Another one bites the dust

So farewell then to The Event. Another great US import that started out promisingly, only to disappear up its own convoluted backside before being ignominiously cancelled by ruthless network executives. In a few months' time you'll buy able to pick up the inevitable DVD boxset, but you'll still be left dangling by the cliffhanger ending.

But who's really to blame when these high profile shows bite the dust in their first year? Is it the fairweather fans, or the lack of a well-planned story? Personally, I blame Jack Bauer. CTU's favourite agent didn't just transform the way the world perceived torture, he also revolutionised the way we watch TV. Well, maybe not personally. He was always far too busy using jump-leads to restart his heart, or ramming a damp hand-towel down an Iraqi's throat to extract a confession. But the makers of 24 ushered in a new era of complex plotting and season-long story arcs that changed our viewing habits altogether.

Think back to the most popular shows of the eighties. Knightrider, The A-Team, CHiPs, Airwolf - the one element that characterised all those era-defining programmes was the formula. Morally upstanding heroes solving problems for the downtrodden and put-upon, usually in indecently tight trousers. It was all slickly produced and deliberately unchallenging, largely because of the way that American shows were always broadcast.

Traditionally, a season runs from September through to May. That's around 35 weeks, and with 22-24 episodes per season, it leaves a lot of dead time to fill while new episodes are being filmed and edited. Every few weeks the shows take a break, leaving network schedulers to dig out old episodes to air until the new shows are ready. Standalone episodes therefore work much more effectively, since they can be aired out of sequence without causing fans to wonder where they hell they are in the overall story. So it works fine for shows like Desperate Housewives, where fans can easily pick up the fact that this is the episode where they all act like venal, conniving harridans, before having a change of heart in the last five minutes. It's a lot harder when you actually need to pay attention to what's going on.

By the time 24 reached year four, its popularity was on the rise, but traditional scheduling was causing ratings to dip whenever the show took a break. So the producers took a big risk and held off the season premiere until January. That way, they had enough episodes in the can to run the whole series uninterrupted, as they finished off the outstanding chapters of the story. Not only did this mean that audiences were able to follow all the double-crossing and deceit, the writers were able to maintain their focus much more effectively, giving it a sense of momentum that had been lacking in previous years.

The showrunners over on Lost were clearly taking notes, since they took a similar decision in its fourth year. Although the ratings continued to decline on the island-set time hopper, they didn't completely drop off, since loyal viewers were at least able to follow the multi-dimensional adventures of our curiously well-groomed survivors.

With Lost and 24 now consigned to the groaning DVD shelf in the sky, executives have commissioned new shows like Flash Forward and The Event to offer viewers compelling new season-long narratives. Unfortunately, they seemed to have missed the importance of scheduling in mapping out their 17-hour epics. Flash Forward made an impressive debut, with an explosive, effects-filled premiere that made Lost's first episode look like a Dogme 95 outtake. But the regular breaks, and a three month hiatus half-way through the season saw viewers desert the show in droves. Attempts to rebuild the writing team and reboot the show failed miserably, leaving the show to limp across the finish line at the end of its first and only season.

This year, The Event made the exact same mistakes, leaving almost four months between the two halves of its inaugural outing. By the time it returned, fans hadn't just forgotten the most recent twists, they had trouble remembering the characters' names. The Event became a non-Event, even though formulaic police procedurals like the CSI franchise managed to breeze into yet another season of forensic tomfoolery without breaking a Botox-inhibited sweat.

As Ross and Rachel found out in Friends, the words "we need to take a break" invariably spell disaster for any relationship. It's just a shame that TV producers couldn't learn that simple lesson from one of the nineties' most successful shows.

Drown and out

Hooray - 24 is back and badder than ever. Jack Bauer may have mellowed into a caring grandfather with a conscience, but that leaves the other rogue agents to cut off suspects' hands with a circular saw just to ask for directions to the nearest Subway.

As the controversy over the show's emphasis on torture scenes runs and runs, the impact of its over-reliance on crocodile clips and uncomfortable chairs continues to be felt.

The concern is that, as one of the most popular shows on US TV, 24 endorses the use of torture in extracting confessions and other vital intelligence. In doing so, it seems to legitimise the illegal activities taking place in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

But even Jack Bauer would probably question the behaviour of Joshua Tabor, a US soldier accused of waterboarding his four-year-old daughter when she failed to recite her alphabet.

Although he had only recently won custody of the little girl, he decided that the CIA torture technique was the most effective way of encouraging her to remember her A-B-Cs. Choosing the punishment because she was terrified of water, the nominee for 'father of the year' held his little girl's face in the water three or four times.

What's not clear from the reports, is whether or not the child was able to complete the task. But then, that's the problem with violent interrogative techniques - torturers rarely manage to extract the information they need.

But it leaves me wondering what will happen if Sesame Street's ratings ever start to flag. If Elmo wants to know which letters are sponsoring the episode, will he roll up his fuzzy red sleeves and get his hands wet?

