3-WorstMoments

Worst Moments

Season 3

~ Like I've said before, bad 24 is still better than 99% of the rest of television at it's 'best'. This season had it's glaringly poor moments in the light of all of the wonderful ones. There were fifty-four worst moments on the list (half as many as the nominations for 'Best Moments.') so here's the list of the ones that stuck out as the Worst Moments in this season of 24. ~

~Runners Up~ 
Worst Moment - Season 3

Tony lying, lying and lying again to cover his tracks. The pile was just ridiculously long of all the lies that he told. If he'd stuck around much longer he would have started to get them mixed up. In the end it was the lying and bad cover ups that got him busted by Jack. Tony should have done better than that, I think he is a better agent than he showed us here. [3.21: 9:00am - 10:00am]

Senator John Keeler. Nothing personal against the actor but it was just a gargantuan waste of time. All the build up about the debate, Anne, and then the Sherry thing made it even worse. Because of this, overall, Episode 21 was my least favourite of the last half of the season, I think. It was just wasting time. [Various Episodes]

Alvers caving and telling CTU everything. All they had to do was ask and he told them every little thing from the plan to what his employer looked like. What kind of terrorist is this? [3.17: 5:00am - 6:00am]

And now, the 24 Moments of the Third Season that made us cringe:

24. It taking hours to get the test results from NHS. It was sort of brushed over why it had to take an extra hour to get Michelle's results but really, why did it take that long in the first place? When the Singers were tested it took minutes to get their results and for the parent's that was in the field as well. It was just a suspense builder but it was kinda annoying. [3.20: 8:00am - 9:00am]

23. Kim insisting that Jack know about her and Chase right now. Okay, at this point it wasn't completely obvious that this was going to be the day it was but isn't there a more appropriate time to do this? When they're not at work for example? Maybe over dinner sometime? When there aren't ample amounts of big guns nearby? It made me think of Armageddon when Bruce Willis finds out that his daughter (Liv Tyler) is with Ben Affleck "It's all fun and games until somebody get SHOT in the LEG" [3.01-3.02: 1:00pm - 3:00pm][3.22: 10:00am - 11:00am]

22. Tony snapping at Michelle about the European intelligence. We all know that Tony had been shot a very few hours ago but he really doesn't need to be getting on Michelle for no reason at all. She already obviously feels bad about it with Chapelle breathing down her neck, Tony just joined in for the sport of it. Then, he tries to reconcile minutes later. It was stupid. [3.14: 2:00am - 3:00am]

21. Palmer convening the cabinet. When Palmer said the words 'convene the cabinet' I actually cringed. Didn't we see enough of these guys last year? We spent about 4 hours with Palmer and the cabinet as a main part of the storyline, it was tolerable the first time around, Bor-ring the second. Just be thankful it was short. [3.19: 7:00am - 8:00am]

20. The motorcycle man. Another glaring red herring but this one was particularly misleading and essentially useless. What was the point of this? I don't think we would have expected what Saunders was about to do to Tony and Michelle, black motorcycle rider or not. [3.20: 8:00am - 9:00am]

19. Michelle calling Chloe. The whole thing is riding on Saunders, Michelle gets away and manages to get a cell phone and whom does she call? Her husband? Jack? No, she calls Chloe's desk. Chloe. That would be the LAST extension I'd be dialling if I was in Michelle's place. Why did the writers even bother to give Michelle a phone if this is all they are going to do with it? [3.22: 10:00am - 11:00am]

18. Adam's sister being infected. We could definitely use more personal storylines in the peripheral characters but not like this. It actually could have been good, it really could, but then Chloe didn't want to tell him, and then we heard a goodbye, sort of, but had no real follow up. Closure, people, we need closure on this kind of thing. Were we supposed to be sad? We hardly even know Adam except that he hates women and does background checks, are we really supposed to care about this? [3.20: 8:00am - 9:00am]

17. Gael acting completely sinister just to throw us for a loop. It worked but it was cheap. Especially the Kim-napping and the way he treated Kim. It was just not cool. At the same time it was great that he didn't kill anyone. [3.06-3.07: 6:00pm - 8:00pm]

16. Jack taking the pills from Ramon. There were a couple of issues with this. 1. Jack doesn't even ask what they are. Sure he may have seen them before when he was undercover with the Salazar's or he be really good at identifying pills but all he does is glance at the label and down they go. Who says what's on the label is what is really in the bottle. I carry Tylenol in a Tic-Tac case, who knows what Salazar would do? Also, (2) shortly after this was the last that we saw of the much-hyped drug addiction storyline. It was extremely disappointing that we saw the end of this so casually. [3.09: 9:00pm - 10:00pm]

15. Chloe manufacturing the story about Angela. This is an all around bad storyline but this was one of the worst parts. She just came up with all these crazy stories that had parts of CTU on wild goose chases and wondering if she's going to freak out and go postal. Nuts, simply nuts. [3.11-13: 11:00pm - 2:00am]

14. The faulty overdub of the Jack with Claudia scene. This scene was also on the extreme short list for the 'Best Moments' and is also in with the 'Mistakes'. Basically this is a beautiful scene ruined by poor dubbing. [3.09: 9:00pm - 10:00pm]

