SIX REQUESTS FOR DAY SIX

1. NO MORE MOLES

Nina Myers, Eric Rayburn, Gael Ortega, Marianne Taylor, Spenser Wolff, Walt Cummings … Please stop it with the moles. Ever since Nina Myers was exposed as Jack’s nemesis in the penultimate episode of Day One, the writers have continued to rely on this tired plot device. Each season, they’ll tweak each new mole’s motives – whether it’s greed, undercover work, misguided patriotism, or pure naiveté – but none of it justifies the use of such a hackneyed ploy. Please create a new twist to advance storylines.

2. NO MORE PHONE TRACES

This is a relatively new trend that began in Season 4, but reached new heights of absurdity last season. In order to keep up the show’s lightning-quick pace, the writers simply have characters trace or monitor phone calls to gain the upper hand. Last season alone, Graham intercepted a CTU call alerting them that Jack has acquired the recording which forced them to attempt to shoot down the plane, Henderson intercepted a 911 call that led him to Evelyn and her daughter’s hotel room, and CTU intercepted chatter about an attack on the Suvarovs’ motorcade route – each time minutes after the actual call had taken place! Remember in Season 2 when it took hours to trace calls or pick up “chatter”? Neither do the writers. Ludicrous, lazy storytelling.

3. NO MORE KIM

In 2005, Season 4 certainly seemed like the best season since the first. And looking back, there was a reason for that. Kim didn’t show up once. No more annoying whining. No more inopportunely timed phone calls. No more obnoxious kidnapping or hostage plots. In fact, the only thing I missed were the boobs. Seriously, Elisha Cuthbert has a wicked set of tits, and the show certainly missed them. But then Season 5 rolled around, and she was, miraculously, still gone. And the heavens opened up, the television angels sung, and 24 fans rejoiced! That is, until Hour 12, when Kimberly walked back into CTU to start making Jack feel like shit again for being a bad father. Stupid little bitch … Point being, if you bring her back, the cougar must come with her.

4. NO MORE L.A.

As every American knows, terrorists really don’t care about New York or Washington, D.C. Los Angeles is the only city Muslim extremists care about attacking. Honestly, if we all lived in 24’s world, wouldn’t everyone have left Los Angeles by now? In the last five years, terrorists have targeted the city with a nuclear bomb, a weaponized virus, nerve gas, nuclear reactor meltdowns, nuclear missile attacks, and three presidential assassination attempts. There’s a good chance that if you live L.A. on this show, you will find yourself in the middle of a massive terrorist attack once every 18 months or so. Honestly, it might be time to think about moving. And that goes double for the writers. They tried to get out of L.A. with Jack’s brief Mexican rendezvous in Season 3. And last season, the terrorists were planning to attack Moscow before settling once again on Southern California. So it’s time to take this show on the road. Spice things up a little bit. And one final question … Why is the president always on or near the West Coast when the terrorists attack?

5. BRING CHASE BACK

Every season sees the return of one great character. Season 3 featured the return – and demise – of Nina. Season 4 featured the return of Tony and President Palmer. And Season 5 saw the return of Kim! Kidding. Both Secretary of Defense James Heller and Wayne Palmer were back. Well, it’s high time the writers brought Chase and his bionic arm back into the mix. Chase was a great character. Plus, we would get to see Jack beat the shit out of him for leaving Kim. The only risk here of course is that Chase somehow brings Kim back to the show as well. And we can’t have that. This isn’t a package deal.

6. NO MORE LARGE SCALE TERRORIST ATTACKS

I know this sounds somewhat ridiculous on the surface. But we’ve seen nuclear bombs, nuclear missiles, nuclear power plants, weaponized viruses, and nerve gas. The large-scale terrorist attacks are becoming repetitive and routine. And when the threat of a “nuclear anything” blowing something up starts getting ho-hum, it’s time to start coming up with new ideas. I cringed last year when every episode just became “Which public place of business will Bierko attack with nerve gas this week?” Will it be a mall, or a school, or a hospital, or a natural gas plant, or a submarine? Who cares? It was getting as boring as House’s “Medical Mystery of the Week.” So this year, how about scaling down the attacks and reestablishing the thrilling suspense and solid story structures that the show is founded on anyway?