Shanti’s Dispatches

If you value your productivity, I would highly advise against renting the first few DVDs of the hit show 24.

I feel a bit like that guy in high-school who was the last one to discover Dave Matthews Band, only because everyone else was so into him, you wondered what the big deal was all about.

Well, I finally get it re: 24. Last night I was up until 4am watching 3 full DVDs from the first season, or, hours 4am - 12noon on the first day of the saga.

I went to sleep half-twitching, dreaming about the 10am Blockbuster open time for when I could get my next 24 fix.

Next up: the last 3 DVDs from Season 1, and the first one from Season 2. (just in case BB was closed and I was experiencing withdrawal symptoms in the middle of the night)

Calculating Time Lost Due to Watching 24

Each Season, insofar as I understand it, has a full 24 hours each, minus ~20min per hour of commercials = 960 minutes per season or 16 fully viewable hours (~ 2 working days) of unmitigated viewing pleasure per season.

5 Seasons * 960 minutes each = 4800 minutes or 80 hours (~ 10 working days)

Consider yourself warned.

Why 24?

I’ve seen just about every halfway decent film. Television is obviously where it’s at these days.

Who wants to pay $9.50 for a movie ticket, $5.50 for a beverage, then sit through 25 minutes of commercials, just for the privilege of seeing something on a big screen? (that, really doesn’t seem all that big of a deal compared to HD)

Production/broadcast companies like Fox can make gobs off advertisers during the first-run tv broadcasts, not to mention re-run rights.

Then you’ve got guys like me who just discover the show and go out and rent (or buy) all of the seasons on DVD to watch commercially uninterrupted.

Producers like Brian Grazer (24) and Jerry Bruckheimer (CSI) are into the TV production game now, so you ostensibly get movie-quality production value in a television series. (that was definitely NOT happening 10-20 years ago)