Flapper's Folly

I don't watch much tv, but when I find a show I like, I am a faithful viewer. 24 is such a show. It's not much longer until the new season begins and I can hardly wait. The third season will kick off Tuesday, Oct. 28 with a commercial-free episode, sponsored by Ford.

The final episode of season two had President Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) falling to the ground in pain after shaking hands with an assassin sporting a plastic sheet of who knows what poison or infectious agent on her palm. Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland) is being wheeled off on a stretcher clutching his chest after having had his heart stop earlier while being tortured.

Fox has begun dropping hints of what to expect in the third season. Apparently we will skip forward a couple of years in time. Bauer will have a partner, as yet unnamed. Bauer's daughter Kim (Elisha Cuthbert) will now be working at CTU. I really can't imagine this. I've always felt she was superfluous to the plot. I can only guess that it involved a contract or she was kept as eye candy for young males viewers. Haysbert apparently survived and will be back and in the middle of his re-election campaign.

Regretfully, Penny Johnson Jerald, who plays Sherry Palmer, has not been signed as a regular. That's a shame. Her character has to be the most cold hearted, conniving, mean, bad-badder-baddest bitch ever. She is great. Of course, not being a regular doesn't mean she won't return. I'm sure we'll see her again. Sadly the same is true of Sarah Wynter who played Kate last season. We can hope she won't be back. More of my opinion of her here.

The show is always full of surprises. No hint from Fox on what crisis will drive the plot this season, but hopefully it will provide the same roller coaster ride the previous seasons have given us. I'm marking my calender on September 7th when Fox will air a four-minute trailer during the movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."