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The Grand Unified Theory Of Jack Bauer’s Cancellation

The rumour is that NBC won’t save 24 (which was its only chance at a ninth season after Fox announced it wouldn’t order one). One of the show’s directors, Jon Cassar, tweeted today that the show has been canceled. If this turns out to be true, the important thing to figure out is this: how do we make a connection between the fact that Health Care Reform passed the same week that America’s greatest conservative hero, Jack Bauer, lost his job? These things aren’t coincidences, after all.

So I am officially starting the rumour that one of the secret provisions in the Health Care bill was that 24 would be canceled, as part of a ban on patriotic shows about he-men who are willing to torture in order to get results. No one noticed this clause, but as soon as the bill was signed into law, the show had to be shut down. Sound ridiculous? Isn’t the truth often ridiculous? Well, isn’t it?

Update: The New York Times confirms the show’s cancellation, and therefore proves that the conspiracy is real.

…And speaking of truth, Chloë Sevigny is already walking back her now-famous statement that the most recent season of Big Love was “awful.” The walkback isn’t really a shock, since she has to mend fences with her bosses and colleagues. What is strange is that she says she was “taken out of context,” when in fact it was printed as part of a long interview, and the “context” is her talking, in detail, about why the season was so disappointing. She even realizes, after she makes the “awful” remark, that she’s done something she probably shouldn’t have, but then goes right on explaining why the season wasn’t good (while making it clear that she still respects the people who produce it). She may now claim she “didn’t mean” what she said, but it seems more likely that this fits Michael Kinsley’s classic definition of a gaffe: it’s when someone accidentally tells the truth. Here’s the response from the interviewer, Sean O’Neal.

It reminds me of nothing so much as that NewsRadio episode where Dave regrets an interview he gave:

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