24 and Battlestar Galactica Premieres
Before I start, I need to apologize for not doing any new cigar reviews this week. I’ve done a lot of posts about the government intruding on our right to smoke cigars (anything new there?). Today I’m going to talk about one television premiere that I’ve watched (24) and one that hasn’t happened yet (Battlestar Galactica).
[IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE PREMIERE OF 24 YET THEN STOP READING]
Jack is back! Not only that but 24 is back on track, which, based off of last season, I wasn’t sure was going to happen. No longer is there some apocalyptic threat that Jack has to single-handedly stop but rather a more manageable African coup with a side of domestic evilness.
However, bringing Tony back does seem like a stretch and their explanation (the bad guys pumped him full of drugs to make him look dead, which is actually what happened to Jack – minus the bad guys – at the end of a season a while back) seems a little far-fetched. But, oh well, there has to be at least a modicum of unbelievability with every episode of 24 and I like Tony so I’m glad he’s back. (Think they’ll bring Curtis back? No, probably not.)
What I especially like about this season is that it’s finally getting into a situation I’m really liking. No longer is it “Jack fighting authority” but rather we have a patriotic/rogue Jack doing things the government should be doing; like working with an ex-bad guy (Tony) to bring down an evil organization. The world we live in is filled with nefarious people and the sooner we realize that you have to get in the mud to deal with them the better.
One thing that really struck a cord with me about the first four episodes of this season of 24 was how Jack wanted “to get things out in the open.” He’s absolutely right, we’re not babies and we shouldn’t be shielded from the bad things our military/clandestine services have to do to protect us. We don’t need to know who they have detained or where but I think it might be best to learn what they are doing with the detainees. (There is the small issue of international law and diplomatic relations that might make this a little troublesome however.)
And to a large extent I think we already know these things. Over the last couple of weeks I have heard a couple of different numbers on how many people have been sanctioned to be tortured at the hands of US operatives in the War on Terror. In all those cases the number was less than 10. We also know how detainees in Club Gitmo are treated (they get nice meals and better health care than many Americans) and we know what happened in Abu Ghraib.
In reality, it actually looks like Jack tortures more people any given day than the whole US military/clandestine services does in a decade. Is this a good thing? I don’t know, I have never been in a situation where I needed to get information out of a bloodthirsty terrorist. But I will tell you this: If we trust these men and women to judiciously kill the enemy I believe we should trust them to judiciously extract information from the bad guys. Obviously, if they pull an Abu Ghraib they should be punished because there was no purpose, other than sadism, for what they did – but that should go without saying though.
Basically, 24 is the perfect series for this time in America. We’re a nation that will cheer on Jack Bauer while he hacks off a man’s head but some of us get squeamish and lose our nerve (still from the safety of a couch) when Guantanimo is brought up on the news. As a nation, like Jack said, we have to come to grips with what we’re going to allow our operatives to do.
In many ways Battlestar Galactica (BG) also came at the perfect time for America. BG is basically a metaphor for our post-9/11 world. In BG a terrorist strike wipes out most of humanity and whats left of humanity flees in search of a mythical place called “Earth.” To increase the intensity up to 11 the terrorists (robots created by people to make things easier) can look like humans, which means anyone can be a terrorist (sound familiar?), and the robots endlessly hunt down the remnants of mankind in an attempt to wipe every last one of us away.
Many of the conflicts on BG revolve around civil liberties and the tug-of-war between security and freedom. Because of this central struggle on the show it quickly became a favorite of mine. It is difficult grappling with such consequential issues (in a sci-fi sense, of course) like should the government be allowed to test everyone’s blood to see if they’re human or Cylon (robot) or who has final say over what happens to humanity’s last fleet.
At the end of last season – which actually was just the midpoint through the last season – oh, never mind – they actually found Earth. An Earth that has been ravaged by nuclear war, but still, they found us! (Or what will be us or what was us, I have no idea – it is SciFi after all.)
The series continues with the first episodes of this last (half) season tonight and I will definitely be watching because they reveal who the last Cylon that looks like a human is. And I’m excited to learn what is going to happen to the dying president, to the Admiral, and what caused the nuclear holocaust on our planet.
Both 24 and BG are important shows. They are more than just needless action fixes but rather metaphors for what is going on in the world today. If I could only watch two shows for the next six months these would be the two shows.
And I promise that I will have a cigar review tomorrow. 
