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« March 2007 |
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| May 2007 »
Tonight's episode of "Dancing with the Stars" brought viewers a
dramatic new formatting change: the dancers dance two songs instead of
one! Did it indeed double the drama and excitement from just a regular
episode? Well, kind of...it was hard to pay attention throughout the
two hours. There were a few things that did become evident, however.
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Laila Ali=The Hilary Clinton of the show? Laila Ali has been a
frontrunner throughout the competition: we can't get over her saucy
attitude and her hard work and the fantastic chemistry she has with her
partner, Maksim Chmerkovskiy. But Laila is the only female left on the
show now...will that bring more votes from the women's bloc, who would
probably vote for Joey Fatone otherwise but don't want to betray their
gender?
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Of all of Tony Soprano’s uncontrolled appetites, gambling has tended to take a back seat to food and sex. But last night’s episode of “The Sopranos” was about Tony the degenerate gambler.
Pro football, harness racing, roulette; in the episode, the impulse bets, and losses, accrue to something like 200 grand, or roughly his debt to old Jewish pal Hesh Rabkin (Jerry Adler), whose attempts to collect turn Tony cranky and Hesh to wondering whether the boss is just riding him or going to have him clipped to get rid of a nuisance debt.
“Bad” Tony was out in force in other ways — getting into an ugly, shades-of-Season-4 fight with wife Carmella over his cut of the sale of her spec house. Meanwhile, the widow of his best earner, the outed gay mobster Vito, comes to Tony asking for a hundred grand to relocate her family to Maine. Son Vito Jr., it seems, is going through a Goth phase, and cousin Phil Leotardo, the man who had Vito killed, isn’t apt to help out financially (What did the mobster say to the Goth kid? “You look like a Puerto Rican hoore.”)
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Kate Walsh, it would appear, is getting out in the nick of time. Next week, in a very special two-hour episode, her character, Dr. Addison Shepherd, will vamoose from Seattle for the sunny shores of L.A. May she never look back because “Grey’s Anatomy” is collapsing faster than a punctured lung.
Izzie and George. Izzie and her new hairstyle. Callie and George, Derek and Meredith, Derek and the chief’s job. Addison and Karev, Addison and McSteamy, Cristina and Burke and their wedding cake. Oh which will they pick? Oh what will happen then? Oh who really cares?
Last night’s episode presented the “Grey’s” team with their biggest challenge ever — acting in ways barely recognizable as human much less characteristic. All the interns were suddenly concerned, albeit it briefly and intermittently, with their wink-wink careers as they cutely “studied” for “the biggest test of their internship.” (Surely that has been staying friends with the drippy, relentlessly narcissistic Meredith, no?)
Does anyone but me remember how the series began, with a whole bunch of interns being told by Bailey to look around because more than half of them wouldn’t be there in a few months? Whatever happened to the idea of benching some of these beauties?
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Aw, c'mon Tyra, why do you have to treat me like that?
After the comedy gold of the models in Australia last week, Wednesday night we get a recap show, with only a few new interviews and behind-the-scenes bitchiness thrown in.
Jael and Renee bickered; Samantha and Renee bickered; Brittany and Renee bickered; Dionne and Renee bickered; Renee even managed to bicker with inanimate objects, including bathroom cleaner. The reward for revisiting the cattiness? Renee classically describing Jael as "the female Kramer" for her tendency to aggressively hula-hoop in people's faces. Next week, we get back to the real show. Hey, I guess it's the only padding you'll ever see on Top Model.
(Photo courtesy The CW)
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A post-show chat with Times Staff Writer Patrick Day, "24" Show Tracker and a die-hard "Lost" fan who insists the show will "stand the test of time"...
DENISE: Overall, I thought Wednesday's Sun-centric episode was pretty strong. Any time they've given her stuff to do, it's usually good. This was no exception.
PATRICK: I'm very glad to hear you liked this one. Even though there were no major revelations about the Island or the Others, this had some nice human drama. Why do they under use Sun? She's just as interesting as Sayid and Hurley and not half as irritating as Kate.
DENISE: I'm ignoring what you said about Hurley. I've always thought they should be doing more with the resident marrieds. Pairing Sun with Juliet was especially potent, particularly now that we know that Juliet is there against her will to research the women of the crash. Juliet is probably their best written character right now.
So, given the eleventh hour revelation of Naomi, the fallen stranger from the sky, you think there could be credence in the they're-all-in-purgatory theory?
