SPOILER ALERTI probably made myself very aware that I love this show to death. I hesitated to purchase the first season on DVD since I already have the whole show on tape. I'm glad I never purchased it, because I just made a discovery. While I knew European television has less commercials, I always thought it would be like only 15 seconds of more 24 per an hour, or maybe 10 minutes or something for the whole first season.
Later I discovered this link:
http://www.blackstar.co.uk/video/item/7000000071742The 24 DVD in Europe (Region 2) has 1041 minutes of the show.
The 24 DVD in Region 1 has 960.
That's 81 minutes more of the show. That's enough to call the show "26" considering commercials! I'm going to find some way to import this DVD. (Ma, ybe along the way, I could get Doshin the Giant...) I heard some scenes include Teri telling Nina that she's pregnant, and Jack reloading his gun while fighting in the final episode. (Assuming that the telling Nina about the pregnancy thing was well constructed,) they should have kept it in the US version. This would show how truly evil and backstabbing Nina was for killing Teri. Before I only creditted Nina's motive for killing Teri to that she could have connected her to Germany, and that killing her was no different from killing Jamey or the guards. But if Nina was willing to kill Teri knowing she was pregnant, her appearences later in season two with Jack would have felt more tense and suspenseful.
Another note, the second season is halfway over. Didn't it go by really fast? While I don't want to be annoying and post my reactions and speculations for a still unfinished season production wise, I'll just say the show managed to be entertaining. After the first season ended with Jack's wife dead, and Kim ended up being kidnapped two times in one day, I wasn't sure how they could have maintained an interesting second season without recycling more elements of season one. I was surprised that the show hasn't jumped the shark after 36 episodes. The show continues to be a refreshing and suspenseful thriller, and you cannot get "used to" all the plot twists happening per an episode. I don't know how long the show could continue being this great. If the bomb is set to go off sometime in the next 2 or 3 episodes, that would still be over eight episodes to fill. What will they do? Second nuclear bomb? Jack looking for Kim? How about the third season? The show's writers can't really top a nuclear bomb crisis. Or can they?
I'm tired of acting like a human commercial for the show, but I just wanted to get a lot of what I have to say about the show off my chest. To be honest, while the whole Kim subplot was interesting up to the discovery of Carla's body, right now, they have no clue what to do. Until I see a more direct connection with the whole plot, I see the show's problem to be how they still have to keep her in the show. Kim's subplot should have ended with the assumption that she arrived safely to her aunt's house or something, rather than having to come up with something for her to do every hour.
Well overall, I can't wait for the next episode, and I hope to still be surprised. I loved last Tuesday's episode.