Bad guys beware

Looks like Jack Bauer could soon be hanging up his jump-leads and heading off to Boca Raton to enjoy the early bird specials at Denny's. With the news that NBC is about to launch a new reality show about terrorism, it's fair to assume that there'll be no longer be any need for fictional anti-terrorist types.

The Wanted is a bold new concept in docutainment, teaming up journalist Adam Ciralsk with retired Navy SEAL Scott Tyler, retired Army Special Forces officer Roger Carstens, and former U.S. intelligence official David Crane. Together this elite squad of arm-folders will hunt down accused war criminals and terrorists who are currently living "in plain sight in the U.S. and Europe". Although they're going to have to come up with some clever ways of injecting excitement, since it hardly takes Holmes and Watson to uncover something 'in plain sight'.

When 24 and Alias premiered in September 2001, ABC and Fox were understandably unsure about whether their shows would find an audience. Despite wildly different tones, both focused on undercover agents fighting terrorists both within the US and overseas. Airing just weeks after 9/11, the shows struck a chord with a bruised national psyche, and went on to be massive hits. While Alias descended into sci-fi mythology and familial discord, 24 expanded its grip on America's perception of terrorism and, in particular, Islamic fundamentalism. Season 4 depicted the attempts by a Turkish Muslim family to execute a terrorist attack on US soil, and played on people's deep-seated fears of the enemy next door, so much so that Fox was pressured into recording a Public Service Announcement in support of the 'American Muslim' community.

So it will be interesting to see what impact a 'reality show' about the possibility of terrorists living right under our noses will have on the more impressionable viewers. NBC previously courted controversy with a similar show called “To Catch a Predator” which showed police officers and journalists trying to catch possible sex offenders. As well as claims of entrapment, and the fact that many of the accused ended up having their charges dropped, the sensational nature of exploitative 'factual' shows like TCAP serves only to enhance paranoia and suspicion.

Of course, it would be remiss of me not to also question the integrity of a show that runs with a strapline 'Truth is the real weapon' and then pursues people who are accused, rather than convicted, of terrorist connections. Who cares if they're guilty right? It's all about the hand-held cameras, rapid-fire editing and other cinematic elements that have been added into the mix, such as sweeping helicopter shots and a command centre for the team. And how do the ethics of journalism sit with news teams helping to create the story, rather than impartially reporting on it?

I wouldn't be surprised if The Wanted turns into a massive hit for NBC, especially considering the frankly alarming comments that its target audience have posted beneath this news story about the show. As would-be viewer Gary Ogletree says, "Special Ops guys beat actors and phony scripts any day." Indeed, there's no reason why phoniness should be limited to the dramas.

Time to call it a day for 24

Call it a lucky co-incidence, fate or serendipity, but when Fox picked up '24' for its Fall 2001 season, they had no idea just how prescient its 'terrorists attacking the US' plotline would be. The pilot ended up being hurriedly re-edited to remove shots of a passenger airline exploding, since it aired just weeks after September 11. But despite the initial upset, the show managed to, not only capture, but actually define the zeitgeist of a wounded nation.

During the course of its first year, the show managed to juggle soap opera plotting (amnesia made a fantastic comeback), extreme violence and the kind of relentless cliff-hangers that would have Penelope Pitstop chewing her nails down to the knuckle. Perhaps more importantly, in its depiction of a bold, noble and unimpeachable African-American presidential candidate, the show arguably paved the way for Barack Obama's own bid for the White House.

Emboldened by a new wave of fans who discovered the show on DVD, 24 somehow managed to stretch out its implausable concept year-on-year, increasing in popularity with each successive season. Unfortunately, as the show evolved, and its leading man became increasingly indestructable (he's been brought back from the dead more times than Kenny on South Park), the politics of '24' began to take precedence. Self-proclaimed "right-wing nutjob" Joel Surnow, who created the show, started to make his influence felt and the tone began to change quite noticably.

Out went the ingenious plotting and smart characterisation, and in its place came a depressingly samey parade of torture scenes until the show started to look like one of Lynndie England's home movies.

Interestingly, in 2007, the military even waded into the debate, arguing that the depiction of torture as a fool-proof interrogation technique was having a detrimental effect on young soldiers. This shit never happened to the A-Team. Of course, the right-wingers were keen to have their say, with clueless, venom-spitting pundit Laura Ingraham arguing that the popularity of 24 was effectively a national referendum on the use of torture.

So when 24 returned after a year out, caused by the writers' strike, everyone was watching closely to see how the show would handle its responsibility to air both sides of the torture argument. However, this was not the subtle exploration that we might have hoped for. Jack's by-the-book counterpart looked as though she was itching to force a wet towel down a suspect's throat by the end of the third episode. So much for a fair and balanced analysis of the issues.

So now as the US reels from the latest season-ending cliff-hanger (the UK gets it this week) the whole format is starting to feel a little tired and repetitive. There's a saying in TV that when a show passes its prime it has 'jumped the shark'. I think '24' has dragged the shark out of its tank, shot its wife, electocuted its genitals and glued its gills together. After single-handedly killing 230 people, maybe Jack Bauer has finally earned a day off.