Why I Don't Watch Fox's Hit Show "24"

Great TV Drama or Fear-Mongering? What Message Does it Send?

Several years ago, when Fox TV was heavily touting its new drama, "24", I found myself sorely tempted to watch. While I still prefer his father Donald's acting style, Kiefer Sutherland is talented, photogenic, and shares his dad's marvelous voice and manner of speech. Plus the premise seemed interesting in this post-September 11th world: those who valiantly fight "the terrorists who would destroy America."

Yet that urge of mine passed, although not because "24" was not riveting, not dramatic, not engaging: even after several seasons, "24" remains all of those and more. It's probably why the show has not only won many awards, it's also been a rating magnet for Fox, a network that has tried many ideas but has only had a handful of big successes.

Part of what soured the "24" phenomenon for me was, strangely enough, the praise friends and co-workers heaped upon it. People who would never sit through even a half hour news program about terrorism and efforts to defeat it told me again and again that they could not get enough of the saga of Jack Bauer and his exploits. They lauded it as "realer than real" and that it "makes you remember that there really are people out there trying to kill America."

But is that true? Is "24" a real depiction of domestic and international spying and intrigue? Does it accurately portray the fight against identified foes such as al Qaeda?

Unfortunately, for me, the answer is no. During my journalist days, I met people who were involved in various aspects of government service: from diplomacy, to alphabet soup-style organizations, to those agencies whose names are supposedly never spoken. It became easy to determine which were the pretenders and which were the real deals because the former always made everything they did sound terribly exciting and world-affecting while the latter readily admitted much of their work was plodding and slow and years could go into projects that went nowhere.