I really don't understand why this series is so highly acclaimed. The gimmicky premise of all the action happening in 24 hours, one hour per episode is fine on its own, but totally preposterous in that essentially all of the action takes place in LA, a city in which it takes hours to drive from one place to another. For instance, the last time I drove from downtown LA to Long Beach in pre-rush hour traffic took nearly two hours to go 25 miles. The fact that everything takes place in the general environs of LA is itself an issue, showing the hubris that Hollywood shows to the rest of the county in general (apparently, the rest of the US, other the a small part of DC, doesn't really even exist). Once you get past this laughable and pretentious choice of location and the speed with which the characters zip around a major city, you are left with one, well, just downright boring and stupid series. Before going into that though, has anyone else noticed the completely amateur acting talents of the cast? William Shatner's Captain Kirk has a far greater stage presence than any of the supporting cast with the possible exception of Dennis Haysbert and Kiefer Sutherland himself. The problem with Kiefer is that he doesn't act either- his total range of emotion is rage, anger, and grave concern- nothing else. This basically makes him appear to be shouting EVERY SINGLE LINE he ever says. Note to whoever directs this crud- HIGHER VOLUME DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN THAT THE AUDIENCE IS TAKING WHAT IS BEING SAID MORE SERIOUSLY OR INTERPRETING THE MESSAGE AS BEING MORE IMPORTANT OR OF GREAT CONCERN. The natural charisma of Sutherland is not enough to hold up the poor dialogue and story lines. The incessant use of techno babble by the supporting cast is maddening, especially when its clear that whoever wrote the various scripts has no idea what the real operations of either military or civilian intelligence agencies nor understands the technology behind intelligence gathering or even basic computer science, physics, molecular biology, or anything else. By the way, has anyone noticed that the President of the US of A seems to have a lot of free time on his hands to micromanage the crisis de jour? What a crock. But by far the worst feature of this series is the character of Jack Bauer himself, a strange mixture of hero and antihero who seems to be designed to cater to the post 9/11 US moron audience where the ends always justify the means and no actions have real repercussions. Hence we have a main character that routinely tortures suspects, skirts or breaks sovereign law, and otherwise has complete free reign to do what ever he likes. This, of course, fits in fine with the ever increasing fascism of the US and the idiocy of the US viewing audience, but what they hey. Anyway, the good news is that this series will likely only last one or two more years. Thank goodness for small favors. So, if I hate this show so much why did I give it a five rating- because I have rated it in context to the other crap on TV these days. I'd rather watch this stinker than any of its even more foul competitors or claptrap like American Idol or Survivor. By its self it rates a 2.

New season: It just keeps getting dumber and dumber. Wow, terrorist nuclear engineer sets new land speed record- Palmdale to Valencia in under 2 minutes (it would normally take an hour) to set off YET ANOTHER nuke. Are the writers running out of WMD threats? What's next- an eccentric billionaire with a space station and a giant laser aimed at LA? Juvenile, simply juvenile.