24 and Star Trek

I have been a Trekkie ever since I was five years old. I have seen every episode of the original series at least 10 times. Of course I have watched all the other series as well. Last year I became a 24 fan and tonight’s episode made me realize that people who write this show must also be Trekkies. McGill, head of CTU, was going loony in tonight’s episode and accusing everyone of trying to sabotage him, and he was ignoring the need to get vital information to the Secret Service. Audrey and Curtis do an end run around McGill and call him unfit for duty and take over CTU. Now flashback to any number of Star Trek episodes and replace McGill with Captain Kirk under the influence of some strange evil alien, and replace Audrey and Curtis with Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock. Dr. McCoy was always trying to find a way to relieve Captain Kirk of duty when he felt things were getting out of hand. Some things never change I guess or good plots and story lines are just hard to find. Nevertheless, I like 24 because there’s a lot of great sci-fi type technology in use and the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad. Except for tonight’s episode I usually can’t figure out what’s going to happen next. What a great show!