24: Redemption and The Unit all in one Night
It was awesome watching both 24 and The Unit all in one night. I just wish my cigars had been better, which was surprising since I smoked a Arturo Fuente and a Rocky Patel.
24: Redemption is on Tonight
I’m a big 24 fan and while I would be the first one to say that the show has deteriorated somewhat in the last couple of years it is far better than most things on television. Especially considering the fact that the last time I got to watch a new episode was about a year and a half ago! Damn writer’s strike.
While Jack is running through the fictitious African country of Sengala saving children from being forced into military service and politicians in DC are trying to figure out how to prosecute Jack for saving the world at least six times (in six days nonetheless!) I will be lighting up a big cigar that will hopefully last most of the whole two hours. Until then here is the 24: Redemption trailer.
The Unit is a Cigar Smoker’s Television Show
I can’t believe I forgot to talk about The Unit the other day when I wrote about Sons of Anarchy. While it is true that there is more cigar smoking going on in SoA I have to say that my favorite between the two shows is The Unit for a couple of reasons.
First off, The Unit has been around for a longer time. I know what I am going to get from that show from now on. The same cannot be said for SoA. There’s a chance that they can be going through story lines a lot quicker than they should be and they might run out of ideas.
Secondly, The Unit is on network television. While this is also a negative since they can’t do the more edgy stories it is a net plus because you know CBS is going to be able to afford many more seasons of The Unit. The same cannot be said for SoA. Even if it does become a hit on satellite TV that doesn’t mean anything. Just look at another one of my favorites, The Shield. It’s still doing well ratings-wise, I think, but they are shutting it down because it’s just costing to much to produce.
Thirdly, The Unit is about the military. Sure, marauding motorcycle clubs are awesome to watch but there’s just something about watching Special Operations guys completing missions. Maybe I like the good guys (The Unit) better because during my formative years I read nearly every Tom Clancy book and watched John Wayne movies with my dad. But, let’s face it, the good guys are obvious with The Unit and the same can’t be said about SoA.
Fine, this last point does need some more explanation. I know that the vast majority of situations we encounter don’t present us with purely good or purely bad/evil options. And the writers of The Unit know this as well. While the Delta Force operators on The Unit are mostly good, decent people they are routinely faced with situations that push the bounds of their morality, or code, if you will. It still is just as complex a show as SoA or 24, another one of my favorites.
The last factor that is in The Unit‘s favor over SoA is that Dennis Haysbert is the lead actor. The ex-president from 24 is a big-time cigar smoker and also an avid wine lover. And, even though The Unit is on network television, they have smoked cigars on the show in the past. I don’t know for sure but I would wager a pretty big bet that many of our military men and women smoke cigars. Not a majority of them by any means but a good sized minority of them.
Alright, enough with this comparing and contrasting. Both shows are great and should be watched by any cigar smoker. The Unit, in particular, is an action-packed thinking mans shoot ‘em up hour-long drama that has always impressed.
Like 24, The Unit will kill off major characters (24 is the undisputed king of this by a large margin, however), which adds an air of unpredictability to the show. And the guys aren’t always successful. So, unlike those law and cop “dramas,” there actually is some drama for this show. For example, in a show a couple of weeks ago Haysbert’s character promised a group of prostitutes that he would free them. Unfortunately for the prostitutes, the mission got in the way and some of the bad guys got away with the prostitutes.
Perhaps the best thing about The Unit is that they actually have the guy who wrote the book on the Delta Force, Inside Delta Force, as a major part of the production of this show. He actually knows how things work in the black world of Special Ops and it shows. There aren’t any James Bond-ish flying cars or Mission Impossible helicopters flying in a tunnel ridiculousness.
The Unit is all about misdirection, brains, deceit, and force. In the end the good guys will always win the day even if not all the victories are not total ones.
One last thing, I would be remiss if I don’t mention the women of The Unit. Their stories are just as captivating as the stories of the guys on mission. The women have to deal with their own problems that are frequently exacerbated by the fact that their husbands are members of one of the world’s most elite fighting forces.
What this all ads up to is tension. There’s tension on each mission, tension between husband and wife, mother and daughter, between shooters and their colonel, soldier and politician, even between team members themselves. No story line stands still on this show and everything inevitably goes off in some totally unforeseen direction.
The Unit is an awesome show and is absolutely worthy of an hours worth of a cigar smoker’s time. This show is highly recommended by me.
