Blogs.4Bauer

You may have heard about the new web site hulu.

Beginning today, consumers in the U.S. can go to Hulu.com to watch a large selection of hit TV shows, movies, clips and more in high-quality – anytime, for free.

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On Hulu.com, consumers can enjoy one of the largest selections of legal, free videos from more than 50 top broadcast networks, cable networks, movie studios and web-centric content providers. Hulu’s library offers full-length episodes from more than 250 TV series – from current hits like The Simpsons, The Office and Prison Break to classics like Arrested Development, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Miami Vice.

Also included are the complete first five episodes of both season one and six, as well as 167 clips from 24

Once upon a time, I found 24’s Season 1 for the totally cheap-ass price of $24.99. (I also promised to blog on it weekly, and that totally fell apart, but that’s another story. I still have 17 episodes to blog on, and I swear I will. Someday. I have kids. Sue me.)I found out this month why the set was so cheap. Fox is coming out with a whole new Special Edition of Season 1. The original set, rushed to stores in advance of Season 2, only had an optional introduction by Kiefer Sutherland and an alternate ending (anyone reading this blog who doesn’t know that ending has Teri living has been living in a hole, so I didn’t bother to spoiler alert this parenthetical).

The seven-DVD set (mine was six) is scheduled to come out May 20, according to TVShowsonDVD.com, at a list price of $59.98.

It still comes with Kiefer’s introduction and the “Teri lives” ending. But some episodes have commentary tracks and the seventh disc is all extras (extended and deleted scenes and new featurettes, including, “The Genesis of 24.” And it’s all enclosed in a special “steelbook” tin (check out the photo here).

DVDEmpire already has a pre-order listing.

Dammit! Does this mean I have to buy a second copy of Season 1?

Note: As promised, I’ve begun watching Season 1 of 24 and am blogging on one episode a week episodes after I see them, as a run-up to Season 7. Remember, I’m pretending I know nothing about Seasons 2-6, so blah blah blah, yackety schmackety.

I know, I’ve been very remiss in blogging on Season 1. Life’s been busy.

But this weekend, as all the sick people in my house napped, I watched episodes 5, 6 and 7 in a row and am back in the action.

And action it was!

I’ll deal with this character group by character group:

First up: The Palmers.

OK, what is up with this family? They make the Clinton and Bush families seem normal. The entire family knows that little Palmer accidentally killed the man who raped his sister and that family hatchet man “Carl” helped them cover it up and no one thought Papa Palmer should know?

Of course, if he had known, this storyline wouldn’t be nearly so dramatic, but still. I think he needs to rethink his relationship with his family. His son obviously has major father issues; his daughter obviously doesn’t want to do anything to harm daddy; and Sherry, well, I appear to have been wrong about her.

Sherry seems to have a very conniving side to her. I’m guessing we’ll see more of that as time wears on. The true character of many characters here seems to be coming out only now.

The big Q: Will all Palmers be by David’s side for the early morning breakfast? We shall see.

Next up: Kim and Terri Bauer

Kim has flashes of not being an idiot, but just can’t sustain them.

Now that her remaining kidnapper (in these three episodes, the meaner — and less attractive, how fortunate! — of the two kidnappers is shot point blank in the head by Gaines) is on her side (he has been sweet on her from the beginning) is on her side, she has the chance to get outta there.

While I understand that she doesn’t feel like she can leave her mom, she would have a much better chance of getting Teri free, it seems, if she escaped with kidnap boy and got to her dad, telling him where Teri was.

As for Teri, how shocked was she to realize the guy she thought she was with was actually dead? And what a blow to Jack to find that out. He’s totally screwed. I can’t even fathom how he’s going to get out of this one.

Then we have: Jack Bauer & CTU

I’m not sure how the bad guys have managed to hook into every single camera everywhere. In the hospital, in CTU, etc. OK, I understand CTU, given that there’s a spy there, but in the hospital? How’d they work that out?

It seems obvious that Gaines & Co. are going to try to either have Jack kill Palmer himself or at least be framed for his death. Can’t imagine why else Gaines would be having Jack head over to the breakfast.

Of course, we’re not all that far into the 24-hour cycle, so I’m not sure how that’s going to work. We have a lot of day ahead of us. Dennis Haysbert is listed as a star, not a guest star, so I can only think he’s not going to die. At least, not so early in the day.

