of which contain the episodes from the series and one containing extras. Each of the six series DVD’s contains four episodes and have a two level menu system. The top level allows you to select the episode you want to watch and the sub level allows you to select the options for the episode (Language Selection & English Subtitles, Scene Selection and Episode Commentary with various cast and crew members). The extras are on a separate DVD and are accessed from the root level.

** My Opinion **

When I first saw the first season I had no idea they were planning to make a second season. The end of the first season is good in that it ties up most of the loose ends but doesn’t rule out the possibility of a second season. It certainly wasn’t obvious that a sequel was on the cards, although there were some unanswered questions. When I heard about the second season I was quite excited by the prospect but opted to watch it on DVD rather than TV to avoid the annoying weeklong wait for the next episode. Prior to watching the second season I re-watched the first season to make sure I remembered most of the storyline and ease myself into the characters again. I think this was probably quite a good idea as some of the characters from the first season pop up in the second season in peripheral roles and it is good to have some sort of idea what is going on.

When I started watching the second season I was expecting it to be almost completely independent of the first season but as I got into the series it became clear that the two are linked. More than that I was quite impressed with the way the seasons are linked together and the level of continuity maintained between them. Some of the loose ends left at the end of the first season are picked up in this season and the ideas are developed.

Since the attacks of September 11th, the threat of a terrorist attack has been high in the public consciousness, and it is this threat that helps to make this storyline work. Recent terrorist activity has brought to people’s attention the lengths extremists are prepared to go for their cause and it is good to see this series tackle that threat. It may seem a rather extreme threat but as the series develops you are left feeling that this is a very real threat.

As a whole I thought that the storyline was quite good and had enough content to hold to viewers interest for the duration of the series. As viewers of the first series will know things are never as simple as they seem and this series ends up being about a lot more than a nuclear bomb. The additional plot lines are well thought out and well linked to the main storyline. The subplots can be directly related to what has gone before and bind the different elements of the story into a single entity. The various plots in this series contain a lot more action than the first season and the action scenes are all very well done.

There were a couple of aspects of the story that I thought could have been done differently. Firstly, I found that it took a while for me to get into the story. It wasn’t until the 7th or 8th episode that I felt like the series had really got going. This slow start may put some people off, but I would recommend that you stick with it as once it does start it is a fantastic story. The other thing I found a little disappointing about the series was that at times the plot seemed a little stop start. I think this is more to do with the timings on the episodes than the plot itself, but it is something that could have been changed to maintain suspense between episodes. This was a criticism of the first season too. There were a couple of times when I finished an episode and felt like the series was pretty much wrapped up. There was no real suspense to make me want to watch the next episode.

As with the first season, the characters are well thought out and are deep enough to allow good character development throughout the series. Even established characters, such as Jack, are developed further in this series with more of their colourful past being explored and utilised. The strained relationship between Jack and Kim is well represented allowing both characters to be developed and highlighting the difficulty people can have in dealing with the loss of a loved one. There is plenty of onscreen chemistry between Tony and Michelle that adds a little spice to anything that happens at CTU.

The only other thing worth mentioning here about the storyline in general is the way the American public is portrayed in the later part of the series. Considering that this series is American based and made, the portrayal of the general public is far from what I would have expected and not all together complimentary to the masses.

** Future and Past Releases **

24 Series One and Three are also currently available on DVD box set. 24 Series Four is currently being shown on Sky and will be released on DVD shortly afterwards. I have already reviewed the first season and intend to start watching the third season soon. I’m sure another review will follow.

** Availability **

Currently the first three seasons can be bought from Play.com for £18 each. This is by far the cheapest I have seen them and pretty good value for money as far as I am concerned. Renting the season would probably cost you more than this (at £3 per DVD).

** Overall **

If you enjoyed the first series then I would think that this series is a must. If you have never seen any of 24 before then you need to start with the first season before diving into this one. Overall: Recommended.

Thanks for reading.