I used to love the show "24". I loved Jack Bauer, Tony, Chloe, and the rest of the CTU gang. But in the last few seasons the show has definitely gone downhill. It is generally accepted that the show officially "jumped the shark" in Season 2 when Kim Bauer had her famous encounter with a mountain lion. But many people feel that the show has repeatedly jumped the shark in every episode since! The stories are ridiculous, the dialogue laughable and the acting strained and amateur. Yes, I still watch it.

"24" has long supplemented its broadcast commercial revenue with product placement. GM cars, Dell computers and Sprint-Nextel phones were prominently featured in many scenes. These placements seemed fairly natural.. unobtrusive at the very least. They didn't impact the story, and they actually lent themselves to the progression of the plot. But now, the producers of the show have gone too far.

In the 3-30-09 episode, a character is offering to help the government find WMDs in return for a presidential pardon, brokered by the FBI. The FBI agent in charge calls the president and offers the deal, which the president accepts. The problem is the scene is so contrived, the dialogue so blatantly unnatural... here is the offending line From the FBI agent:

"We've already drafted an executive pardon,(dramatic pause), and set it up via WebEx. You'll be able to give a secure digital signature and we're good to go."

This line is accompanied by a screenshot of Cisco's WebEx online conference and meeting service. The president then proceeds into the next room, stands in front of a Dell computer with a Logitech webcam, and signs a pad with a stylus. The camera cuts to a view of the computer monitor, with a screen shot of a video conference and the signed document, with a Cisco WebEx logo in the bottom corner. Then, the camera actually cut-zooms onto the Webex logo! It literally takes up about 1/15th of the screen!

Never have I seen product placement so rampantly intrude on a scene. They actually wrote that line - possibly the whole scene - just to be able to integrate the WebEx product! I feel dirty for watching it. For shame, "24"! You can inundate us with all the out-of-context ads you want, but when you start compromising the entertainment value of the program to accommodate sponsor tie-ins, that value is reduced... in my eyes, tremendously. The more you sell, the less you have left to sell, my friends.

I will no longer be a party to this, and I advise all those that read this to follow my lead. Good bye, Jack. You should have died in China.