I watched the premiere of "24", that long anticipated and highly raved show from Fox. It takes place in real time over 24 hours of one day, from Midnight to Midnight. It's the story of this FBI guy who has to stop the assassination of a black Presidential candidate as well as problems with his wife and daughter. And after one episode I can safely say that I'm not going to be watching this show.

So what's the problem with it? I'm not really into the camera style. Usually it focuses on one person but sometimes you get a multi-screen effect if things are going on at the same time (naturally, only one audio). Very reminiscent of "Time Code" and like that movie, it's kind of annoying. The problem with real time is that there's lots of dead space in everybody's lives -- even with four simulatenous plot threads there were lots of rather boring little snippets.

It's kind of cool that time continues even during commercial breaks. They show a clock ticking away from time to time and always just before and after the commercial break. It's a good opportunity to hide some down time. It does get annoying occasionally because they also add a ticking sound to the clock.

Another thing I didn't like about "24" was that nothing was accomplished in the first episode. It's all just setup. Too soap opera. Even in an arc-based tv show like Babylon 5, every episode tells a story. Sure, there are arc elements that make sense only if you've seen the whole arc, but each episode has a central story that can stand alone. "24" doesn't, so after that first episode I was left with an empty feeling. Then I ate.

Contrast this with "Band of Brothers". It deals with Easy Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne and their experiences in World War II. Very much a story where the current episode depends on the last episode for context and information that's just left out. But each episode also tells a story, for the most part. One episode focuses on a company medic, another episode shows the events from the perspective of a coward, and so on. Every episode has at least a self-contained point that the creators wanted to make. I didn't get that out of the first episode of "24".

I suppose I'm railing on the show a bit much. It's only tv. But I had such high hopes for it. A drama with mystery that the critics love and with an interesting (on paper at least) hook. Some complaints that I read, such as even in real time the lead couldn't have driven from his home to Langley in four minutes, I totally didn't notice when I was watching the show. I was just disappointed with the show...

Let's see, I also dropped "Boston Public" after watching the season premiere. Jeri Ryan is a new addition and I wanted to see what character she was playing. She's playing a lawyer, one of Senate's friends, who comes to his class to talk to the students, sort of a career day. And she is intrigued enough about what Senate and the other teachers are doing that she wants to be teacher -- though how you do that without getting credentials was left for the next episode.

But the show is just as bad as I remember it. There's the student who was being abused by his mother -- strangely though now the mother is all nice yet creepy and her hand is gone. Michael Rapaport is a new teacher who is sort of a typical bigoted white-guy. The same things that I didn't like about the show before are still there, probably because those are the same elements that make the show popular enough to renew. Once again, I have better things to do with my time.