As for CTU, it seems that George Mason has come to recognize that Jack is not a total rogue and actually knows a bit of what he’s doing. I’m glad he finally trusted Jack a bit. I think that Mason isn’t as bad a guy as he’s appeared to be up until this point — perhaps the bad things he did were for a reason; Jack’s done some iffy things already that we’ve accepted because we know he has a good reason.

Totally stunned when Jack shot Nina, and even more so when Tony discovered Jack had given Nina a flak jacket and she got up and walked away from her would-be grave. Talk about a dramatic moment when he shot her. I was on the edge of my seat!

He obviously wanted to shoot her in the back because there’d be less of a chance of him missing the jacket and hitting her; in the front, the jacket could have slipped open and he could have actually shot her for real.

But what about Jamie? She obviously is the spy. Teri calls, gets her, asks for help escaping her kidnapper and Jamie sends the bad guys to get her. Wow. She’s one of the only people Jack actually did trust in CTU. Makes it a little more clear as to why she didn’t want Milo working on that key card (what an annoying person he was! But Eric Balfour, the actor, looked better than he did when he was on Six Feet Under and had a shaved head.).

Wonder who’s going to figure out she’s on the wrong side. My money’s on Tony. He’s kind of a jerk, but he does seem to have his head on straight and seems to want to actually do his job and do it well. And actor Carlos Bernard has finally stopped that weird “voice” he was using, a half-whisper that just sounded like he had a cold.

I think that wraps it up.

In all, an excellent three-episode arc. Plenty of drama and payoff. Can’t believe the fake Alan York killed Janet after all she’d been through to survive. The Nina killing was utterly dramatic and fabulous. The show’s definitely picking up steam.

Note: As promised, I’ve begun watching Season 1 of 24 and am blogging on one episode a week, as a run-up to Season 7. Remember, I’m pretending I know nothing about Seasons 2-6, so blah blah blah, yackety schmackety.Whoa. Even though it’s a bit cliched in the thriller genre, it was downright creepy when the van carrying a kidnapped Kim Bauer drove right past the car Teri Bauer and Janet’s dad were in. I just wanted to scream at the TV, “SHE’S IN THERE!!!”

I thought the whole side plot, though, of Teri and Janet’s dad (can’t remember his name, and I don’t really care enough to look it up, he seems so like a disposable plot point), was quite silly, however. I understand that if I were looking for my daughter I might feel as strongly as he did. But I’d also try to make nice with the cop in hopes that he’d come along and help us out rather than do everything in my power to antagonize him.

Teri was far more reasonable, but I guess being married to a government agent makes it a little likely she’d understand how it all works.

OK, so Janet — I did heave a sigh of relief when the ambulance just happened by and picked her up (but it did seem weird that an ambulance would just be meandering around this totally deserted neighborhood at night, no?) just in the nick of time. Mr. Kidnapper Man preparing to shoot her was cold.

Kim, though I probably would have been screaming and fighting just as much as she was if I were kidnapped, just annoyed the bejeezus out of me. I wanted to slap her and was kind of relieved when Nice Kidnapper Man did. Gaines was an interesting addition; wonder if he’s telling the truth to Kim when he says she’ll be OK in a couple days if she goes along with him.

Speaking of, knock me over with a feather when the bad guy Jack helps capture spills that he knows something about Kim’s kidnapping. What on earth could her kidnapping have to do with David Palmer’s assassination? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the keycard was supposed to have information regarding the assassination plot on it, and that’s where this address came from. Color me curious.

Jack sure was.

He was also pretty torn up that that cop was killed. He felt really badly about it; here he was, trying to do his job and this cop was just trying to help him out and what does she get for her trouble? Death.

The question is, was the janitor working with the bad guys? Was he there to distract the cop so the bad guy could get the drop on her? What connection does this building have to the assassination attempt (or Kim’s kidnapping, for that matter) anyway?

As for the assassination attempt, really glad Palmer’s taking it seriously. Agent Pierce, despite not having many answers, finally managed to impress upon him that this wasn’t just a bunch of rumors, but some good intel. What he or anyone else can do about it, I’m not so sure.

While I understand Palmer’s desire to not hide on Primary Day, what good does winning the election do if you’re dead? I had the feeling Pierce really wanted to say that to him.