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 Let it never be said the producers of "American Idol" don’t understand the keys to their own appeal. For the Idol Gives Back show they were faced with an impossible task: blending two hours of compassion for the planet’s most wretched and downtrodden with their weekly results exercise in the slow-motion torture of their own contestants. One can imagine the despair the producers felt as they rolled up their sleeves and tried to puzzle out how they would raise concern HIV-ridden African children living 13 to a dirt-walled room and then cut to the real tears as a contestant is sent home.
But in the end, "Idol" managed to have its cake and eat it too and, as usual, eat everyone else’s cake on top of that. By both spooling out the tension and brazenly rewriting the rules in order to grant a week’s amnesty to all contestants, they delivered a huge feel-good happy ending to the event.
The reason the challenge described above seems so impossible is that we mere linear thinking mortals live in a world of concrete boundaries, laws and social regulation. If you are creating an Entertainment Universe in your own image, none of those trivial Earth-bound concerns need weigh you down. Which is to say, if you are an "Idol" producer and the rules of the game stand in the way of entertainment, you change the rules. The only rule that truly need apply is that you must put on a good show, and failure to do that is a capital offense.
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 After being stuck in the rabbit hole that was Lorelai marrying Christopher and Rory obsessing over Logan, crawling out is feeling pretty good.
Tuesday's episode of "Gilmore Girls" both officially kicked off the countdown to Luke and Lorelai's reunion and gave Rory something to worry about besides her love life.
The show began going through the motions of putting the pair back together, using the timing and teasing tactics that keep "Grey's Anatomy" audiences hooked. At least things aren't as McSchmaltzy when you make up in Stars Hollow.
Luke and Lorelai spent the majority of the episode trying, and mostly failing, to repair their friendship. Lorelai walked into Luke's diner for the first time in months to discover to her surprise that only small talk was on the menu. Awkward silence and weather conversation replaced their rapid-fire back and forth, and later, when she asked Luke to help her select a new car to replace her dead Jeep, radio static became preferable to the tension of the car ride.
Until, that is, Luke exploded with frustration at Lorelai's nonsensical criteria for choosing a car. "I just don't like the way it feels!" she whined. His outburst made her smile. They were bickering again. Cue her (and our) relief.
Did it feel a little overboard when an "exasperated" Luke tracked down a replacement for her Jeep, took it for a test drive, and negotiated down the price by day's end? Sure, but it's welcome excess. Like legions of "Gilmore" fans, he just wants to get the ball rolling again.
In the meantime, while her Yale friends planted their flags in post-collegiate territory, Rory resumed pondering her future. Her over-achieving roommate Paris got in the night's best line after finding out that Harvard Law had come calling after rejecting her from its undergraduate program four years ago: "Bite me, Harvard! Bite me!"
Rory, however, got only bad news: A succinct rejection letter of her own, passing on her application for a fellowship at The New York Times. (Did she really have a shot? Maybe not. Let's not forget that last season the writers sent Rory on a bizarre tailspin that had her dropping out of Yale and spending a good part of her down time running her grandmother's Daughters of the American Revolution society functions.)
Both mother and daughter are now in line for some heavy-duty growing up. Here's hoping that the preview for next week's episode, which revealed that Logan is about to propose to Rory, doesn't mean "Gilmore" falls back down the hole.
(Photo courtesy The CW)
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 "Dancing with the Stars” suffered its first upset of the season, which is a minor one, to be sure, but at least merits a recap that’s somewhat water-cooler-chat worthy. Thus far, every single elimination has elicited a roaring “Yeah, that makes sense” from the audiences, except for tonight.
Heather “McCartney” Mills got booted off the show, prior to Billy Ray Cyrus and even more prior to John Ratzenberger. She was a better, more youthful dancer than Cliff and had way more raw talent than Achy Breaky.
We have to confess, we were ready to ride Heather, joke-wise, until her time had come. We did not have high expectations for her, as a person or as a dancer, and looked forward to making fun of her. After all, we had not been fed a very good portrait of her in the media, and, in our world, it’s way more fun to pick on someone than to cherish them.
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 Quick update. At a brunch today for the various charitable organizations who will be benefitting from "Idol Gives Back," it was announced that last night's vote total had topped 70 million votes. The would be the show's all time record.
For comparison's sake, last week, 38 million people voted on the fate of the Top 7.
Last season's finale drew 63.5 million votes.
