It was somewhere in Judith Warner's blog at the NYT that I got my fist urge for '24' – yeah I had heard about, it was on Fox, so that made watching it pretty much out of the question. This was before the Emmy's finally got sent their way but something about Warner's relationship with the show, maybe it was her use of drug terminology in describing it, that got me interested.<br /><br />My wife was taking a class which meant that when our two year old went to sleep she went to work (either school or real) and I had a couple of hours to entertain myself before bed.<br /><br />I lined up Season 1 on Netflix, 6 DVD's in all, and put on my seat belt.<br /><br />It was somewhere towards the end of disc 5 that I realized my affair was over. First of all I would have to get through 5 more seasons of mayhem before I was caught up. Also, my wife was in the last class of her program and not beginning her Phd. <br /><br />I grew up on the television shows of the late 60's early 70's- you know- same bat time same bat channel stuff- I could handle the weekly cliff hanger, the anticipation for next weeks show, and still function in the world<br /><br />So as each episode of '24' ended I was completely unprepared for the barrage of cliff hangers I was left with – at minimum 3, will they kill the candidate, will they kill Jack's family, will they kill, catch or hurt Jack, will they will they- of course there were more issues and more story lines but hey I could only handle the Joker, the Penguin, and Mr. Freeze one at time. <br /><br />I felt like I was being played, pulled in all these directions at once, every resolution a temporary one, no end in sight, knowing that when these 24 hours were up, 24 more were ready to begin. I was exhausted. <br /><br />There is no doubt that '24' is pure drama, innovative, well acted and well written but When I was starting to think that it might be fun to watch one whole season consecutively, that is 24 episodes in 24 hours, I knew it was time to get off the train.<br /><br />I am sure there is some postmodern evolutionary explanation of how we can handle all this suspense, all these unanswered questions. How over the years the speed of information and technology has increased our capacity to…blah blah blah – No, I'm not one of those who pine for how things used to be, I don't want to go back to Green Acres or Gilligan's Island but I also don't want to be dragged through the next '24' hours wondering whose going to survive.