24: My New Addiction

DavidMarkus

Posted: Jan 10, 07 12:39pm

About 40 minutes had passed since I pushed "play" on the DVD. The serum was now coursing through my veins. My heart pounding, my eyes fixed on the screen, I poked impatiently at the remote trying to trigger the second episode . . . It was true. This was only my first time, and already I was hooked.

I had first heard about 24 from my wife when it debuted several years ago. She had liked it and thought Kiefer Sutherland was a good actor—and sexy. But that's all I remember. Then a few weeks ago, the promos for the new season, the sixth, started up, and with them all the chatter around the office: "Heart pounding excitement;" "no show like it;" "best suspense on TV." I am not much of an action-show kind of guy, but I made a note to rent the DVDs from Season 1 and give it a whirl. The rest is just another 24 junkie's sad story.

I burned through the first four episodes, covering midnight to 4 a.m. on what Kiefer Sutherland's charcter, Agent Jack Bauer, called the "longest day of his life." That's more hours of TV than a father of four like me should ever watch in one, er, 24-hour period. (That's what the show is about: 24 hours in the insane life of a Los Angeles-based counter terrorism agent who must prevent the assassination of a presidential candidate while investigating connections to a terrorist bombing of a jetliner over the Mojave desert, all in the same night, and all while trying to rescue his wife and daughter from kidnappers working with the super bad guys who are trying to take out the candidate. Oh, and, the assassins have recruited traitors among Bauer's Counter Terrorism Unit staff to stop him.)

By the second day of my addiction, that is, my second day (Agent Bauer was only six hours into his first), my younger kids were staggering around the house, unwashed and under-fed, and the older ones were doing pretty much whatever they wanted. My wife, having seen an opportunity to return Christmas presents rather than re-watch the first eight episodes, had bolted. I was in charge and I was a mess, clutching the remote, shouting at the kids, and ignoring phone calls from friends and family. Hours later, when my wife came home, she knew immediately what was happening and confiscated the remote.

But it just got worse. I watched on my laptop alone in the bathroom. I went over to my neighbor's house and asked him if I could "test" a DVD on his big-screen TV. Worst of all, I secretly watched on my oldest daughter's computer, the one on which I had once disabled the DVD player, so as to prevent her from indulging in what I think I called "mindless media consumption."

So don't do what I have done. Don't go near Agent Bauer and his compelling cohorts, especially the very attractive Agent Nina Myers, and all their evil adversaries. Your heart rate will rise precipitously. Your appetite will fade. Loved ones will turn away from you, shaking their heads. Trust me. Believe me. When you hear the words, "I am Federal Agent Jack Bauer, and today is the longest day of my life ," just say no.