The previous record appears to be the season three finale in which 65 million votes were cast.
122,293,332 votes were cast in the 2004 US Presidential election.
Corporate sponsors had pledged to match the vote totals, up to a certain point, with contributions to show's nine chosen charities in the US and Africa.
(Photo courtesy Fox)
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 That was quite an ending.
"The Shield" delivered another solid hour this week but it was the last two minutes, in which Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) let loose with a raw, animalistic fury in a hospital waiting room, that really stood out.
Still distraught over the death of former partner Curtis Lemansky (Kenneth Johnson), Vic's pain colored one of the show's more intriguing street stories: a deadly gangland power struggle set off when several gang members try to leave the life and go straight. In the episode's final moments Vic rushed the critically wounded "revolution" ringleader to the hospital, but it was too late.
Chiklis (who won an Emmy in the show's first season, and deserves consideration again) played the resulting meltdown for all it was worth. The sequence was a classic example of what makes Mackey such a riveting character: seeing his closely guarded internal pain manifest itself in frighteningly intense external rage. And the public setting allowed several other characters to witness the event, including Captain Wyms (C.C.H. Pounder) and Vic's ex, Corinne (Cathy Cahlin Ryan).
Earlier in the hour Wyms revealed a savvy plan to push Vic out, forcing him into retirement while making him believe he still has a shot at staying at work. Will what she saw deter her from rattling the monster's cage? Or make her even more determined to rid her squad of Mackey for good?
(Photo courtesy FX)
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“The competition starts properly tonight” declared Simon Cowell, and in some strange way, with that shouldn’t-work-but-for-some-reason-does alchemy that fuels much of the Idol complex, the addition of a charity event into the Idol potion magically had the effect of refocusing the competition.
After four-fifths of a season that has veered wildly between breathtaking and pathetic, with ratings a-flutter and even the judges publicly commenting that there is a major contestant quality control issue, after accusations of unreasonable cruelty in the pre-season, after the Sanjaya/Howard Stern/votefortheworst hysteria -- after all that, Night One of the Idol Gives Back event broke through as the kick-off of a final stretch likely to be filled with as much drama and unpredictability as any season yet.
“I think at this stage it’s as open as I’ve ever seen it on any season,” said Cowell in an exclusive Show Tracker interview last week. “To me now it’s about having the wow factor.” He went on to reveal (as reported in Martin Miller’s excellent exegesis on the role of race in Idol voting) that the shifting sands of fortune all season long seem at this moment to slightly favor Jordin to win the competition.
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 For all those critics who fretted over “24’s” seeming lack of a social conscience, Monday night’s episode (12 a.m.-1 a.m.) could only have been good news. Here, finally, the show that glorified torture and made a mockery of due process was confronting a truly important life lesson: the danger of dating in the workplace.
Before the hour was up, the president’s advisor Karen Hayes (Jayne Atkinson) was forced to fire her husband, Counter Terrorist Unit chief Bill Buchanan (James Morrison); Morris (Carlo Rota) decided he could no longer work with his ex-wife, Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub); and Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) discovered that his girlfriend, Audrey (Kim Raver) had gone completely bonkers while in the custody of the Chinese.
Guess they should have tried Internet dating.
The only person who disregarded the lesson was Vice President Daniels (Powers Boothe) who, after being installed as acting President, seemed interested in making it with his chief of staff (Kari Matchett) in the Oval Office as his first official act. Considering that the last time he got the power, he tried to make a war with the Middle East, it’s possible making love was the only move he had left.
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 All talk and almost no action made the return of "Heroes" a very dull hour.
At least until prophetic painter/consistently boring minor character Isaac (Santiago Cabrera) died, falling victim to superhero serial killer Sylar (Zachary Quinto). Or did he? (Here’s a hint to solving the mystery: Be on the lookout for any post-"death" TV or print interviews with Cabrera. If the actor talks to the press then the character’s a goner, à la Eko on "Lost." If there’s a cone of silence then expect a triumphant return, à la Starbuck on "Battlestar Galactica.")
Isaac’s death was foretold all the way back in Episode 2, and a musty scent of familiarity lingered not just over that event but also the episode as a whole.
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We Americans are willing to take a lot of garbage when it comes to our television hosts. Just look at Billy Bush. That guy is famous and yet still universally reviled, it seems. That is to say nothing of that woman who hosted “The Swan” or that woman from "Top Chef." “Where do they get these people?” we think. “How do you come to specialize in being pleasantly bland? Oh well, they’re hosting this show so they must know something.”
