arizona1121, United States of America (Reviewer Ranking: 1) wrote this review on December 24, 2005:
Season three begins 3 years after season two. Jack Bauer has returned from a deep undercover assignment, where he infiltrated and won the trust of the Salazar brothers, two drug dealers with ties to terrorist cells. Jack's assignment ended successfully with the capture of Ramone Salazar, and the season begins with Jack paying a visit to Salazar in jail.
At the same time, a mysterious van drops off a dead body at a National Health Services facility in Los Angeles. The body had been infected with a weaponized virus, and the delivery is clearly a signal that terrorists are threatening to unleash havoc in L.A.
Are these two events connected? Jack has to find out, but he is struggling with an incredible burden that may affect his job performance. As in the previous seasons, Kiefer Sutherland again is exceptional, and easily worthy of the awards he's earned for his performance in 24.
The third season brings back a few characters from Season Two, and introduces many new ones. Tony Almeida is back, and is running CTU side by side with Jack. Michelle Dessler, another CTU worker that was Tony's love interest in Season Two, is also back, and by the second half of Season Three, Michelle becomes a very important character. Reiko Aylesworth, who plays Michelle, really shines as her character takes on new importance and new responsibilities. And finally, Dave Chappelle, a by-the-book guy from "Division", returns from Season Two. Chappelle has the authority to oversee CTU, and usually disapproves of Jack's unorthodox methods. Chappelle played a minor role in Season Two, and does again in Season Three, except that he becomes the center of a particularly thrilling episode late in the Season.
Season Three also sees the return of Nina Myers and Sherry Palmer, the two villians we love to hate. Nina's entrance into the storyline is too coincidental to be plausible, but you quickly forgive the writers for this, because her storyline is very good. If you are familiar with Jack and Nina's history, you will find the climax of Nina's storyline in Season Three to be thrilling. Both of these women are complex characters, and their relationships with their "men" (Nina to Jack and Sherry to the President) are complex and interesting.
Jack's daughter Kim is back, and is now working at CTU as a computer geek. It seems that Jack got her the job so that he could keep an eye on her and insure that she wouldn't get stuck in any mountain lion traps. The writers mostly avoid the mistakes they made with Kim's character in Season Two.
There are new characters, I will only mention two. Jack has a new, young partner named Chase Edmunds. Chase is a young version of Jack, highly competent and willing to step over the line to get results. Chase also idolizes Jack, though events during Season Three will put their relationship to the test.
The other new character is a young computer expert named Chloe. She has no social skills (she is frequently and unintentionally rude to her co-workers, and after a while this behavior gets to be a running joke), but Chloe makes up for it with exceptional skill at her job. There are many times when Jack, Tony, or Chappelle give her a near impossible task that would ordinarily take hours, but they need it done in minutes. Chloe always rises to the occasion.
That's as much as I can tell you without giving anything away.
Now, as to the quality of Season Three: There are some truly great episodes, and the plot has some really neat twists and turns. However, like most critics, I believe that Season Three is more uneven than Seasons One or Two, and has more episodes that are just "okay" rather than truly great. Still, Season Three is well worth watching, and I really respect the writers for reinventing "24" every season - they don't repeat the same formula every year, they work hard to come up with something new and different and exciting, and for the most part, they succeed.
Another reviewer here said the season finale was lackluster. I respectfully disagree, I thought it was as good as the finale to Season Two. In order to appreciate the very last scene, you need to remember all the trauma that Jack has been through in this long day; viewers who didn't see every episode, or didn't remember everything, probably cannot feel the impact of the final scene. But if you watch Season 3 on DVD, you can see all the episodes without waiting a week or more between episodes, so you will remember everything and really enjoy the final scene.
However, I agree with that reviewer's disappointment over the fact that Season Three brushes off major plot points from Season Two without satisfactorily explaining them - namely, the assassination attempt on President Palmer, and Jack's relationship with Kate. Clearly, the writers decided to abandon these storylines and wanted to wrap them up with minimal effort on their part.
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