TV Watching

Every expat around here seems to have his favorite television series. Some might say The Shield; others prefer Lost. At least several chums suggest The West Wing, which I, in my limited viewing experience, have had trouble abiding because it's just too reasonable, too earnest, too well-scripted for its own good. Seven seasons of so many bon-mots, so many sorrowful looks and such poignancy would be insufferable.

Along with the rest of humanity, I've been entranced by The Wire. We're through season four, with season five awaiting us at the local (pirated) DVD store. Season four had the best individual plot line in the tale of four schoolkids, but overall could not compare with the epic Barksdale family story arc from the first three seasons.

Before delving into season five, we've decided for a little, um, lighter fare: season four of 24. So far, it's the best season yet. No cougar traps, no brothers named Hector and Ramon with horrible accents, fewer plot lines that bubble up and pop in the course of one or two episodes, their only purpose, seemingly, to stall for time.

Watching these two shows one after the other has been interesting. Superficially, 24 is worse than The Wire in many ways (acting, writing, plotting, originality) but I find myself more compelled to keep watching. Figuring out which is the "better" series is harder than I thought. 24 is a lot more fun. You don't have to deal with Wire creator David Simon's accurate but bleak and pedantic view that no one is all good. Jack does some crazy shit, but he's an ass-whupper, and you gotta love him for it.

Because I hadn't seen much of 24 at the time, I didn't quite know what to make of this New Yorker article suggesting that the show not-so-subtly encourages torture as an effective interrogation technique. I'm still undecided. In the first 11 episodes of season four, the good guys have tortured at least six different people. Bad guys who are tortured always divulge the right information, while good guys who are tortured never break or utter false confessions. Nonetheless, anyone on the planet who could watch 24 and think torture is a good idea is certifiably looney tunes. Just as often as not, torture is "not the right play" (Jack's words) _ just think of Defense Secretary Heller's poor son, Richard.

An obvious point, perhaps, but it's also important to remember that this is a show where people say things like, "Jim, we must get that override," characters are rarely more than a 15-minute drive from anywhere, the camera almost never shows Keifer Sutherland from head to toe next to anyone else because he's too darn short, and people get stuck in cougar traps.

Comments

[Rob]

It's gotta be West Wing for me, although I confess to having to rewind frequently in order to work out the significance of what's just been said. (A pal of mine who worked at the White House told me it was uncannily accurate - although we knew that, right - although the real people rarely spoke so coherently).

As for 24, well it's TV heroin. The writers toy with us every episode before reeling us in with the cliffhanger. It's addictive, but I think we all know it's nonsense. Not even the Americans have computers as good as that. Right?