"24:" No rest for the weary, or the wicked, or its fans

(Spoilers drip throughout this post, mainly at the beginning, so if you've TiVo'd the season finale, check back later.)

So "24" concluded tonight with our good friend Jack Bauer winning and yet losing. Despite his most bone-headed play of the season -- losing the recording in which President Logan incriminated himself in the assassination of former President David Palmer -- Jack managed to get the President of the United States arrested for treasonous behavior, but apparently not before Logan, whom he (and therefore we) believed was responsible for selling Jack out to the Chinese government at the end of last season, alerted a crack team of Ninjas to spirit him away on the proverbial slow boat to China, thereby setting up next season as potentially a kind of "Manchurian Candidate" redux.

(Had Jack had any sleep this season, no way would he have been bested by a mere three Ninjas. And don't get any fan of the series started on how useless Jack's girlfriend Audrey is -- fortunately, she's been spirited away by another show that'll debut in the fall; unfortunately, that show looks like it could be quickly cancelled, freeing her up for another tour of duty on "24.")

(I was able to pay such close attention to "24" only because the Clippers weren't able to make their game 7 against the Suns as close as anyone would've liked. But I resolutely decline to get off the bandwagon -- they're still the most exciting team in town by a longshot, and Elton Brand is still The Man. And Sam Cassell is still The Old Man, even though he's a lot younger than I am.)

But, to pay homage to "24's" finale and the hard-fought conclusion of the Clippers' season, I herewith submit my assessment of "24's" season in the style of those ubiquitous NBA-playoff promos:

"67 jaw-dropping, credibility-stretching plot twists.
"136 casually dispensed civilian deaths.
"38 mind-bending breaches of the laws of physics (and speed-limit laws).
"31 hard-perimeter breaches.
"49 terrorists killed by Jack Bauer alone.
"And 1 evening sponsored by Fox to convince Emmy voters that '24' offers real-world applications in the War Against Terror and is not just some deliriously unhinged action series that values the undisputed thrill-ride above actual thoughtfulness. *
"All in one 24-hour period, and all leading up to the right for '24' to once again compete against TV's elite for the Outstanding Drama Emmy."

* This was a genuine event held Sunday evening at UCLA's Wadsworth Theatre. Alas, I could not attend, but the press release (whose poor punctuation I do not clean up below) promised "a special Q&A panel discussion "24 And The War on Terror: Can Truth Learn From Fiction?� moderated by Matt Miller, Senior Fellow at the American Center for Progress," adding that, aside from cast members, "special guests including policy experts Morton Halperin a former Government Official & Director of the Security and Peace Initiative, Brian Jenkins a Rand terrorism expert, David Crane a former JAG & war crimes prosecutor and Jack Weiss, LA City Council in charge of terrorist threats." If anyone did attend and has some salient, entertaining details, we're all ears.