24 season 3

How was that "mini-episode?" How long does it run?

Anyone else feel that the set was real filthy? (And I mean in the litteral sense, not language). I think this set was by far the dirtiest I've ever gotten, and had 3 floaters on top of that. (Oddly, even with all that against it, no scratches). But what'd they do, pack the thing in a dust storm?

I've heard conflicting reports on this set. Is it a six disc set or a seven disc set?

It had a sticker on the case saying 7 discs.

I''ll waste my money on this season, it was awful.

I didn't like it as much as the first two, but I think awful is an understatement.

Haven't checked out the prequel ep yet...probably going to go watch it after I post.

^Yeah it might have been too harsh, but the first season was so amazing that I become a hard core fan. While Season Two was alright - I have to say they dropped the ball with season three. No organization in terms of a coherent story line, pointless character quirks, and plot holes bigger then the first two seasons combined - and at the end of the day it just wasn’t an interesting story.

I really wish they'd bring back Stephen Hopkins and his crew. They added so much style and class to that show. Ever since Cassar and his Le Femme Nikita team stepped in, both the cinematic style and well the whole real time aspect has been dropped for cheap action movie thrills.

I think when it comes down too it, 24 is a concept best used once.

It's about 5 minutes. Pretty cool, especially since it will never be shown on TV, at least uncut. As Sean said, Jack's line is perfect.
I had problems with my set as well. One floater due to broken hub, and I had problems playing some of the deleted scenes on disc 7 (which was NOT the floater). It's going back to BB for an exchange today.

Mine's going back to BB today as well. One floater, although all the discs had some kind of dust/marks on them. I wish Fox would abandon this horrible packaging.

5 min for the mini-episode?! I thought it was longer.

I have S3 on my Christmas wish list so I have to wait. Ill have a S3 marathon before Jan 3 when S4 starts.

My 24 season rankings
1: *****
2: ****
3: ***1/2

The little "mini-episode" was amusing. Kind of a fun thing to have in the set.

Season 3 was by far my least favorite season. However, I think part of that is due to the fact that they attempt (the last two seasons) to try and get "new" viewers when they were with American Idol.

The story would go into neutral for a few episodes in an attempt to get all the newbies caught up.

I also think having to wait two or three weeks for a new episode hurts the overall quality for a viewer. There were numerous breaks and gaps between the airing of episodes last season.

I plan to watch this on DVD with fewer breaks and see how I like it. It is possible it might be better the second time around...

is anyone having picture quality problems on this set? I just got back from target with a second set and some shots on certain episodes look strange. Part of the picture looks very bright, on the first episode 1-2pm about 32 mintues in for example.

I still haven't watched any of the episodes, so I have no idea if that's an isolated incident or a bigger problem.

In regards to quality, I agree that it was all over the place. Based on the teaser stuff for Season 4, I think they have a good chance to re-kindle some of the originality of the show. It's basically a complete reboot, so it won't rely on so many things from the past (Sherry Palmer, Nina, etc).

^It also looks like a larger overblown action movie.

While the first season was 24 was in no means cheap to produce, they had a lot more fun with suspence and characters rather then scenes with Helicopter chases and Jets flying under bridges (let alone a guy with a rocket launcher). Dare I say, it seemed a little more plausible.

I thought Season 3 sort of got lost in the middle, and I remember an article I read somewhere indicated that the producers thought the same thing. However, I thought it really picked up in the last few episodes, and they kind of made it work.

I agree though, that Season 1 is probably still the best, but I really did enjoy Season 2 a lot, as well.

I disagree. I definitely think the show changed a great deal at the point when the bomb went off, but I found the political stuff as interesting as the bomb stuff. I almost like Season 2 as much as Season 1, but I think there's a problem with consistency (not in quality, but in tone).