As for Palmer’s son, I think that David does indeed wonder if his son killed the guy who raped his sister (what is this, 24 or All My Children?), and I have a feeling it may turn out to be true. But even if Kevin’s former therapist is telling the truth, isn’t it a huge breach of ethics for him to say that? What ever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?
Back at CTU, things are getting very interesting. Is Jack indeed a rogue agent? We know he isn’t lying to Jamie in that Walsh told him he could trust Jamie and not anyone else. But George Mason made some major points with Nina, asking if she would ask the same of Jack as he’s asking of her.

It seems pretty sure that Mason’s a bad guy, but is he the bad guy? Hmmm. Lots of stuff to ponder.

Note: As promised, I’ve begun watching Season 1 of 24 and am blogging on one episode a week, as a run-up to Season 7. Remember, I’m pretending I know nothing about Seasons 2-6, so blah blah blah, yackety schmackety.

So, Nina’s not the spy. Knew it. I wonder, though, if Jamey might be. She’s obviously the computer expert and also is the one who confirmed it was Nina. I know that Walsh said Jack could trust Jamey, but how did he know that?

And if Jamey isn’t the spy, then who? Tony, perhaps?

And if neither of them, it’s a total mystery to me.

Or what about this — could Walsh have been the mole, throwing Jack off the trail by putting him on the case? Far-fetched, I know, but wouldn’t that be a juicy storyline?

Anyway, coulda knocked me over with a feather when Mandy and Bridget just suddenly started making out. I know more than one man-boy who must have liked that scene just a little too much. Made it all the more shocking when they killed Bridget and Mandy went along with it.

I couldn’t tell if Mandy knew it was going to happen, if that’s why she’d said she would take the matter up with Gaines, or if she just recognized that she was obviously the next target, so why not save her own life? She did seem to truly love Bridget.
Another interesting aspect to the Mandy storyline is that she doesn’t seem to really be a simply evil person, she’s just a mercernary. She simply is in it for the money; doesn’t care who’s hurt. I don’t know that that matters, but it was interesting. She’s not drawn into this from a political standpoint.

Anyhow, over to Kim.

She’s not as much of an airhead as she first appeared.

Sure, she’s a typical teenager, sneaking out to party with some strange boys, etc., etc. But she figured out pretty quickly that something wasn’t copacetic.

Pretty out of hand when the guys shot up her friend with junk to stop the pain. I do find it hard to believe, however, that her friend would have been able to run like that so soon after being shot up. A tad unrealistic, I think.

But that said, Kimberly really got her act together and got the two of them out of there. It did seem kind of obvious that Mr. Crack Whore would help them out, but that was a pretty shocking manner in which he helped. I guess he remembered a day when he wasn’t walking the streets cranked up (or down) on whatever drugs and actually had a family. Whatever. That was a little cheesy.

I had a hard time accepting the shocking final scene, too, where Kim’s friend suddenly inhaled deeply and woke up. Sure, she could have survived being hit. But her sudden return to consciousness seemed a bit bizarre and unrealistic.

Whatever the case, it brought her back into the clutches of the bad boys, who seem to be working with Gaines, which means whoever wants Palmer dead also wants to have Jack Bauer under his control. Curiouser and curiouser.

Finally, we have Mr. I Want To Be President.

So, the son’s a hothead. I wonder what the truth really is about his friend who died from falling out a window. Is Palmer telling himself the truth when he says his son didn’t push the guy out? Who, exactly, is Carl?

Oh, by the way — wow, when Palmer caught the bat that thug swung at him. What’s his damage? Must be former Special Forces or something like that. Would love to see him kick some butt.
Palmer is being a bit naive if he thinks he can just prevent this stuff from being aired in the public sphere. I mean, has he seen the last few campaigns for … anything? Politics is nasty and if you have anything in your or your family’s past that doesn’t involve the honor roll or saving kittens from a fire, it’s gonna get brought up and your name’ll be dragged through the mud. Heck, even in those cases, someone might accuse you of cheating your way onto the honor roll and setting the fire just so you could save the kittens and be a hero.

Palmer needs to be honest with Sherry, though. She needs to be aware of what’s going on. Keeping secrets like this never help.

