Before the half-season, which is 24: Live Another Day (2014), this was the final season of the phenomenon that was 24. And after the mediocre season seven (my review here), I hoped this season would finish in style. And it delivered. Sure, I voiced my opinion before that had this show ended after season four, it would have been remembered as one of the best action shows ever, so it doesn’t deliver “that much” for me. Don’t get me wrong, this season was really messy, but it was at least enjoyable kind of messy.

Jack is finally out and just wants his piece, but of course, he is needed back. Because despite the plethora of people working for the US government, nobody is as indestructible as he is, apparently. So they pulled him back in, and that pretty much destroyed his life. I won’t spoil anything major, but the way this season starts, he is after everything he’s gone through in a happy place. And I don’t think it spoils anything to say after this season ends (and at the time, this show), he is not. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

I think what helped in this season was that there were no more dumb clichés. Nobody came from the dead there was no new surprising family member, just a good old-fashioned (potential) nuclear catastrophe. What also helped was the casting, mainly Anil Kapoor (the producers knew how to cash in on that Slumdog Millionaire (2008) love) and Katee Sackhoff (who is having a bit of a career renaissance thanks to The Mandalorian (2019 – ?)) were great additions to this seasons. And they had crucial roles, even though Katee’s character started to annoy me towards the end (no spoilers, but you probably understand why if you’ve seen it).

This season was also interesting as we could see the moral compass from the last season (Cherry Jones, aka President Taylor) shake and make some questionable decisions. I was split by what the writers have done with her character. On the one hand, I was annoyed by how dumb her decisions were; on the other hand, I could see the point. The ultimate power ultimately corrupts you no matter how “pure” you are; everybody will eventually “cave in”. It just felt that in her particular case, she caves in once, and since she does it in the worst possible moment, there is no way back from it. It was fascinating to see her character fall throughout the season.

Also, this might be the season where Jack felt the most unbeatable. Especially after something (yet again) drastic happens in his life (this guy has been through a lot), he goes off, and when he does, it feels like he has just unlocked a secret power-up. No bullet would harm him no matter how many people were in his way; they would all end up dead… He has killed many people throughout the show (IMDb trivia says Jack killed 267 people!), and I would not be surprised if a large chunk of that number came from this season. Again, once he goes into his full Rambo/Dark Superman mode, he is hard to kill.

And despite that, I had much more fun with this season than the previous two. The end felt appropriate (and almost touching) even though you know there were consequences for everyone. The show even addresses them in the “ninth” season. But with the supporting actors doing their best and Kiefer Sutherland going through hell and back to do “what needs to be done”, this season was enjoyable. Messy and flawed but still enjoyable enough.

Overall, the eighth (and until 2014, the last) season of 24 was a major improvement from the previous season or two. It focused mainly on the core, established people and only brought in some new characters that made sense, and they brought in their A+ game. This (back then) final season delivered as best of an ending as it could have. 24 is an intriguing case study of what happens when you let your show run for a bit too long because it seems like there is no “active” fan base anymore. And I have seen fan bases of other shows that weren’t such a big hit as 24 once was still active today, doing rewatches and discussing new things about their shows. But more about that during my review of the final season.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

Some of you might have seen it coming, but I am a completionist. For better or worse, that is who I am, and it goes beyond just finishing a show I have started. I also feel the need to finish all the reviews for 24, season by season, as promised. I don’t know why it’s simply a part of me. As you can deduce, I finished this entire show some time ago, but I still remember my feelings about each season. But before we get into it, let’s take a moment and talk about the 24: Redemption (2008).

And by “a moment”, I will give you a mini-review of this film between season six (my review here) and this season. Why is there a film in between these two seasons? Well, in 2007, there was a writer’s strike (kinda like the one that started now), and this movie came about instead of season seven which was delayed because of that strike. And as I mentioned in my review for season six, when I finally watched this movie, it was after the seventh season, so my review isn’t fair. Because I already knew the main players of season seven and how they fit into everything, watching it back was… fine. The African setting felt like a much-needed change, and it was as action-packed as you may expect from 24, but it might have worked better had I watched it before season seven. The overall story has very little impact on the series, except for the finale; however, if you are watching 24, watch it before you start season seven.