I agree that Season 3 almost redeemed itself on the back end, but the rest of the season almost seemed like every episode was written by a different writer whose job it was to make writing the next episode as difficult as possible by providing each ep with a preposterous ending. There was no sense of any "through-line" through this season, which I think is pretty bad given the nature of the show. It almost seems like nobody sat down and plotted out what beats needed to be hit in each ep prior to shooting. I don't know what happened, but that's just what it felt like to me. I'm interested in listening to some of the commentaries to see if anyone addresses what exactly happened.

There was one plotline in the beginning that was just blatantly thrown away with nothing of interest ever occurring in it.

The mid-season "surprise" (see Sean's spoiler above) almost felt like they made up a reboot on the spot to try something else and, in my opinion, completely invalidated the beginning of the season.

Season 3 seemed like it had three separate turning points - only one of them for the better. Still, I liked season 3 better than season 2, which I felt was even more all over the place and never reached the levels of the final episodes of season 3. Plus, season 3 was cougar free.

I don't think either of those seasons compare to the first, however.

I think a lot of the quality drop in writing was due to the writers. Kim was such a worthless joke in Season 2, as was Clohe in Season 3. As for the production, even the producers of 24 admit in the Season 2 DVD doc that Cassar doesn't move the camera as much as Hopkins did. Not to mention that they completely forgot how to use the split screens. By season 2 they were basically used for opening credits and phone conversations (occasionally some action scene) - where as in Season 1 almost EVERYTHING was done in split screen, that was the style of the show and it really drew me in.

I agree that the end of Season 3 was better, but I always view a 24 season as one long episode (it is after all a day) it went off on so many tagents I just got bored of it. (Of course I'm just going around in circles now)

The first 13 hours of Season 1 were sensational. Unfortunately it went downhill after that, though it was still entertaining, and the season finale was excellent. Season 2, as another poster stated, was great until the bomb went off, and then it became dry and talky. Plus the show never quite recovered from Jack being tortured to death and coming back to life. Season 3, however, started out well, collapsed in the middle, and roared back to life in the spring. Looking forward to this season and seeing Kim Raver from Third Watch join the show. She's good - I hope they give her good material.

The worst thing about it, though, is that some of these tangents went absolutely nowhere. It was like ideas were being thrown at us and quickly discarded when they didn't work.

Not sure if these are spoilers since they amount to nothing, but just in case...

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

and...

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

Once the show picked up again at the end, I just hit the reset button in my head and ignored the previous episdoes of the season. The end of season 3 ranked up there with some of the better parts of season 1 for me. I just hope that ending was an indication that the producers and writers have found their way again and that carries over into season 4.

With Season 1, the producers only planned the first half of the season (as they didn't know whether the show would be picked up by Fox) which explains why the show went downhill. But for Season 2 and 3 they really didn't have an excuses not to plan out one coherent story. Not that production breaks are long in TV production, but certainly enough for the writers to sit down with the producers and work a nice logical storyline for the day. I didn't get that sense with Season 3, like many of you are saying.

I'll be watching Season 4, but the previews aren't doing it too me. Jack might as well be saying 'Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in... again".

I think it was pretty much admitted that the writing of Season 3 was done on the fly for the later part. But I think it has go to be tough, because I think viewers would get a bit impatient if they had to wait until the very end of the season without some big payoff moments.

Would people here have waited patiently to episode 24 of season 2 without any real payoff with the nuclear bomb?

^I totally agree. I think the last episode was incredibly lame compared to anything hat had happened previously that season. Except that wall jump that Jack did, that was very cool.

What saves that show is Kiefer. He adds more to that character then I think the writers ever intended.

You're definitely right on that count. That's probably the reason I'm so quick to defend the show...even when it sucks, Kiefer is strong enough to make things interesting.

Agreed!!!

Keifer is the show. There was talk of him leaving or being killed in season 3...glad to know he's back for season 4.

When does season 4 start? Last I heard was sometime in January, anybody know the date?

The first two episodes are on Sunday, January 9th at 8 PM. The next night (Monday), the third episode is on. Then the rest of the episodes are on every Monday after that at 9 PM.