Just curious, though — how did the Secret Service find Palmer? How would they have had any clue where he was? Could they trace his cell signal? Track his car? Huh?

Until next week….

Note: As promised, I’ve begun watching Season 1 of 24 and am blogging on one episode a week, as a run-up to Season 7. Remember, I’m pretending I know nothing about Seasons 2-6, so no snarky comments about how I’m an idiot because I think Tony’s a jerk or Sherry Palmer’s a stand-up woman. Ahem.

Wow. I honestly have to say I was shocked when Nina Myers’ name came up as the potential mole. I’d suspect Tony before Nina. I mean, why is he so intent on finding out what Jack is doing?

But besides the fact that Nina seems so unlikely as the mole, I find it hard to believe the truth about that would come out in only the second episode. I’m thinking there’s got to be more to this. Unfortunately, the body count is already stacking up and two people died in getting this information into Jack Bauer’s hot little hands. Nice toss by Walsh.
I wonder if someone else (Tony seems a likely suspect, especially considering he’s dating Nina) used Nina’s computer to encode the Palmer info on the keycard to frame her in case the information ever came to light.

Meanwhile, we check in on the probable future president or soon-to-be assassinated presidential candidate David Palmer. I like this guy, but really wonder what it is he’s trying to hide. What’s the story that the reporter called him on? Why’d he leave the hotel suite to meet up with this mysterious “Carl”?

Hopefully, Secret Service Agent Aaron Pierce will track him down before any harm comes to Palmer. Pierce had a calming presence.

Mandy and her cohorts had the opposite effect.

What’s up with Mandy’s partner, refusing to hand over the goods? They’ve been paid. It seems to me, though, that bad people shouldn’t double-cross their evil partners. That never seems to work out well.

And this Jonathan is an awfully good shot (shooting an egg off a chain-link fence?!), so it doesn’t seem like it’s a good idea to piss him off too much. That was some pretty fast plastic surgery, though.

Lastly, we have Kim. It’s pretty obvious now that these boys aren’t just in it for a joyride with some drunk girls. While the girls’ virtue may be relatively safe, they’re in an awful lot of danger.

Janet just got at least one arm broken (can’t imagine anything less after being smashed against a car door with a tire iron!) and is totally drugged up. Kim seems to be kinda safe right now as the masterminds “don’t want her injured.”

But who are these “masterminds”? Are they connected to the Palmer assassination or are there two things going on at the same time?

And was there a weird bit of chemistry between Janet’s dad and Teri Bauer? Something strange between them.

Check back next week to see where things go from here.

Note: As promised, I’ve begun watching Season 1 of 24 and will start weekly blog posts on it today. As I’ve previously confessed, I never did watch the first season of the Jack Bauer show and am finally catching up. I vowed to watch the show as if I’d never seen an episode before, so no smartass comments about how I’m an idiot because I think Jack should trust Nina and how Sherry Palmer seems very grounded. Shaddup and read and pretend you’ve never seen it either.)

An interesting concept, this, having a show take place in “real time.” Hopefully we won’t have to see any potty breaks or boring lunches in the cafeteria — “What!? You’re out of tater tots? I want to speak to the manager!”

But based on this first hour, there doesn’t appear to be much downtime on 24.

The main characters appear to be the Bauer family and presidential candidate David Palmer.

Palmer’s a senator who is likely to be the first major-party African-American candidate for president. Actor Dennis Haysbert has a very serene quality to him and I really liked the interaction between him and his wife, Sherry, played by Penny Johnson Jerald. She seems very grounded, a very solid political wife; a true asset to his campaign.

There is some sort of mystery here, though, as he almost threatened a television reporter on the phone about not running some story; he refused to tell Sherry what the story was about though. I felt badly for her as he closed the sliding glass door on her after she pushed him to tell her what the call was about. This seems like one of those things that he’s better off being honest with her about right off the bat rather than hiding from her. I can’t help but think this will come back to haunt him.

Speaking of wives, I wonder if Teri Bauer really has forgiven Jack for having an affair with his colleague, Nina Myers. It wasn’t made clear that she knew exactly why it was that Jack had moved out, but it seemed like she did. If not, that’s gonna come back to bite him in the butt; that’s not the kind of thing that stays secret for long on a television show, you know?

