I give up.

I was going to write this nice little satire about how great 24 is this year and how the writers are geniuses, etc etc.  But I lost interest about 2 paragraphs in and deleted it all.

I’ve been attempting to figure out why 24 is so bad this season.  Is it the writing?  Is it the acting?  Is it the mediocre-at-best storyline?  Is it the fact that they’re in CTU New York instead of LA?  Is it the fact that apparently CTU NY is 100 times more technologically advanced than the cement walls of CTU Los Angeles?  Perhaps it’s all of these, perhaps it’s none.

First, let me address the latest episode of 24.  It was the best of the season, but it still wasn’t very entertaining.  What does that say about the show’s writers?  The best episode still isn’t very good.  That’s like being the smartest Palin child.

Sure, Jack did what Jack does.  He didn’t talk during torture and found a way to kill his captor whilst his hand and feet were still bound.  Yay.  Because we’ve never seen that before.  Sigh.  And apparently Tony Almeida’s younger, dumber cousin, Cole Ortiz, if finally figuring out that Dana Walsh is up to something.  I hope she dies already.  And apparently the middle eastern President of some made up country is a stereotypical hot head that acts out of irrationality and paranoia.  Then you have Cherry Jones playing President Allison Taylor, who won a freaking Emmy last year.  But apparently after being only the 4th awesome female in the history of 24, they put her on the back burner, and she’s been reduced to a role usually reserved for Mike Novak.

You see, I realized that in now the 8th season of 24, there have only been 4 female characters who weren’t complete fucktards and emotionally unstable.  Well, better make that 3 now that they’ve turned Renee into a television version of all of my ex girlfriends whose names were some variation of Katie.

Do they just not know how to develop a strong female character?  Do they simply choose not to?  Do they think that all women really are this emotionally inferior?  I’m no feminist (far from it, actually), but when you think about it, having 4 female characters in 8 years that the audience didn’t want to shoot in the face isn’t right.

Michelle Dessler is obviously the gold standard for females on 24.  And she was linked to Tony, who has at times been more awesome than Jack, so that definitely helped her.  Then there was Karen Hayes, who started out as a fucking bitch, but then coincidentally turned awesome when she started listening to Jack and got married to Bill, who was also fucking awesome.  Last season featured 2 females who were awesome, and they were the aforementioned President Allison Taylor and FBI Agent Renee Walker.

Michelle is dead, Karen has been written out of the series, President Taylor can’t get anything done, and Renee has now gone all Walter Bishop on everyone and even attempted suicide.  But, um, Renee, remember…down the river, not across.

Anyways.  I just feel like this needed to be said.  24 will not survive without a strong female character.  Think about it.  The best seasons?  3 & 4.  Michelle was kicking ass in those seasons.  Then season 5 she died, Karen picked up the slack.  Season 6 started out awesome, then Karen became less important and the season started sliding like Disney’s stock.  Season 7 came back with a vengeance because two women characters made it sweet.  Hell, even if you look at Seasons 1, Nina is awesome and then turns into an awesome villain.  Season 2 is the exception, I guess, because Kate Warner wasn’t able to do anything on her own.

Oh, and if you think Chloe counts as a strong female character, then I guess we’ve been watching two different series.  She’s always subservient and follows Jack (sometimes blindly) in whatever he says.  While I realize that Jack is right 99% of the time, that doesn’t make her a strong female character, and they’ve even given her a personality disorder (kind of) so we don’t have to take her seriously.

I’m not saying females who watch 24 should be pissed off, because they aren’t the target audience and it’s just a television show for fuck’s sake, but if 24 wants to have any shot at not sucking anymore, then they must develop a strong female for the remainder of this season.  Clearly, Renee is about 2 minutes away from being sent to St. Claire’s, Dana Walsh is really ugly, and Chloe is, well, Chloe (but apparently a less smart, effective Chloe).

24 is coming extremely close to reaching the same fate as Heroes did:  being removed from our DVR completely.

UPDATED LIST OF TOP 10 SHOWS:

1. Dexter
2. Californication
3. How I Met Your Mother
4. Fringe
5. Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives
6. Family Guy
7. Castle
8. Bones
9. United States of Tara
10.  24