Television Can Blow Me (18 page)

Best writer not called Aerial Telly: Marina Hyde

A new award created to scotch the popular and understandable misconception that Aerial Telly is the only writer worth reading. Just because you’re the best it doesn’t mean you can’t acknowledge the second-best priest and Marina Hyde’s brilliant, funny and dazzling columns on sport, politics and showbiz were the other good reason for reading the Guardian in 2009. Her gracious dealing with worthless Guardian commentscum confirmed her as a beast who will not be tamed, served or duplicated. BEAST, you hear me?

Best Aerial Telly betting tip: Mayweather on points at 2.14

It was another astounding betting year for Aerial Telly. One by one bookmakers fell at the feet of his towering handicapping prowess. He’s a beast who just keeps coming. Many thought Mayweather would try and make a point and knock Marquez out but Aerial Telly brought to bear his magnificent knowledge of the sport of boxing, his unique insight into human nature, psychology and metaphysics and correctly predicted that Mayweather would safety first his way to a wide decision. Extraordinary.

TV pie of the year: Courtney Ford in Dexter

“Pum-pum come, pum-pum go but Jesus Christ remains” said Lee “Scratch” Perry and this was never more true than in 2009 when a ribald selection of pie passed across our screens. Michelle Forbes was alarming as the loopy maenad MaryAnn Forrester in True Blood, Maggie Siff foxed her way through Sons of Anarchy and Summer Glau from Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles can never be counted out of any pie contest. It would be criminally remiss of Aerial Telly not to mention Cylon pie Tricia Helfer and Grace Park slutting it up on Battlestar Galactica. But it was Courtney Ford’s turn as Christine Hill, the pushy nutjob reporter on Dexter, who got the nod for this most coveted of awards. This elfin strumpet found her way into Detective Quinn’s bed and into our hearts as the Little Reporter Who Could (be a dangerous psychopath).

So there you have it. If you weren’t mentioned during these awards it means that you SUCK. Aerial Telly sees all time in an instant and was far from impressed with your contribution. Another year draws to a close and another decade expires. The noughties were very much the decade of Aerial Telly. They were the decade of fearlessly saying the unsayable, having the balls to put your money where your mouth is in the gambling markets, untold pum-pum, critical acclaim and monstrous success. You can’t second-guess, imitate or tangle with him. Your only hope is that by learning some of the fabulous lessons he offers you may become slightly less of a worthless turd. This is his gift to you.

Happy Christmas, shitbirds.

American drama:
torturers, serial killers and other good guys

Check out Hollywood today. It's a heads-is-tails topsy-turvy world where the real talent goes into TV where they know they'll get more time, less interference and a better chance of realising their vision than in stupid lame-oh movies. Art's triumph over commerce was hard-won and came from a lot of risktaking and bold decisions but we now sit in the centre of a golden age of TV drama and that's largely down to HBO.

Because they achieved commercial success without compromising story or pandering to test groups HBO challenged orthodox beliefs about what TV could achieve across the board.
Obviously subscription cable networks were inspired to follow suit but even big networks raised their game with shows like 24, Prison Break and Lost - pushing the envelope became the norm.

And yet you still get punks who say there's nothing good on the telly. Heinous rat bastards.

24 Season 4

If television is narcotics (and who can seriously argue that it is not?) then 24 is its crack cocaine - instantly addictive, bringing mayhem and destruction wherever it goes.

Kim has packed her 48 tight T-shirts and gone to Europe with Chase - apparently recovered from having his hand hacked off by Jack in the previous season’s finale (long story - there was this briefcase, see - motherfucker, they sewed it back on, OK?)

We left season three with Jack blubbing like Apple Paltrow in his black SUV so it’s not surprising that season four kicks off with Jack out of CTU and in the arms of a new lover. Meet Audrey: the daughter of Jack’s new boss, Defence Secretary James Heller.

Despite the three of them working together daddy doesn’t know about Jack and Audrey. “You’ll have to tell him”, Jack tells Audrey, “He’s a very shrewd man”

Not that shrewd, apparently. There’s sexual tension you can cut with a hacksaw and daddy dearest still thinks Audrey goes home alone.

You’d think the women entering into Jack’s life would be a bit more cautious. Just a brief glimpse at his shagiography - Wife: Terri. Kidnapped, raped, then killed by Jack’s Lover: Nina. Kidnapped, evil, jailed, freed, evil then killed. By Jack.

And then there’s Daughter: Kim, kidnapped more often than Penelope Pitstop, the girl is a walking loon magnet, menaced by everything from right-wing militia gonks to wild cougars.

As if all that wasn’t bad enough her CTU Field Ops boyfriend has his hand hacked off. By Jack.

But still the velvet voice and 5 o’clock stubble at three in the morning wins them over. Living with a lightning rod for trouble has its advantages. You get to go places you’ve never seen (inside the boot of an SUV), meet interesting people (international terrorists, rapists) and I hear CTU has a bitching pension plan (not that you’ll see the benefit of it, the average life-expectancy of Jack’s girlfriends being that of an asbestos mining mayfly).

