Spoiler alert. I tried not to give anything away, but it's hard to be subtle about the least subtle show on TV.

If you're wondering why I haven't said anything about the season premiere of 24 yet, it's because I'm still trying to decide what I think of it. The level of plot contrivance already seems to quite a bit higher than in previous years (and 24 has always been a pretty contrivance-heavy show)—the majority of the action so far has been people doing very ill-considered things because "We have no other choice" and "We're running out of time." Always silly, it's veering a bit close to unforgivably silly, and we're only on episode four.

And I was very unhappy to see ______ go out like a chump, completely unnecessarily, and completely out of what little character had. (As my friend Ryan put it in an email: "Anytime you have a debate with Jack over ethics shit always goes down that makes him kill you.")

On the positive side, though, I was quite pleased with shift of the show to an uglier, more dystopian America, and particularly with the MacGuffin finally MacGuffining. It opens up some new interesting spaces for stories they haven't done yet, and anyway, it's about time something finally MacGuffined on this show.