Now, let’s get into this season. If you name a TV cliché, chances are season seven of 24 will have it. Unfortunately, this show has fallen into the last trap of almost every show that goes on for some time, and that is bringing back “dead” characters. As in, “if you haven’t seen them die, they may not be dead” rule. Except in this show, they cheated because we saw that character die, except he didn’t… Ok, I will have to get into spoilers, so if you care enough, you have been warned.

Beware, SPOILERS are coming!

I truly hate that trend of characters coming back to life in any show, but this season, it was even worse because we saw Tony die. As Jack says at the beginning of this season, he saw him die, except, of course, he didn’t. I know they excused it vaguely, but it feels so cheap. And this whole spiel, whether he was good or bad, got boring quickly, to the point I literally didn’t care. As much as I liked his character in the past, he should have stayed dead; Tony felt out of place in this season.

The reason I feel like that is simple, I did enjoy most of this season otherwise. I liked Jack, Chloe and Bill working outside of government on their own because they don’t know who they can trust; I thought Tony Todd did a great job as the main antagonist of this season and didn’t even mind the president’s family subplot, showing her integrity and making the morally correct calls, despite how painful they were. And even though the latter half of this season was a bit “wild” (from the attack on the White House to Kim’s involvement at the end), you can still enjoy yourself in most of these scenarios. I also liked Annie Wersching‘s character Renee Walker; I thought she was a great counterforce to Jack. It’s a shame we lost her at the beginning of 2023 to cancer 46 years is awfully young to go.

Back to this season as a whole, out of all 24, this was the most mediocre one ever. And having seen all seasons now, I can assure you both season eight and the special Live Another Day (technically, season nine, but only had 12 episodes) had their issues, but neither felt so average after I finished them. And I need to go back to the core issue, not only bringing Tony back but making him and his “is he a good guy or not” dynamic almost the centre point of this season bothered me. Had he stayed dead, and we would have focused more on the corruption within the government, building the relationship between Jack and Renee, this season would have been much better.

Overall, the seventh season of 24 is the lowest this series has ever been and will ever be. It is still a perfectly fine action-packed show that won’t bore you much, but your enjoyment will be heavily impacted by whether or not you can enjoy the “let’s bring this dead character back” trope. Some of you may be happy to see Tony back, and I can’t blame you. To an extent, I envy you that you may see this as a plus. Sadly, I can’t, and this effectively killed most of the enjoyment for this season, and I was coming from an already shaky sixth season.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

Let’s get one thing straight, I know writing “the best video game adaptation” isn’t such a high bar to conquer. In the sea of either awfulness; or pure mediocrity (I can list many films, but let’s just not), there were only some that stood out. My personal favourite was always the first Silent Hill (2006) or the Resident Evil franchise, despite most of those films being objectively bad. And this is the thing, even though I could find myself enjoying most of them, I could tell they were not all that. But HBO struck gold with The Last of Us. One could say it’s easy to adapt one of the best games of the last decade, possibly in the 2000s. But here’s the thing, had we gotten this adaptation around 2015/16, I bet you it would still be a mediocre, 100-minute “horror” that would disregard what made the game so unique and beloved. And I think this is what the people behind this show managed to crack – they didn’t treat it as a “video game adaptation”. They treated it as a story that had to be told properly and translated well into the cinematic medium.

You can imagine there are already many “hot takes” about this show, the latest being that this show is better than the game. And even though this might sound odd, you are comparing apples and oranges here, people. Hear me out. Both are excellent in their own medium, and that is the point of well-made adaptation. This show (as great as it is) doesn’t compare to the game because it doesn’t have to. This show has details the game doesn’t have and vice versa. It is the same argument as whether books or films are better in the Harry Potter franchise. The answer is: “Depends on you and what you are in the mood for.” The books have much more details and characters the films are condensed in a more cinematically pleasing package. And that is my point; I think this is how they “cracked the code”. We don’t just want to see the same scenes replied on the big screen. We want to see the same characters with their strengths and flaws. But on the opposite side of the flip coin, many other films based on video games failed when they showed us the characters we recognised but put them in a generic environment. Or, like Warcraft (2016), you had to know most of the world to enjoy the film. There is a very thin, prickly line between copying the best scenes from the game onto the screen without going overboard, and The Last of Us nailed it. Why? Because they weren’t afraid to change the details. And that is why I won’t tell you I prefer this show over the game or the other way around. Because the game is perfect when I control it, control our characters. The tv show works beautifully, when I want to watch it. That is the beauty of different mediums.

