24: The Series

I am not a neo-con.  I don't think it is a good idea to base public policy on a fictional television show.  However, that is what it is contended the Bush administration did when basing it's policy on what it deceivingly described as "enhanced interrogation" on the exploits of Jack Bauer in the Fox television drama 24. 

Instead, I believe the question of whether an "enhanced interrogation technique" is torture ought to be based on the answer to two simple questions.  First, is the technique (for example, waterboarding) something the United States has previously considered to be torture and/or prosecuted people for having engaged in?  Second, would the American public consider the technique to be torture if engaged in by a foreign regime against an American soldier or citizen?  Waterboarding qualifies under both tests.

Despite my criticism of the former administration and my philosophical opposition to Jack Bauer's techniques, my wife and I are addicted to the show.  But we never watch it when it is aired on television.  Instead, we have watched every episode of every season (usually in marathon sessions of several episodes at a sitting) on DVD. 

Now that the final season is out on DVD, we are a few episodes into the latest version of Jack Bauer saving us from the end of the world as we know it.  Before we hit the end of the series, it is interesting to reflect on what you don't see when watching 24.

No one ever sleeps.  No one ever eats.  No one ever goes to the bathroom.  No one ever spends money.  No place where Jack Bauer needs to go is ever more than 5 minutes away where Jack is when he needs to go there.  It may be our favorite "anti-reality" show.  Escapism IS Jack Bauer.