They seem to have their hands full with their teenaged daughter, Kimberly. She plays all nice and sugary sweet with Daddy, then all but ignores her mom and then sneaks out the bedroom window to meet some college guys at a furniture store with her friend.

Yeah, like that’s gonna turn out well. It’s obvious the guys don’t plan on taking Kim home, even though they promised to. Given that her dad’s a government agent, I don’t think that’s a really good idea to get him pissed off.

But her being missing couldn’t happen on a worse night. The Los Angeles division of the Counter-Terrorism Unit, or CTU, has received intel that there will be an assassination attempt on Palmer’s life. They’ve got to find the assassin and, hopefully, figure out who ordered the hit, before time runs out. With his daughter missing, Jack can’t help but be distracted.

Good thing his wife is with the father of Kimberly’s friend; at least she has someone to help her look and keep her occupied (and, probably, prevent her from being mad at her husband. But let’s get real. He’s a government agent. If he’s being called into work in the middle of the night, there’s probably something bad happening.)

Speaking of something bad happening, Jack is not only tasked with trying to foil and solve this assassination attempt, but he’s also ordered to figure out who within CTU is in on the plot. Yep, there’s a mole. Jack doesn’t think he’s up to the job because he previously took down three CTU agents who were corrupt, so no one who’s doing wrong will ever dream of opening up to him. But it’s for that very reason that his boss believes Jack’s the only man he can trust in CTU.

Jack is told to suspect everyone, and indeed the first person he meets with, George Mason (from “division”), seems to totally be on the wrong side of things. He acts very suspiciously, but I have to admit I was totally shocked when Jack shot him in the knee with a tranquilizer dart. Of course, Jack was right to suspect him, and he’d done bad things, and Mason gives Jack the info he asked for.

I find it hard to believe that Mason is actually the mole, however, because that would be far too simple. It’s hard to say who the bad guy might be. Perhaps he should open up to his partner (and former lover), Nina. She immediately helped him hide Mason. She seems like the kind of person he can trust. But his boss did say not to trust anyone.

This CTU guy, Tony, however, is a big jerk. He’s going to be trouble. Can’t say I think he’s the mole, but he is pretty obnoxious. It’s obvious Jack is a supervisor of some sort; Tony’s gotta just step up to the plate and deal with it.

Now, as for the assassin, that was pretty interesting. I completely thought that photographer was the assassin at first, and Palmer’s aide was in on the plan. That ditzy chick sitting next to him, Mandy, was a total revelation when she quit the drunk, hot passenger act and killed that stewardess and blew up the plane. Wow. She’ll be a force to be reckoned with.

I like the tinking digital clock idea, too. But did you notice how every time they gave an idea of when something would happen, it was a time frame that would have pushed it right over into the next hour, i.e., the next episode? Nice. Guess they want to hook people into watching the next episode. Not a bad way to do it.

Anyhow, all in all, a very compelling hour of television. Good characters, interesting plot. Let’s see where this season takes us.

I’m gonna do it — finally, I’m going to watch Season 1.

It’s embarrassing, I know, for a card-carrying member of Blogs4Bauer (of course, the card is an Aveda Pure Privileges membership card, but whatever) to admit she still hasn’t seen the Season That Started It All, but I’ve never hid it, either.

But I was at FYE this weekend and saw Season 1 on sale for $24.99. I probably would pay more in rental fees to check it out at Blockbuster, so it was a no-brainer. I’m not a big buy-TV-shows-on-DVD person, because I could easily go broke that way. The only series I have fully on DVD is the new Battlestar Galactica (OK, and the old one, in the cool old-school Cylon-head box).

So anyhow, I’m going to be watching an episode a week (some weeks more than one, as it depends on when in January 24 finally premieres as to whether there will be enough weeks — honestly, I don’t feel like doing the math right now) and blogging on it for Remote Access. I’ll post my entries over here, too.

I’m going to pretend I don’t know the twists (Nina’s betrayal, Teri’s death); I’m going to pretend I don’t know Jack’s tortured (and torturing) future; I’m going to pretend I never saw Kim Bauer threatened by a cougar (that’ll be the hardest one to pull off). I’m going to approach Season 1 as if I were a 24 newbie, all wide-eyed and innocent, not knowing of my thirst for Dammits and new and creative methods of torture.

Come join me, and Blogs4Bauer, on this journey.