The answer is so evident, but Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann understood that no matter how beloved the game is (and the game is in my TOP 3 games of all time), they need to change some details. But here is the thing about that those changes have to serve the cinematic story; they can’t be random. For example, the fungus, how it spreads, how the pandemic broke through, we got that, and they have tweaked that slightly from the game. They gave us quite a few scenes that were not in the game, and I love them because they made sense within this “TV” universe.

The only valid complaint (because we have to address the anti-LGBTQ review bombing soon) I have read from the fans is they wished there would be more action scenes. Because that is the most noticeable change the creators have made – we get much fewer action sequences, especially with Infected, let alone Clickers or Bloaters. And, on the one hand, sure, I wouldn’t mind one or two more of those tense scenes like in episode two. However, this is where I bring it back to my original point about different mediums and why ultimately, they succeeded – this is not what the game is about. Again, hear me out. Sure, do you kill a lot of infected? Yes. But had we gotten just nine or ten episodes of that, how different would that be from other shows? I admire the decision and the foresight to understand that to translate what was so special about this game to the TV screen, they had to get rid of most of the action. Because you can see/get post-apocalyptic action on almost every corner of pop culture today, but that wasn’t what made this game win over 200+ game of the year awards. It was the flawed, broken characters. So I didn’t mind it being less actiony or horror-y because they nailed the atmosphere, the characters, and their dynamic. But before we talk about them, let’s talk about the elephant in the room.

If you go through the IMDb episode list, you may notice two episodes rated lower than the rest, episode three (Long, Long Time) and seven (Left Behind). Now, were these just two random episodes the creators “dropped the ball” on? No, they were both as great as the rest of this show. What they showed, however, were characters who were openly gay. Both characters, by the way, were gay in the fucking game too! That isn’t even the “they changed things” argument; no, because if you go to the game, one of those characters is hinted at being gay, and the other is openly gay. And somehow, in 2023, it still rubs people the wrong way…? Honestly, this is tiring. If you look at these episodes, they were both done in such a great way it’s hard to hate them. Especially episode seven is literally a copy of the game’s DLC, called Left Behind. They hit all the notes they were supposed from that DLC, and I loved it. And regarding episode three, I liked the novelty. They showed us how some other people would handle a pandemic like that. For example, you always see the survivors who shoot their way through everything; you see looters, rapists, murderers, and the worst of humanity. But then there is this character who simply wants to be left alone. He is crafty and was prepping for something like this for a while (all the doomsday preppers must have felt validated). And yeah, he happens to be gay. Jesus, people grow the fuck up. Gay people exist. And some could kick your ass whilst having a lovely duck with wine as their dinner later on.

Anyways, the show (the same as the game) is about Joel and Ellie. And when Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey got their roles, I was cautiously optimistic. I knew them both to be great actors; I just wasn’t sure they were “suited” for these roles. And now, I am more than happy to say they were the perfect choices for their roles. Pedro brings the “lone wolf” quality, yet they made him more vulnerable than the game, which I thought was a great decision. It gave us more glimpse into Joel’s character, and his hesitancy about Ellie and their relationship between them was superb. You get why he is hesitant to let her get close to him. But when the show needs it, he is a ruthless killer, the same as in the game. And in the same vain, you understand that he isn’t a hero, nor a villain. He is just a guy who has been through a lot and is just dealing with shit. A lot of shit.

