"24"

Okay, I admit it. I'm one of the handful of people who don't watch the TV show "24." I hear Rush talk about it and my friends discuss it ... but I don't watch much on TV.

So when the new "24" season started this week a friend said I absolutely must watch! I protested that I had not seen the previous five seasons; wouldn't it be a handicap not knowing the background of the show?

No, he insisted, I didn't need the other seasons ... as long as I started with the first episode of this new season.

Well ... I missed it. I was at the computer Sunday night and on the phone and next thing I knew ... I had missed the show. Oh, well....

But then I remembered ... we have the California TV stations that televise network shows three hours behind the east coast. I still could catch it.

Involved at the computer, I forgot until it was 20 minutes into the show. I turned on the TV and started watching ... a guy was tied in a chair (Jack?), he was being interrogated, he had blood running down the side of his head as if he had been bashed with the butt of a gun or something ... and then the interrogator took a long, slim rod and stabbed it into the man's back ... the man gasped and slumped ... and he was dead. I jumped in my chair. Geez.

Next thing I knew that same man (Jack?) was with the interrogator in a room with another man tied in a chair. Wait! Did I miss something while I was typing away at my computer? Jack wasn't dead? The interrogator was his friend? Who was the guy tied in the chair? Must be the bad guy because Jack was trying to get information from him ... he did something (tightened a tourniquet on the man's wrists?) to make the man flinch and yell in pain. Jack quit torturing the guy and the other fella asked why. Jack said the man didn't know anything and, when asked why he thought that, he said he could see it in the man's eyes.

The "interrogator" looked at Jack, looked at the man in the chair, looked at Jack again, then picked up a knife, slowly walked over to the man in the chair, and in one quick movement stabbed him in the knee.

I physically jumped in my chair. The man tied up in the chair screamed in pain and, with an added twist of the knife, started singing like a bird ... names, places, whatever info they were looking for was now being spilled. Jack watched, somewhat startled, then looked at the interrogator and said something like, "I don't know how to do this anymore."

Oh, man. I've decided this is definitely a guy show.

Maybe I just haven't given it enough of a chance ... maybe if I had watched from the beginning of the series ... maybe if I had watched from the beginning of that night's show. I admire that they are going after the bad guys ... and I have NO problem with what they're doing to get information because obviously whimpy tactics don't work.

But I'd rather watch Fox News or National Georgraphic. I turned off "24" and went back to work on the computer.

I'm sure my friend is going to try and get me to watch again. He has taped it and I may give it a try....