Improbable Moment of the Week IV

I already speak English, what else is there?

Walid is the head (of some sort) of a Muslim-American advocacy group, and yet does not know even a smattering of Arabic? The Qur'an is in Arabic. He probably has to deal with people every day whose first language is Arabic and may not speak English very well. He should at least be able to say phrases like "Hello," "Where's the Gent's?" and "My hat is brown." But it really doesn't matter that he doesn't know Arabic, after all a random person at CTU does.

Improbable Moment of the Week III

I'm a criminal mastermind, so I use rookies on a tight schedule

So here we have Fayed who is able to both acquire a low-grade nuclear weapon and engineer a prisoner snatch, so who does he send to pick up a vital component to his mission of terror? A rookie. What is the backup plan? There isn't one. What is the window of opportunity? A couple hours. Even assuming the transaction goes off without a hitch, the rookie could still get caught in traffic and miss the rendesvous. Why not have everything ready for the weapons expert a day in advance? I think I'm thinking about the logic of the show too much again.

Improbable Moment of the Week II

Deleting a database in 60 seconds or less

Yes, I know, this is the second one of the day, but FOX aired two episodes on Sunday, so I had to do one per episode. Expect two more after Monday night's two episodes. There is no way Sandra Palmer could delete an entire database of names in the amount of time she did. It would take me that long just to find the database. Even if they had top-of-the-line equipment at the facility (which is highly doubtful) it would still take several minutes for the information to be deleted and "shredded." And really, her actions are rather futile considering there would be backup systems, archives, a duplicate copy at the Washington DC office, not to mention that a large amount of the information is probably available in hard copy form in a bunch of filing cabinets in the back room.

Improbable Moment of the Week

In honor of the new season of 24 starting up, I have decided to institute the Improbable Moment of the Week. Each week I will document the improbable moment in the episode that either I find most improbable or is most worthy of note. We'll see how long it lasts. So without further ado, the first Improbable Moment of the Week is:

Wayne Palmer is president of the USA

Sure I could go on about how Jack shouldn't even be functional, and the kicking in of a front door in an upper-middle class neighborhood with one kick rather bugged me, but how Wayne Palmer was able to swing over 50% of the electoral vote to become the most powerful man in the world (other than Jack) is beyond me. This guy has scandal in his background that ruined his brother's bid for reelection; there is no way he would be stupid enough to run for office with this in his past. Add to that the fact that he is a weak, non compelling character, and I fail to see how the man could get enough votes. Secretary Heller would have been a much more plausible choice for the presidency.