Did I mention Jack’s not above a bit of torture and mutilation to get the job done - slaughtering and decapitating a child pornographer to win the trust of a criminal (the head delivered in a holdall - nice!) So it’s hardly surprising that two episodes into season four he’s knee-capping a terror suspect (yes that’s right, suspect).

All you have to worry about at Guantanamo Bay is the occasional human pyramid and barking dog. I’m sure Jack’s victim was longing for that kind of treatment as he picked his patella out of the carpet. You know when you’ve been Bauered, fool! The ICU nurses are a dead giveaway.

The biggest problem 24 faces is the law of diminishing returns. Season one had the President threatened with assassination and Jack’s wife and daughter held hostage. Season two had the threat of a nuclear bomb killing 1 million people. Season three had the prospect of millions dying through biological terrorism. Where do you go from there?

Season four has nothing like the impact of the first three and it suffers because of it. This is the ultimate impact television, after all. Slow-paced character development is not on - even if we have the magnificent Chloe with her wrecking ball abruptness and hysterical lack of social skills. At the moment, four episodes in, it feels like we’re treading very familiar ground.

Now that the threats are not as exciting, the focus will come back on the main attraction. In the end, it always comes back to Jack - velvet voiced nonce decapitator, homicidal hand-hacker and modern day superhero.

He makes his own rules.

The verdict on 24:
The light may be dimming but it’s still outshines most of the rest.

Marks out of 10:
7.5

24 series finale

Smarter than its critics, bolder than its peers, wild at heart and weird on top, 24 came out for the final round swinging and went out slugging with a fine, gutsy and moving finale that showed up Lost’s ending as the jizz slurping fudge Armageddon it really was. Was it as great as The Shield finale? Naw papi, but The Shield is The Shield and very few things touch that masterpiece in any area. What it was was thrilling, true to the characters and consistent with both the show’s ethic and canon.

It began as a 24 finale always should: with Jack on a killing spree, fatally wounded, rogue as fuck, pursued by the Feds, CTU, the Army and Government. In possession of a data card with a recording of Logan and Suvarov providing irrefutable evidence of the Big Mad Conspiracy, he’s also slaughtering a slew of dudes but no one you would really want to see taking another breath.

Assassinating the Russian President though? Now he’s really losing his mind, though on a personal level you can understand it. President Suvarov is behind the day’s terrorist attacks, Hussan’s killing and Renée Walker’s death. It was Renée being plugged right after Jack had put his cock in her that really toppled him over the edge. He was all “don’t Walker way Renée!”
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but the kid didn’t pull through. Yoink!

Incidentally, the peace process is still on track despite President Taylor (Hyacinth Bucket) telling President Dalia Hussan (Slumdog Shrillionaire) that she’ll be signing the treaty with Suvarov, her husband’s murderer. Dalia ain’t trying to hear this but when Taylor tells her she will nuke the IRK back to the Stone Age if she doesn’t, her hand is forced. Hussan reels away in fury as the rest of us wonder when Taylor grew a pair.

For now though it’s important that Chloe, Cole and Arlo get to Jack before Jason Pillar and his bonehead flunkies do. Jack’s way ahead of them though as he kidnaps Pillar, makes him stitch his fatal wound to make it marginally less fatal then chickens out on executing the motherfucker when Pillar starts blubbing about his six-year-old daughter. Never leave a Republican breathing, Jack. That was your first mistake.

Occupying a Lee Harvey Oswald sniper’s nest in a building opposite the UN, Jack waits to pop a cap in Suvarov. Chloe locates him by the power of potato knowledge and to thank her he knocks her out with the death grip and handcuffs her to a railing. After coming round, she manages to talk him down, having promised to do whatever it takes to expose the conspiracy. It turns out this involves shooting Jack in the tits which, despite his exhortations, Chloe really doesn’t want to do. But when Jack moves to shoot himself, Chloe plugs him proper. He survives because he’s Jack. Pillar takes control of the scene but not before Jack bites a chunk out of his ear. It really fucking hurts.

And Chloe? She gets the data card but can’t quite upload it to CTU servers in time before she’s apprehended. Before you know it, it’s in the hands of President Taylor. She watches Jack’s emotional goodbye to Kim
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that he recorded on the same card making it feel like a family wedding videotaped over with secret footage of the Kennedy assassination. She feels wretched. She’s betrayed Jack, the American people and everything she ever stood for. If only there were some way she could make amends, come clean and square this, the roundest of circles?

Yeah, that’s right. At the treaty signing, President Taylor makes a dramatic public confession, refusing to sign the document, dropping herself, Suvarov, Logan and the rest of the traitors in the deepest of shit. Nice work Madam soon-to-be-impeached President but do you think you could take time out from your Tiger Woods moment to get a phone call to Charles Logan’s goons? They are just about to execute Jack Bauer. Madam President? Madam President?

Patched through in lightening time by Chloe’s technological genius, President Taylor halts the execution, says “sorry for all that” to Jack, admits he was right and tells him to get the fuck out of there because the Russians, Americans and the Intergalactic Alliance are all after a piece of his ass. Wounded but walking, Jack agrees this would be a good idea but wants one final word with Chloe. Deep breath, guys.