24 & Boomtown

This article first appeared in The Age on February 8, 2003

I would just like to put on the record that the fact the guy who gets murdered in the first episode of the new 24 is a paedophile does not make what Jack does okay. And while we are on the italics, I would also like to say to Kim, Did the last 24 teach you nothing? What are you doing hiding little girls in cardboard boxes and expecting them to wait safely until you get back?

Yes, Jack's back, but he's a bit depressed. It seems the events of the last series of 24 have left him with a streak of amorality so wide it will be harder to tell the good guys from the bad this time round than it was last. It was only 3 months ago his wife's murder filled our screens, but in the world of24, Jack has had a year to try and get a grip. The new series starts with two episodes (Channel 7, Monday night, 8.30pm) and the pacing, early on anyway, is relatively relaxed, partly because it takes a lot to convince Jack to go back to the Counter Terrorist Unit. David Palmer, now President, has a day to save Los Angeles from a nuclear bomb that may, or may not be, in the hands of - you guessed it - the A-rabs. That other member of the Axis of Evil, North Korea also gets a look in with an early torture scene, a la Die Another Day.

24's pseudo-liberal attempts to suggest the show is above racist cliches fail miserably, and it is hard to believe Kate Warner (Australian actress Sarah Wynter), the sister of a woman who is about to marry an A-rab with terrorist connections, when she tells her dad she doesn't mistrust her future brother-in-law because he's from the Middle East - 'You bought me up better than that' - but because he's generally sleazy. President Palmer also is presented as a guy who likes everyone, A-Rabs included, but who needs to protect his nation. The moral of this 24 (and indeed, current American Foreign Policy) seems to be that when American lives are on the line you can justify anything. Despite this, it's good TV and I plan to watch it to the end - but if its moral consistency you want, or you've simply had it with self-justifying American Presidents, give it a miss.

Boomtown, Channel 7's second biggie for this week (Wednesday, 9.30pm) is a twist on the standard police drama in which crimes are unravelled by giving us multiple, highly subjective, perspectives on an event. Some of the characters, like Detective Joel Stevens (Donnie Wahlberg) and David McNorris (Neal McDonough) the ambitious DA, will turn up every week. Others, like the young black man who is accused of a drive-by shooting, appear in just one episode. The viewer is constantly surprised as each point of view builds our knowledge of the characters and the crime they are involved in. The acting is strong, the writing is good, and, impressively for a show that is so driven by style, it doesn't feel try hard. I've long got tired with the predictability of formula-driven shows like Law & Order - but Boomtown's formula might well be one that works.

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