13. Michelle not letting Phillips call his wife. They had to quarantine the hotel and didn't want to start a panic, but the man helped them out so much right from the start, before CTU even arrived on the scene. He promised them that he wouldn't tell her that he had the virus and by the time she'd have figured it out it would be all over the news anyway. What was the point of this? It was cold hearted and unfair. Adam got to talk to his sister and probably his family, how is this any different? [3.18: 5:00am - 6:00am]

12. The Operation Nightfall fiasco. Okay. This whole thing was blundered from the start. I've beat this point to death in my synopses and I just had to land it here for its final showdown. It was sloppy and annoying that this all tied in but didn't work with what we know. And even if you want to disregard the book, in season 1 Jack and Palmer say that 6 people died and Jack lived. In episode 17 it was 5 others that died including Saunders. Why couldn't they have just tied it into one of the numerous other operations that Jack has been part of? It's not like the fact that Palmer was involved the first time around was relevant at all. [3.17 4:00am - 5:00am]

11. Julia being so needy with Wayne. Her whole act about needing Wayne to come and protect her from the big bad police was so, just, ugh. In case she forgot she was married to Alan, not Wayne and Wayne has no obligation, moral or otherwise, to help her. Did she forget that she just shut him down big time a few hours ago? Now she wants his help? Whatever, 2 words for Julia: H-I-G-H M-A-I-N-T-E-N-A-N-C-E. [3.15: 2:00am - 3:00am]

10. David taking time out of an impending national crisis to coddle Anne. As much as I loathe listening to Wayne and Anne bickering like children I had to agree with Wayne on this one. Anne should not have been on David's priority list. He just pulled out of the debate, the virus is looming and Jack is getting away with a hostage. It's just wrong that he takes time for this and it was a waste of our time. [3.06: 6:00pm - 7:00pm]

9. Chase and the cattle prod. Although this was shocking (okay, pun intended) it was just too much like last year when Jack got zapped while he was strung up and tortured. There were quite a few recycled bits throughout this year. When we saw this happen to Jack it was a big deal and controversial. When it happened again to Chase it was kind of in the 'been there, done that' pile. [3.10: 10:00pm -11:000pm]

8. Kim questioning Tony's abilities because her and Adam didn't know where to look for the right codes. Next time they should be a little more careful before they go off and tossing a wrench into a relationship AND questioning a superior officer. All they had to do was look in the right place and all of the drama could have been avoided. [3.09: 9:00pm - 10:00pm]

7. Julia throwing herself at Wayne. The entire meeting wasn't the best idea but the way Julia just openly hits on Wayne and then in the end doesn't help him out was really very annoying. [3.10: 10:00pm - 11:00pm]

6. Kim going after Nina. Where in Kim Bauer's little head did this seem like a good idea? Really, what did she expect to happen? At least she was smart enough to get the gun of the security guard but what would she have done if her father hadn't shown up and saved her. I don't think there's any way she could have mustered up the courage to pull that trigger before Nina did. Remember now, Nina is a ruthless killer and Kim had a heck of a time killing a known killer last year. There would have been 2 dead female Bauer's on Nina's list and 1 angry Daddy Bauer killing her without her posing a threat to him. Also remember that he had to be talked out of killing her in Season 1 before he even knew that Teri was dead. [3.14: 2:00am - 3:00am]

5. The anticlimacticness of the deal. This was a three-hour ordeal that ended up being nothing but an exchange of information really. Jack went all the way down to Mexico for this and it was just a waste. [3.09: 9:00pm - 10:00pm]

4. Ted shooting himself. Although I wasn't opposed to this at the time, it just cheapened it that the writers used this so much more effectively when Julia shot herself. They should have saved it for that instead of having 3 (count 'em: 3) deaths by self inflicted shots to the head. (Ted, Julia and the prison guard). [3.08: 8:00pm - 9:00pm]

3. Nina handing over the vial to Amador and no one seeing him pocket it. I know that this was a small thing that got us to Ramon getting blown up but it was stupid and pretty ridiculous to expect us to believe that out of all the eyes watching Amador not one saw him switch the vials. What do they take us for exactly? [3.12: 12:00am - 1:00am]

2. Angela. It seems as though this storyline, like quite a few others, was just filler destined to evaporate into the mist as soon as the writers have done what they need to do. It's fine that Chase has a baby; in fact, it does add a whole new dimension to Chase's character. BUT the way it was introduced, through Chloe was ludicrous and ultimately a waste of suspenseful energy. A distraction to take us out of the bigger picture. [3.11 - 3.13: 11:00pm - 2:00am]

And, the number one worst moment of Season Three is:

1. Theresa Ortega killing Stephen Saunders. I think this was just to get to the Chase hand storyline, but it was really frustrating that we spent all that time developing Stephen Saunders' character and they just killed him for no real reason except for something to do. Not to mention a character that we had known all of about 5 minutes killed him. It just felt like a huge waste since we had so much invested into Saunders' character and there were still so many unanswered questions. [3.24: 12:00pm - 1:00pm]