I watched the first two seasons of 24 weekly, but I just couldn’t cope with the third season–it was too slow and too irritating. Halfway through the season, we had a power outage and my TiVo missed an episode. I stopped watching it after that–I just didn’t care anymore. The general consensus is that I didn’t miss much.

I couldn’t completely give up on the series, though, so I started stockpiling the episodes for the current season when they started. I figured that I’d give it a few months and then get feedback from friends. If it was good, then I’d catch up and watch it, if it was as bad as season 3, then I’d delete them all and forget about the show.

The season’s almost done now, and everyone seems to be happy with it, so I started watching it last week. I think I screwed up–the show’s too addictive, and I’ve been burning through episodes too fast. I’ve managed to watch 17 of the 19 episodes that have aired so far; I’m going to be stuck waiting through each week’s cliffhanger for the last 4 episodes. Darn them.

On the other hand, it did give me something to do yesterday when I was home sick in bed.

In general, the show’s deeply addictive, but I’m kind of amazed by how willing the “good guys” have been to resort to torture this season. I remember it happening a couple times during the first two seasons, but it was always a shock. Now it seems to be their standard method of interrogation. I’m not sure if this is supposed to say something about our society, or if it’s just a ratings vehicle.