Bella got me from the second episode (as she wasn’t in much of the first episode), and ever since then, she slowly transformed into the Ellie we knew from the game. Foul-mouthed, loyal, honest and caring, Bella Ramsey managed to portray all of these and much more. She gave Ellie everything she had and then some. And her chemistry with Pedro, aka Joel… simply perfect. At the start, you believe they don’t like each other, only for you to see them as this daughter/dad. And hence the ending (the same as the game’s) hurts again, especially for us who played the second game (my review for The Last of Us: Part II can be found here). The amount of almost invisible setup they did for the next season or two… will be the real test of whether this show will be “one of the greats”. Again, the gamers know why, but if you think this season was dark with characters making questionable choices, you have seen nothing yet.

And that is the thing, that is the key to “cracking this video game adaptation” code. The Last of Us was never about the pandemic or the infected. It was about us going through this world with two characters that act and feel like real people. Both have done questionable, sometimes straight-up evil stuff (albeit Ellie not as much in this season, but don’t worry, it is coming) and yet, because we saw their entire journey, we understand them and even root for them. Despite knowing deep down, these are more complex and nuanced characters whose actions can be, at times, hard to defend. There are no heroes or villains.

Overall, The Last of Us came, saw, and slaughtered the competition of video game adaptations. Which was unfair, to begin with; given their quality, it would be like Gordon Ramsay challenging me to a cook-off. And don’t get me wrong, I know my around in the kitchen, but that is just unfair. I enjoyed this show; I enjoyed all the changes they made because they worked for the TV medium, and the best part about it is anybody can enjoy it. Have you played the game ten times? You will probably love it! Have you never heard of it? You will probably love it too! This adaptation is as rare as they come, and if the only argument is “well, is the game or show better?” we know we live in a great timeline. Also, fuck the anti-LGBTQ review bombers.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

Ever since Disney acquired Lucasfilm (can you believe it’s been more than a decade ago?), we’ve been getting a lot of Star Wars, from what is now called the “sequel trilogy”; to many different shows of various qualities. I won’t link them all because I reviewed them all, so if you want, the tag Star Wars will take you to all my reviews. And we can argue which ones were great and which were not; after all, this is the Internet. This is the place, where dreams are born, only for them to be quickly crashed by strangers saying mean stuff. Nevertheless, I think we can all agree that not every new Star Wars property “delivered” what fans were hoping. But with Andor, it seems like Disney understood what they had, so they kept to their “one episode per week” release schedule, but they released the first three episodes at the same time. There is no doubt that they were slower episodes because they had to set up so much for this entire show, so releasing them like this was the only way because by the end of episode three, you are at least intrigued enough to watch it further and arguably, to get you on the same wavelength as this show.

What do I mean by wavelength? Well, Andor dares to do something different in this world full of action, adventure and quick cuts. It takes its time and relies on people to summon their last attention span cells they may still have to watch this show. A show, many “fans” argued; Star Wars without Star Wars. How does that make sense, you might ask. Let’s say, and this may or may not be a spoiler, you won’t see much action here. And you won’t see any Jedi knights, let alone lightsabers. And if you are that kind of Star Wars fan that heavily connects those elements with this universe, yeah, Andor isn’t a show for you. That is fine; I firmly believe that not everything is for everybody. You will struggle to find a single piece of art that is admired by everyone. Whether it is a film, song, or painting, there will always be someone who doesn’t connect with it. What Andor is, however, is a quality show that, at times, reminded me of Better Call Saul (2015 – 2022, my review here) as they are almost identical. Both are spin-offs within the same universe, but both have taken the unpopular route of being more about characters and complex plot lines, and despite you knowing what is coming (given they are both prequels), you will still enjoy the way of getting there.

Where Andor won me over were casting and the showcasing of what actual rebellion looks like. At least based on my knowledge. And let me start with the rebellion aspect. In many other movies, we see the end of a rebellion as almost inevitable to win, how they are days from winning, toppling the government or achieving their goal. What Andor did was showcase what it takes to spark the flame of rebellion, keep it alive, and maintain the momentum. As the process of rebellion in the Star Wars universe was brewing for years, it didn’t “just happen” over a few days when this young punk called Luke Skywalker decided to join. No, there had to have been bedrock planted all over the galaxy involving money (or, in this universe’s case, credits), iron will and, most importantly, sacrifices. Something this show doesn’t shy away from is how much each of our heroes has sacrificed to be part of this rebellion, from credits to (in some cases) their lives. I won’t talk about any spoilers, but let me say some deaths shocked me, how quickly the show was willing to kill off characters. And even though I wanted to spend more time with some of those characters, their killing never felt cheap or done for shock value. This is what an actual rebellion looks like, a lot of credits, blood, sweat and death, and you may or may not succeed in the end.

