Well, I saw the Buffy episode The Body for the first time tonight, and all I can say is "Damn." It was a powerful episode just in written form, but that is one talented cast; the transcript did not do their performances justice.

I was less impressed by tonight's episode of 24. While the writing has until now been reasonably good, and the concept definitely a novel one which I hope makes it through a full season, tonight's was not as good as previous episodes have been. It's only the fifth episode, and already the writers are starting to get lazy.

Let's see, we've got a corpse that someone's gone to great lengths to conceal the identity of: they mutilated the face, removed the teeth and cut off the fingertips. But gee, fortunately the guy had a one-of-a-kind custom-made pin in his hip (with a serial number, of course) that let the team identify him in under an hour. And gosh, Jamie is not only a talented computer hacker, but a medical forensic scientist as well? All these people walking around the Counter-Terrorism Unit, and only four of them actually seem to do anything. And one of them is pretty much limited to making obvious eavesdropping attempts and betraying Jack; all he needs is a moustache to twirl, but that might be too obvious.

And another thing: the kidnapers were supposed to bring both girls to the terrorists. Presumably, the girls' escape was not part of the terrorists' plan, nor do I think that they planned for one of the girls to be involved in a hit-and-run auto accident during said escape, wounded badly enough that she had to be brought to a hospital. So how is it that the terrorists had enough foresight to install a remote-control system in that very hospital, so that they were able to watch Jack Bauer from their headquarters, miles away? I'm sorry, but that just strains "willing suspension of disbelief" past the breaking point.