No More Bad Days For Bauer

So, after eight incredibly bad days, Jack Bauer has finally hung up his terrorist-kicking boots. This is a shame.

I say it's 'a shame' rather than 'a tragedy' for a number of reasons. First of all, watched on a weekly basis as it was intended, 24 took nearly six months to play out. Traditionally, it started in January and before you knew it, it was June and the final hour was looming, along with the realisation that Jack and his cohorts had done more with their lives in one day than you had in the last 24 weeks.

Secondly, I truly can't stand Chloe, Jack's righthand berk. She has the most slappable face in history. Starting out as an irritable little analyst who constantly reminded me of a toddler having a tantrum after being refused the last Jaffa Cake, she inexplicably rose to acting head of the Counter Terrorism Unit in the final series. To say this relentless advance was unconvincing was an understatement. You could have pinned the badge on Roland Rat and I would have more readily accepted him as the leader of US anti-terrorist forces.

Thirdly, it isn't really the end for Jack, both on a personal level and in terms of 24's screen career. For one thing, I have only seen about four and a half series out of the eight on offer, having watched the first two series aeons ago when they were shown on terrestrial telly, but being frozen out when Sky snapped up the rights to the gravelly avenger. As I firmly resisted calls for Sky's introduction to our household for several years - on the grounds that paying out more money for the privilege of letting my arse expand yet further into the sofa was unacceptable - I eventually caved a couple of years ago and Jack bounded back into our lives like a faithful puppy, ready to show us his latest pile of mess.

Just before season seven was aired, Sky decided to make another bid for my soul by showing the entire sixth series over a 24-hour period, on a Saturday. And although it's madder and more overblown than a Semtex balloon, 24 is nothing if not addictive. I dipped in and out of it all day and was firmly re-hooked in time for the next brain drain to start.

But I still have the interim adventures to catch up on so, as a box set-tastic future beckons, I was not too devastated to see Jack waddle off into the sunset.

The other thing is that as I understand it, the show was only cancelled partway through filming the eighth series, which suggests the writers were not building towards a much-anticipated final climax, like Lost and Ashes to Ashes. I imagine there was some pretty frantic rewriting going on at 24 Towers when that news was broken, but as the possibility of a film version has been strongly mooted - a move which would completely desert the dynamic gimmick which made the TV show such a success - it leads one to believe that the show's creators were not quite ready to bid farewell to their hero just yet.

Number one on the agenda must surely be a girlfriend who is allowed to live beyond 9am. At the end of the first series, Jack's pregnant wife copped it when his lover turned out to be a homocidal lunatic. Later on, his bright and intelligent soulmate kind of lost her appeal when a year's attentive imprisonment by the Chinese government left her thinking she was a hobgoblin who worked as Terry Wogan's char woman in her spare time.

The seventh series saw Jack getting the eye from a pretty redhead, who developed her own mental problems by the time Day Eight dawned, but did at least let Jack get his leg over before taking a bullet in the lung. God only knows how many female corpses are littered across series three to five, but I am rubbing my hands in anticipation of the carnage.

Whilst it cannot claim to be as profound, mysterious or have as strong an emotional grip on its audience as Lost, for example, 24 was a bit of a rarity on television these days. Not only did it produce a truly iconic character who has become a household name, even for those who never saw the show, it was also fun, exciting and utterly gripping in the uncomplicated way that only a dumb-as-shit thriller can be. I loved it and I suspect that when the final DVD of those lost series grinds to a halt, bringing my stormy relationship with him to a proper end, I will shed a tear or two for mumbly, grumbly, sexy Jack Bauer.

Review: Let The Right One In By John Ajvide Lindqvist

The screen adaptation of Lindqvist's vampire novel was widely hailed as a triumph. Indeed, some critics pronounced it to be among the best films of last year, which is no mean achievement for a horror film. Usually they are judged only against others in their genre and not taken seriously as stories, but Let The Right One In seemed to have overcome that obstacle.

I have not seen the film - I would quite like to, but I confess to being a little bit nervous about it. For although vampires do not scare me like ghosts do and I am not overly squeamish, I have heard that the film is pretty gruesome. Very intelligent and gripping, but gruesome nonetheless. And sometimes I find that non-stop wincing can really spoil my enjoyment of a movie.

But the book was recommended to me by a friend who knows my literary tastes pretty well, so I was curious to see if the source material was as captivating as the film is reported to be.

And the answer is - yes. I can't speak for the adaptation of course, but I can see how the novel could be converted into a thrilling and thought-provoking film. Because right from the first page, the characters leap out of the page and grab you by the throat, teeth bared and ready to bite.

The action centres on 13-year-old Oskar, a young boy who struggles to co-exist with his lonely mother and absentee father, while coping with bullying at school. Yet Oskar is not your typical victim. Even as he confesses to giving into the bullies' humiliating demands in the quest for a quiet life, he radiates a quiet dignity and sense of purpose which is way beyond his years.

Oskar's rather grey and pedestrian life in a Swedish suburb is turned upside down when he befriends Eli, the delicate little girl next door whose strange lifestyle soon raises his suspicions. With the innocence that only children can muster, he simply accepts Eli's stranger qualities and they form a touchingly powerful friendship.

But in the community around them, something is not right. In fact something is going very, very wrong and Oskar begins to realise that Eli might be at the epicentre of the storm.

Delicately balancing the drama of his high concept against the more mundane truths of human existence, the author creates a story that grips you from start to finish. Just as caught up in the mystery as Oskar, I was keen to find out what lay at the beating heart (or otherwise) of Eli and I was also intrigued by Lindqvist's refusal to paint any character in black and white. Though I was left feeling a little torn as to just how much freedom Eli deserved in the final reckoning.