The series finale of 24 had a lot of good points. Here are some my thoughts, in bullet point format:

• How great is Cherry Jones as President Allison Taylor? That woman can show emotion and the pains of being a national and global leader better than any other President that they’ve had on 24 to date. If they make a movie, I hope that she makes the cut to play the President.
• The confrontation between President Taylor and Dalia Hassan (played expertly, brilliantly even by Necar Zadegan) was one of the most emotion-packed, skillfully performed scenes on television during the entire spring season on any channel. This was the scene where President Taylor threatened to bomb the IRK into the stone age if Hassan didn’t sign the peace treaty later in the afternoon. Amazing, amazing work by these two extremely talented actresses. Brilliant.
• Oh, by the way, can anyone play the hateful, scorned woman better than Zadegan? Absolutely amazing performance. When she snapped at President Taylor that there was nothing else to say after the Russian President arrived, you could almost feel the thought of, “You filthy bitch,” ingrained in her words. That’s hatred right there!
• And what can you say about Kiefer Sutherland’s performance as Jack Bauer? Not only was be great on tonight’s series finale, but he played the most convincing anti-terrorist, patriotic American that I’ve ever seen on television. Sutherland should rest easy knowing that he has single-handedly created and dominated the anti-terrorist character that all future anti-terrorist characters will be measured up against.
• How surreal was the end of the first hour of the finale when Jack put a sleeper hold on Chloe O’Brian (performed by Mary Lynn Rajskub) and knocked her out? Of course, Chloe got her revenge by blasting Bauer in the upper chest before the CTU team came in.
• And I don’t know about you, but how great is Gregory Itzin at playing the weasel of the show, former President Charles Logan? That’s some good, scumbag acting right there!
• If I had to choose one person that made tonight’s series finale better than could have been expected, it has to be Cherry Jones. She slightly beats out the great performances put on by Necar Zadegan and Gregory Itzin. Absolutely wonderful job tonight. The way that you could see every emotion on President Taylor’s face throughout the show was a marvelous job.

Talk about a powerful final half hour of television. Between President Taylor’s withdrawal from the peace agreement, Charles Logan killing his assistant and then popping himself in the head, and Jack Bauer getting ambushed and kidnapped and then ultimately set free by President Taylor and Chloe – what more could you have asked for in an action-packed finale?! In fact, this finale was so packed full of storyline arcs and action that the two hours seemed to fly by in no time whatsoever.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that FOX deserves kudos for not piling on billions of commercials during tonight’s finale like ABC Television did with the LOST finale last night. Putting aside any differences that I have with the FOX Broadcasting Company (like the fact that they cancel shows too quickly – Family Guy or Arrested Development, anyone?), they do know how to create a good and proper send off for their shows once they’ve reached the end of their road. And part of that proper send off is not insulting the fans of the show with an inordinate amount of commercials.

Good job, FOX.

One of the last things that I want to say about this, the final season of 24, is how great of an impact the secondary characters had on this season’s show. Not only were regulars like Itzen and Rajskub excellent at their roles, but the introduction of Katee Sackhoff of Battlestar Galactica fame and Freddie Prinze, Jr. of preteen movies fame made great additions to the regular cast. And so did John Boyd as Arlo Glass. The one thing that you can always say about the folks at FOX is that when they’re looking for a computer nerd to fill in a seat at CTU, they know how to find the people with the right look for the job!

Another parting thought – as I said after last night’s LOST finale, I’m glad that this show is over because now I get an hour back in my life each week! Amen! Finally, any coincidence that 24 ended on May…twenty-fourth?! Ah, maybe that’s just the leftovers of last night’s LOST series finale! Anyway, what did you think of tonight’s series finale of 24? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Feel free to post your comments on the show!

The second annoyance that I had with 24 this season was the story. It started out like something new – the modern-day African tribal wars where innocents are being murdered on a daily basis looked like it was going to be the basis of the new season. Then the story changed to domestic terrorism. The unifying theme, I guess, was that all terrorism is linked in one form or another.

Whatever.

A third, somewhat not-as-major annoyance with this season was the death of Bill Buchanan. In the grand scheme of things it was completely unnecessary. Poor writing.

It was fun, however, to watch Chloe O’Brian go head-to-head in random nerd-offs with Garofalo’s Janis Gold. That provided for some good television (or at least I thought so).

The whole kidnapping of Jack Bauer’s daughter, though – ehhh, I didn’t like how it played out on TV. Not sure why, but I just didn’t like it all that much. Sure, it was cool to see Bauer’s daughter bringing back some of her CTU training in the season finale, but it felt sort of crammed in there. The same goes for the Olivia Taylor storyline. Blech. Just boring television if you ask me. Well, the Olivia storyline wasn’t so much boring as it was repetitive. I mean how many times can a President’s daughter go through hell and high water to break the law and put her Mother’s administration in jeopardy in one 24 hour period, right?

I also have to comment on the Tony Almeida story which was only brought to full light in the last “hour” of the season. The idea that Tony was working all along to get a face-to-face meeting with the head of the underground crime syndicate which had caused so much havoc over the last few seasons just doesn’t hold up for this viewer. On top of that, having such a mediocre and convoluted plot for Tony’s character seemed, to me at least, to magnify the other holes in this season.

The season finale delivered on all of the fronts that 24 needs to deliver on, but when looking back at the entire season I can’t say that I’m overly pleased. Entertained? Sure, somewhat, I guess. If the next season carries on like this one did, I’ll be sure to save myself some time and stop watching midway through the show.