![]() Yet whenever we shift back to Sam trying to puzzle his way through the latest problem(*), Elba makes it all seem gripping and real. ![]() There are times in this show when the people responsible for the hijacking seem more like supervillains in their ability to do anything to anyone. Like Kiefer Sutherland before him on 24, Elba has the sheer charisma, and the serious acting chops, to lend gravity and urgency to even the most ridiculous situation. As one of that show’s longtime producers Howard Gordon once put it to me, “It’s like driving at 65 miles per hour on the highway and you’re building the highway as you’re driving.” The gimmick consumed plot with such force and speed that each season stealthily told two or three stories in a row, rather than stretching a single one across 24 episodes. Almost all of that show’s dumber story points - Teri’s amnesia, or Kim being menaced by both a survivalist and a cougar - happened entirely because those characters needed to be kept out of the main story for a bit without simply skipping over several hours in between. Telling an ongoing story in real time has an obscenely high degree of difficulty, one that even 24 only sometimes cleared. Oh, you’d occasionally see a show do a real-time episode, like the online-ordering fiasco from The Bear Season One, but no one has been brave or foolish enough to attempt it on a regular basis. But nobody else attempted to set an entire series in real time. Fox’s 24, for instance, inspired other dramas built around international intrigue, most notably Homeland(which shared several producers). Imitation is the sincerest form of television, but some aspects of hit shows are easier to imitate than others.
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