24: predictability will be the death (at least creative death) of you

Further proof that the writers of "24" are suffering from delusions of grandeur:

But I think you could make the argument that the outcry over Tony's death, over Edgar's death, over Palmer's death, in a way, means we did the right thing. The purpose of the show is to appeal to and produce emotion in the audience, and clearly we have.

As far as their (i.e. executive producer Evan Katz's) treatment of the reliable bloodbath of established characters, he spits the same useless easy-way-out shit and calls it sugar:

....we really felt last year we had gone as far with David Palmer as the character could go.

and this, too:

In terms of Tony, we knew that was coming. That was a long time coming. We felt we had told the stories we could for his character.

Uh, guys.... let me say *again* that just because a character has "run its course" in your eyes does not mean that you should go and kill them off. Why not write them out in a unique and open-ended way and actually challenge yourselves to do something interesting with the character? Something that doesn't involve a bodybag for a change. I've said it before, but here you get it again: if a "24" movie is in the works, wouldn't it be nice for the characters we haven't seen in awhile turn up for a big hurrah? That would be certainly surprising and satisfying. Too bad they're all dead.

President Palmer's reaction is similar to mine. I'm glad I'm not the only one. However, his attitude might be tainted because he got a pink slip and I didn't.

That’s the result of destroying these relationships [between Jack and the other killed-off characters]. You have to constantly stunt to get people to watch, because every relationship that Jack has had, from Season 1, all those people are gone. It puts this man against the world thing in, and it becomes a bit cartoonish, not plausible.

All this said, I'm not so sure why there was such an outcry about Edgar's death to begin with. He was a missed opportunity last season (he should have gone bonkers), I think the writers realized that, and they didn't have anything interesting for him to do this season except die. More proof of what the writers like to do when they think the character has told all the stories they possibly can. Dear producers: you're getting predictable.

Yeah yeah yeah, I'll be tuning in tonight.