Is anyone else watching this? I found the premiere to be really disappointing. It's not that anything in it was particularly awful, but we've seen it all before. All the stock character types are there - the stuffy head of CTU (they call it the CIA here, but it's still pretty much the same thing) who won't listen to reason, the sleazy presidential aide, the one smart agent who totally knows when to buck protocol and follow her gut, etc. Every single season of the show has had a character fill each of these roles before, and it's sad to see this final season quickly just settle into this stock format. And as for the story itself, it's incredibly predictable. You can see almost every single twist and turn coming. The one big exception to that I might grant is what they did with Chloe, but the reason that one's not predictable is because it's completely out of character. She spent years working for CTU, why would she suddenly turn into a punk anarchist hacktivist? And speaking of punk anarchist hacktivism, what's up with the Wikileaks stand-in? Wikileaks hasn't been relevant for years!
Was there anything actually good about these episodes? Well, I guess it was cool to see Stephen Fry and Michelle Fairley. And I'm glad that we don't have generic Arab/Muslim terrorists as the villains this time around - not yet, at least. I'll keep watching it, because it's still 24, but I'm hoping for some serious improvement soon. We were expecting a big grand finale, not another season of same-old.