The country might be ready to revolt, however, on the topic of Samantha Harris.
Samantha plays the “special correspondent” on "Dancing With the Stars." While Tom Bergeron plays genial MC, Samantha is always on the scene! To breathlessly interview contestants backstage!
To her credit, Samantha is beautiful and has wonderful hair. Her gowns are actually attractive and not in a cheeseball adult prom kind of way. She has that husky voice that seems to indicate that she’s no cream puff. She even has a hint of a seed of a wit, sometimes (which means she’s a sharp cookie, in reality TV world).
Despite her obvious skills however, Samantha seems more inept handling the role of co-host than anyone else we’ve seen. And we’ve seen a lot.
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 After five and a half seasons, the "American Idol" juggernaut has, like a devourer of planets, reshaped a battered television landscape in its image. The show has taken the oldest of talent competition saws – the singing contest – and turned it into a national obsession.
This week, "American Idol" takes reality TV into its most foreign and unlikely terrain yet – charity. For two straight nights, it will turn its stage over to messages of hope and compassion as it attempts to turbo-charge its run-of-the-mill extravaganza proportions in the name of helping the poor and suffering of the world for a two night event called "Idol Gives Back."
But fear not that the epic competition is about to scale itself back into a PBS-pledge drive - earnest pleas before the volunteer phone ban cutting to heart-rending video of children with distended bellies delievered in amateurish zero-production value segments. This, after all, is American Idol and charity will come to it, not vice versa.
"I think our main thing," said Idol cornerstone, Judge Simon Cowell in a telephone interview, "is to make sure that for anybody who is a fan of American Idol, that they don’t feel too uncomfortable and most importantly they enjoy the event as an entertainment show. That is the number one priority because if we fail on that, this has all been a waste of time."
Not strictly a telethon, per se, Tuesday night’s IGB will attempt to harness "Idol’s" enormous voting machine (over 38 million cast on last week’s show) as a trigger for sponsored giving. As explained on the show’s website, after Tuesday’s performance show, “Each time you call, sponsors will make a donation to Charity Projects Entertainment Fund to help children and young people in the USA and Africa.” Wednesday night will combine Idol’s standard results show with performances from guest stars, with pleas for donations to the fund. The hope is that by creating a spectacle beyond even the normal absurdly spectacular Idol standards, the show might lure in the handful of Americans who do not already watch and entice them to charity no less. Committed performers include Sacha Baron Cohen, Gwen Stefani, Pink, Josh Grobin, Michael Buble, Annie Lennox and Bono and the return to the Idol stage of the original winner Kelly Clarkson. In addition, the show is hyping a secret mystery duet as the highlight of the night.
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 Sunday night’s episode of “The Sopranos” featured a captivating guest performance by Ken Leung, playing a protégé of “Junior” Soprano in the mental health facility where Junior is incarcerated.
Leung is Carter, the overachieving rich-kid son of a disgraced, tyrannical father. “The Sopranos” hasn’t focused on Uncle Junior’s world in a while; since being arrested for shooting Tony, he’s been more glimpsed than examined.
But last night he kind of got the “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” treatment, Junior and Carter causing merriment and mayhem (and urination) at the Wycoff Therapeutic Center. The two of them run an illegal card game and they scheme so that Junior won’t have to take his meds. For Junior, it’s just like the old days-only with buttons as poker chips and orderlies needing to be bought off.
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Just off the post-results conference call. Each week the newly eliminated contestant is put on the phone for half an hour with, it sounds like, about a billion reporters from every corner of the globe who are allowed, if chosen to ask one question and one follow up each.
It was a humbled Sanjaya who stepped out of the "Idol" bubble and faced the press corps today. Or more to the point, the call had the semi-pathetique tone of a very young kid squirming under questioning from a bunch of big serious adults.
More signficantly, Sanjaya - in this call at least - unequivocally - distanced himself from an anti-hero status - claiming he was in the competition to win (although he realized he probably wouldn't) and was just trying his hardest to let his personality shine. Sanjaya poo-poo'ed his leading cheerleaders saying, "I don't think votefortheworst or Howard Stern had enough people voting for me to make a dent in anything. I think the reason why I'm here is the support of my fans."
Some other highlights from the call:
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Take One: The models go down to Oz and mumble mouth their way through a Cover Girl commercial in Australian accents.
