24 showrunner: Be patient with Dana Walsh story

The backlash over the Dana Walsh character has apparently gotten so out of hand that 24 showrunner Howard Gordon has issued a response to EW telling fans to be patient:

“God almighty there has been a Dana backlash,” bemoans Gordon, who argues that “thrillers have a finite number of tropes. It’s like saying, ‘Another murder on CSI? Are you kidding?!’ Moles and betrayals are the stock and trade of the show.

“I understand how it appears [to be] tiresome and lazy storytelling, but I really would betray anyone to try to sit in our chair and figure out how to do 24 continuous, real time episodes, without using certain devices,” the exec continues. “I would implore people to be more patient with Dana.”

I myself didn’t care for Dana’s antics with Kevin Wade in the earlier episodes, but after the twist at the end of episode 13 she has finally become an interesting character and I’m enjoying her scenes now. I really loved her “Tick Tock, Mr. Bauer – you are running out of time” line from the new promo and am looking forward to seeing her face off against Jack.

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4 Comments

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The Jack Sack

March 31, 2010 at 5:02 pm

No, Gordon’s a bit off here. It’s not about there being a limited number of tropes in the genre, it’s about not telling a story economically. Imagine if the Kevin storyline didn’t pop up until say… episode 7 or so. Did we need all of those earlier hours of nonsense? No. What would Dana be doing with her screentime beforehand? Oh, I don’t know- maybe her job? Or better yet, maybe doing things which would have ingratiated her character with the audience instead of immediately turning us against her?

Howard, I write TheJackSack.com and I would LOVE the opportunity to write your show for you. I’m also sad to read that Gordon & Co. couldn’t pitch an idea for Season 9. Yeah, that makes me super-encouraged about your movie projects…

Sarah

March 31, 2010 at 5:23 pm

Well said Jack Sack. We didn’t need all of that BS Kevin plot in the early episodes. There was no point to have him in like 10 episodes other than to fill up time. We would much rather see Jack Bauer instead, thanks anyway, Howard.

Gordon deserves this back lash.

chris

April 1, 2010 at 7:14 am

I started to hate the series when it was revealed that she works with the terrorists. I can’t understand why didn’t she ask them to take care of Kevin and his friend in the earlier episodes. Those terrorists killed already a lot of other people, are professionals, and could take them out easily. Those two guys were clearly making Dana’s life at CTU very difficult and her taking them out was a MUCH higher risk operation than sending a terrorist to do this job.