It’s impossible to talk about Andor without mentioning this cast. Diego Luna shines even brighter than in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016, my review here) and is a fine example of how to make your character neither good nor bad. He always felt like an actual person as he wasn’t trying to fight some righteous fight, or he would always make the best/most moral move. No; on the contrary, the series starts with him literally killing two imperial officers. But we understand his motivations as the season progresses more and more. Then we have Stellan Skarsgård, who seems to be here to remind us that just because he “dares” to make comedies as well, he is still one of the best actors around. He utilised every single moment he had on screen, and it was a delight to watch his performance. I loved how the show flipped our expectations with these two actors – Kyle Soller and Denise Gough. When the show started, Kyle’s character was set to be the potential “big bad” of this season, with Denise’s character as the one who isn’t “as bad”. But as he has fallen, she has risen to new, more evil heights than ever. Kyle’s character (Syril) wants to be part of this machine called “The Empire”, but Dedra (Denise’s character) seems to be set on running it soon. Her rise to power and seeing how that corrupts her soul was chilling. Every time you think there is no way she will get any worse, she does. What a stunning performance by Denise and Kyle.

Then we have the “others”, but believe me when I say you will remember them as well despite them not having as much screen time. Genevieve O’Reilly shines as Mon, the sneaky bureaucrat; who is trying desperately hard to do the right thing whilst not getting caught. You could argue that her scenes on Coruscant felt out of place. And they did because they were supposed to. I loved the contrast between the harsh reality of the “dirty” rebellion struggling to survive whilst we watch her “clean” character, surrounded by wealth, always attending functions, and trying to get influential people to join the cause. Then we have a trio of powerful women starting with Adria Arjona, Varada Sethu and Faye Marsay, who are the “dirty rebellion”. Unlike Mon, they must sacrifice a lot to survive to keep this rebellion going, and they all did great with the time they had. They were all set up to be a much bigger part of this story next season, and I can’t wait to see more of them. Also, I need to give a special shout-out to Fiona Shaw. You can see where her character will end up from the moment she first appears on the screen, and yet when the final episode happens, it is her speech that will stay with you.

I realise we still have 12 episodes (one season) to go, but I think Andor has already succeeded in what it wanted to do/showcase. Firstly, for any rebellion to be successful, it requires many sacrifices and not as much fighting as you might believe. Before the big “let’s fight and topple this Empire/government/whatever” moment, you need to have many smaller moments in place for it to all work. Another thing I think this show delivered is this (I hope) would be the future of Star Wars properties in general. We don’t need to see the Skywalker family; we don’t need quick-paced action, nostalgic trips to familiar places or even lightsabers to make a great Star Wars show/film. Don’t get me wrong, I will always welcome a great lightsaber sequence or stories about different Jedi knights, but to me, there is no “one way” to make a Star Wars show/film. As Andor proved, there is a different way, and if you give people something intelligent, almost “Cold War in space”, they will (mostly) tune in and like it. I can’t wait for this story to conclude.

Overall, Andor is a Star Wars show that we have not seen before. You can say it’s the most politically-oriented Star Wars property we’ve ever had, and I know most of you have horrible flashbacks to the prequels by a mere mention of the word “politics”. But here’s the thing, when it’s done right, and the show can rely on many powerful performances from everyone involved, the ride is much different. The story itself takes many interesting twists and turns I didn’t see coming, and I think if you get over the slower start, you will get rewarded massively. Andor is one of the most satisfying slow-burners I have ever watched.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

As hinted at in my review for season four (here), the fifth season is where I started to see the slow decline of 24. And not because of any one thing; it was more about the accumulation of several things, like killing off a couple of favourite characters right at the beginning of the season to a conspiracy that goes so deep, it pretty much proves why would any government conspiracy like that not stay secret for too long. But the main struggle I had was “the tape”. I will have to go to some spoilers for it, for this entire season pretty much from the beginning of this review, for this to make sense, so here’s your official warning, as I am about to talk about quite a few things that happen this season.