Take Two: The models - who should be seen, but not heard - go down to Oz and mumble mouth their way through a Cover Girl commercial in humiliating Australian accents.
Take Three: The models - who should be seen, but not heard - meet a kangaroo (and Tara dressed as a kangaroo), then go down to Oz and mumble mouth their way through a Cover Girl commercial in humiliating Australian accents.
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 Desmond used to be a monk. Charlie's still alive. And a stranger has fallen from the sky.
Next.
Also, nice of Wednesday's episode to finally address the cliffhanger from Season 2. But seriously, folks, the next four episodes have got to build to something. Anything! Lots of things ripe for the pickin.'
A Jack-vs.-Locke showdown. Where Juliet's mission is leading. The real story behind the French woman. The real story behind the Others. Heck, I'll take the real story behind that black smoke and those jungle polar bears...
What did everyone else think?
(Photo courtesy ABC)
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 And so it ends.
The Sanjaya saga, destined to go down in Idol history as one of the show’s great subplots, has run its course.
Sanjaya will forever stand aside such storied also-rans as Kellie Pickler, Constantine Maroulis and Carmen Rasmusen. But just as in every election cycle, starry-eyed dreamers are forced to re-learn that being engagingly unhinged is not what gets one to the White House, so are the discontents at the fringes of the Idol galaxy forced to learn, over and over, that American chooses its Idols based on solid performing skills (mostly) and bonafide, non-ironic star quality.
The very best singer may not come in first, but anti-establishment appeal can only get a singer like Scott “The Body” Savols and Kevin “Chicken Little” Covais as high as number five, but no higher. So once again, the anarchists’ quixotic dreams of mayhem are dashed and the wisdom of the people prevails.
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Oh Brooke. Oh Jenn. Please go feed starving children in Africa for a year. Get some perspective.
Jenn's cat-and-mouse game with hometown honey Jared blew up most extravagantly, with her illicit Denver liaisons being revealed to him during his visit. Jenn, generally the most likable of the housemates, came off looking especially tawdry as one paramour after another popped up. Whoops.
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We all knew this day would come and now it is here. The Sanjaya Universe has finally imploded on itself. Where does Idol go from here? Will you miss him? Who must we stop next?
Leave your comments below. I'll post my full report from the scene of Sanjaya's final moments at the Idoldome late tonight.
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Isn't it nice when your favorite show actually airs for weeks on a regular basis with no "special events," illness-as-metaphor motifs or other sweeps week tinkerings? Four great "Houses" in a row prove how strong the show is when left to its basics -- a medical mystery conceit that is dominated by Hugh Laurie's provocative character, whose actions illuminate the various strengths and flaws of his colleagues.
Last night we got the whole shebang -- child in peril, possible parental abuse, cool neuron graphics and a whole lot of fun personal subplots for the rest of the cast. A little girl collapses at day care, with grown-up symptoms -- heart problems, ovarian cysts, etc. Meanwhile, Drs. Chase and Cameron (Jesse Spencer and Jennifer Morrison, respectively) snip and snarl at each other as their sex-only relationship hits the skids after Chase says he wants more. (While it's been fun watching Cameron play the horn dog -- especially since the two actors recently announced their engagement -- it was rather out of character, but hey, we all have those days.)
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 All right, so we know not to rely on “Dancing with the Stars” as an authority for what’s cool and current.
That’s the whole point of the show, right? Good old-fashioned clean fun. However, Tuesday night’s results show seemed like a time capsule from the last 10 years of entertainment.
Check out the swing dancers! Like from that movie where a young, thin Vince Vaughn took us by storm! And Lisa Rinna, from last year’s season of DWTS, performing a number from the revival of the revival of the movie version of the musical “Chicago”! And Macy Gray (who seems aware that she’s not the same phenomenon she was of 1999, although we actually like the new, subdued her)!
Plus, Joey Fatone, doing the sort of impression of an effeminate gay man that we thought was out of date due to political correctness (or his gay friend Lance Bass) but apparently not.
However, we were plunged back into the cold bath of reality at the end of the show as Clyde Drexler, a sentimental favorite but undoubtedly the weakest dancer, bid us adieu with what we’ve come to see as his trademark gentle good humor. Although one wonders how long he’ll live after mentioning the words “American Idol” on ABC.
(Photo courtesy ABC)
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"24" has taken plenty of hits for an abundance of torture scenes this season but "The Shield" may be courting controversy of its own with this week’s episode. Of course, on "The Shield," even torture is complicated.
