Ka-chink, Ka-chink, Ka-chink, Ka-chink...

Some quick reactions from an evening of TV watching...

-24 is back in a big way. Whoa. I won't say anything about exactly what happened for fear of spoiling things for those who were forced to tape, but man alive. Two major deaths and one serious wounding before the first commercial break, a few new characters that are already looking promising, and above all, Jack's back to old form in a big way. This season already seems to be capturing a feel the show hasn't had since season 1...a feeling of immediacy and of the events being truly personal. First season for Jack, it was about him being torn between his duty to his country and to his family. The interim seasons, with their end-of-the-world scenarios, saw the downgrading of Jack's personal investment and the rise of bad-@$$ Jack, which was tremendous, but still lost a little of the core of the character established way back when. This time around, with the events set in motion tonight, it feels like the emotional center has been tapped once more, and Sutherland as always rises to the challenge. ("Take the gun" was a classic Jack Bauer moment.) Combine that with the fact that it's still the best-produced show on television, the core cast (the ones that weren't offed in the first 10 minutes, anyway) is as strong as TV has ever seen, and that a lot of the things that I and many other found problematic with the 4th season (the overtly stereotypical enemies, the overtly politicized story) have been seemingly done away with, and you're left with what may be the best day yet. Can't wait for tomorrow night!

-Then it was the replay of TNA's Final Resolution PPV, which turned out to be merely okay. The opening match, an X-Division 6-Man, was as usual very good, but from there a lot of the matches seemed to be on cruise control. AJ/Tanahashi, which sounded great on paper, was only maybe good, as they never seemed to be on the same page. (The fact that they had never wrestled before and didn't speak each other's language may have had something to do with it.) Raven's angle didn't pay off, it's gonna get drawn out even further now that he has "lost his job" in a screwjob manner. Swell. Abyss/Rhino was a little off, too. AMW retain the tag titles in one of the most blatantly bad Dusty Finishes ever, coming from a company that has prided themselves thus far on NOT resorting to that kind of thing. Things picked up, however, with the last two matches, as Joe/Daniels was very good (but again, not the great match it coulda been) with a very emotionally charged ending that, hopefully, will set up AJ/Daniels/Joe 2 next month. And the main event, with the return of Sting to wrestling, was a classic old-school tag team bout with tons of crowd heat (the crowd had been waiting for him all night, seemingly). Stinger looked good, too, a bit winded by the end, but cut him some slack, he hasn't wrestled regularly in, like, 5 years. All in all, though, a step back for the company which has put on awesome show after awesome show since September.

BTW, I'm off the next two days! Anyone wanna see movies or anything? Maybe make fighters for the BGSU Rumble, hint hint? :)