Get Your Hands Off Him Bitch.

I'm not going to say that I knew it was inevitable because I didn't know. I suspected. I worried. And I may have even trembled with fear on occasions. But it has indeed happened. I am watching 24. Temporarily at least. One of my favorite actors in the Star Trek franchise is appearing in the current season of 24. Alexander Siddig who plays Dr. Julian Bashir on DS9 is playing some, you never would have guessed, middle eastern terrorist, or former terrorist, or terrorist on the wagon, or terrorist whose found his wings, or terrorist whose seen the light. Not sure, but the word terrorist is thrown around so much these days it's lost all meaning. There's actually a word for that when that happens, but it escapes me.

As much as I love Alexander Siddig, he could not possibly save this fetid piece of shit of a show from itself. But he tries. The fantastic scenarios they envision are always meant to convey the feeling that although it's not happening, it could. This could be the United States god save the Patriot Act or something. Please buy our shit. And it has broad appeal because it's suppose to. It's written that way.

It's actually a sick mind that could watch this shit and be entertained by it. Well not sick so much as weak and fragile. The best part is that the star of the show is actually convinced that the morally bankrupt stance of the story line is real and in some cases justified. I won't link you to the interview, but in it he basically says people are stupid if they think that this couldn't happen because it could, and he should know because he's a drunk actor with all the answers.

Just watch BSG. They really cover the same material, but BSG doesn't insult the viewers intelligence. It actually promotes thinking and reflection on some of the issues 24 tries to raise. Among them:

1. Is the use of biological weapons justified.
2. At what point does interrogation become torture, and does it matter that the interrogatee doesn't look like you.
3. Is genocide ever morally defensible.
4. When and how is terrorism justified. (This is prolly the most controversial. At least in the eyes of some Rolling Stones writer)
5. Even fundamental and basic questions like when and how can deceit be justified.

The underlying philosophical debate posed in the show is always one of utilitarianism vs. deontology. Do the ends justify the means, or must the means in and of themselves be morally defensible regardless of the outcome? It's delicious.

Mercy! Here I am all being serious and shit. The point is that, unlike 24, BSG doesn't simply ask and answer these questions for you. They raise the issue, then allow you to reflect on it. And 24 sucks wicked bad.

I don't think I could be a bigger proselytizer of BSG. But I think I'm just a little bitter because whereas I could have spent last night having sex with some outrageously weak in the knees sexy cholo, I decided I wasn't in the mood, and wanted to catch up on shit bag sucks 24. And now, 11 hours later, the only thing I want, the only thing I long for, is having a naked cholo on my desk. God I hate that show.

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