Walton Goggins deserves the week’s top acting honors as slowly imploding Strike Team member Shane Vendrell. His friend and mentor Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) still doesn’t know that Shane is the one responsible for last season’s murder of fellow Strike Team member Curtis Lemansky (Kenneth Johnson). Operating under the belief that gangbanger Guardo Lima is the guilty party, Vic lured Guardo out of hiding in Mexico and strung him up to torture a confession out of him.
Shane had no choice but to go along with it.
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 For any long-term relationship stuck in a rut, getting that magic back isn’t easy.
Invested "Gilmore Girls" fans this season have been burned one too many times, yet we keep coming back for more, even when most of it has been watching two once-strong women unravel into love-hampered know-nothings.
Viewers return time and time again — note the series’ increasingly strong ratings on the CW — because as out of character as Lorelai and Rory have been acting, Lauren Graham can still turn a phrase better than most actresses working in TV comedy. And despite the absence of creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, the dialogue has managed to come within spitting distance of her signature pop culture-laced, tongue-twisting witticisms.
Now there’s more reason to hope: Tuesday’s episode felt like a big first step on the road to recovery.
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 As long military campaigns drag on, there comes a point when out of the frenzied mass, individuals emerge and change the contours of the battle. At some point, (at least in the poetic version) war ceases to shape soldiers; soldiers begin to shape the war. Achilles puts aside his sulk, steps forward and Troy is doomed.
In the early weeks of "Idol" we saw each contestant as through a glass darkly. With the huge number of songs to be sung every night through the auditions, the top 24 and the early weeks of the 12, each contestant had only seconds of non-singing stage time. We were forced to read into the smallest gestures, such as the odd smile to Ryan.
The contestants -- overwhelmed by the machine -- were at their most guarded and unrevealing.
But as we draw down to the final seven, at last there is leisure time to spend with each contestant. And that can be very dangerous -– or at the very least, add an element that changes what is still anyone’s fight.
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 Last night, with the dancing of the samba and rumba, the performers on “Dancing with the Stars” were encouraged to bring out the sexy.
However, as Rose from the musical “Gypsy” would say, some people got it and make it pay; some people can’t even give it away.
Let’s take a look at which people’s got it, in order of who danced:
Ian Ziering and Cheryl Burke: There’s no doubt that Ian works hard and has a certain impish, smirking Steve Sanders appeal. Maybe it’s the too-bright teeth, though, or the curly blonde hair, or maybe it’s that we think he’s a little bit scared of his partner Cheryl Burke, but he seems to have a tough time pulling off sizzle. Sleeveless shirts, too, tend to lean more towards “figure skater” than “sexy dancer.”
Clyde Drexler and Elena Grinenko: Clyde is lovable. He was a classy, skilled basketball player and seems like a nice, somewhat soft spoken guy. However, his sad, sad eyes and his hesitation on the dance floor sap all the libido out of this former NBA player — plus, he’s the kind of fellow, who, once you see him as a pussycat, you’d never buy him as a sex symbol. It makes us wonder how Dennis Rodman would fare out there.
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 It took awhile, about 18 hours to be exact, but on Monday night’s episode (“11 p.m.-12 a.m.”) Jack Bauer finally started to manifest the side effects of two years of torture in a Chinese prison.
How else to explain his cockamamie scheme to free his girlfriend Audrey Raines (Kim Raver) from the clutches of evil Chinese agent Cheng Zhi (Tzi Ma)? His idea, which he insisted on explaining to no one less than President Palmer (D.B. Woodside) himself, involved blowing up a vital piece of circuitry the Chinese were demanding in exchange for Audrey’s freedom, killing himself and any Chinese agent standing too close.
Why he couldn’t use a decoy circuit board or find some other, less suicidal way to save Audrey’s life was never discussed. As usual, Jack Bauer had decided on the only path to take and there was no time for rational discussion. When even Palmer balked at Bauer’s half-baked scheme, Bauer invoked the only thing that seems to carry more weight on this show than a platoon of counter-terrorism soldiers: his word.
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Tonight's episode of "Dancing with the Stars" brought viewers a
dramatic new formatting change: the dancers dance two songs instead of
one! Did it indeed double the drama and excitement from just a regular
episode? Well, kind of...it was hard to pay attention throughout the
two hours. There were a few things that did become evident, however. 
