The Jack Bauer Power Hour

For a variety of reasons, Lynn Sislo is frustrated with 24. Some of her reasons deal with the show's writers, and some deal with the FOX Network, which has historically tended to make really goofy decisions regarding programming. (Witness their cancelling of The Family Guy, only to see that show set records as a DVD release. Now there's a strong possibility that FOX may bring the show back. Now, that's a show that I can't stand, but axing it was a pretty dumb move.)

Lynn's primarily annoyed that 24 has been off the air for several weeks now, and will remain so until next week. Here I think the show's structure (an entire season telling a single day's events in real time, one episode per hour) clashes with the realities of a TV season. FOX needs to time 24's climactic episodes with May sweeps, but they can't just do like other networks with hit shows and have a new episode here, and a new episode there during the non-sweeps months, because 24's unique story structure would likely suffer if they do that. It's actually a lot easier, probably, to recall where things are right now and then plow through the last nine episodes of the season; and this way, we're spared the annoyance of saying, "Hey, is 24 new this week?"

So I can't fault FOX for the programming, believe it or not. Now, I will grant that the show isn't as good this year as last year, but that's a writing thing, not a FOX thing.