Beware, SPOILERS are coming!

We start this season by saying goodbye to two (well, technically three since one character dies later on) beloved characters, Michelle (Reiko Aylesworth), ex-president David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert), and shortly after a few hours of him being in “critical condition” for a couple of episodes, Tony (Carlos Bernard) also gets killed. And I understand that is how you establish stakes to your drama, that “anyone can go at any moment”, but to me, it seemed more like an attempt at stakes, as those characters haven’t been an integral part of 24 for at least a season. But ok, they are all dead, and there is a new threat to be stopped, so let’s address that.

I liked the main crux of this story, deadly gas in the hands of terrorists who got it from somebody within the government. And the more we untangle who is behind this, the less sense it makes. Now, I am not saying it’s not possible for the president to be as morally corrupt as this one was (brilliantly portrayed by Gregory Itzin), no. Charles Logan was somebody I loved to hate at first because of his perceived weak character/temper, but after we learn he is the puppet master, most things he did throughout this season made sense. Now, I think making him the “big bad” of this season is a double-edged sword because it is a cool idea how do you go up against the president? How would you convince everyone that he plotted against his nation? But the more this season goes on, the more it shows you how, in reality, it would fall apart quickly, given how many people had to know he was behind it. And, of course, the more people know, the more likely it is for others to find out or use that information to blackmail him. But alright, let’s put the “reality” factor aside and focus on the show and how they went about proving that the president is behind it. Because without any proof, not even Jack Bauer could bring the president down. So, of course, there is a tape.

Oh yeah, the tape. The moment you learn about it, get ready to get frustrated with not only hearing about it around 34.529 times per episode but also how many times it gets retrieved and lost. It happens a few times, but here is the thing, I wouldn’t mind. Because in reality, somebody like Jack Bauer, who had been shown as this unkillable, unbreakable, loyal machine of a man with an IQ of 250, would have made a copy!!! The moment the tape first fell into his hands, he would have made sure that somehow, he would have made a copy of it. And yet, that idea never crosses his mind. I understand this season aired in 2006; therefore, smartphones weren’t a thing, but phones were, PDAs were, and all agents, him included, have been shown consistently utilising that technology many times for hard-to-believe things/tasks. It bothered me to an unreasonable degree that he didn’t find two minutes to make a copy of that tape and send that recording to the CTU, and they could have done much much more than relying on him to retrieve it like five times.

At the end of this season, how they actually get the president is… let’s say questionable, at best. So many things had to align for that situation to work out the way it did; this is where this season lost me a bit. Also, I hope you remember the Chinese and what happened at the Chinese consulate during the last season because that becomes relevant in the last couple of minutes of the final episode. And knowing what happens in season six, I am not sure whether I liked this cliffhanger.

I understand all seasons of 24 have asked us to suspend our disbelief to a point, but this season stretched it out too much for my liking. I realise the temptation from the screenwriting point of view, as there is pretty much nobody “bigger” Jack can go after than the sitting president of the United States. But the way the show went about it felt rushed and not thought through enough. It felt like the writers relied on us being so entertained we would not stop and question the details. Another thing about this move is, what happens after that? When your “big bad” is the ultimate big bad, what’s left? How do you top that? Again, knowing of season six, they tried, but whether they succeeded is a different story altogether.

Overall, the fifth season of 24 is best described as an enjoyable mess. There are still things to like, and Kiefer Sutherland was born to play this role, so he makes it worth watching. And if I am being honest, the first half of this season is great; it’s just the conspiracy stuff gets tiring after a while, especially the deeper we go, the more I get disconnected from any reality this show wanted me to believe. I think it’s still worth a watch, but the show peaked in season four.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke