24: Who was the worst CTU director? Minor spoilers

Cafe Society
1

I’m on leave for about 2 weeks, and my wife is on a trip to Italy with some frinds. So since the weather here in Oberammergua is crappy and I have plenty of time on my hands I’ve been watching my 24 DVDs to pass the time.

Why is it that every almost every CTU director sucks? I mean, yeah, the plot demands that “Jack is always right”, but sometimes these people seem to go out of their way to be assholes. Its like whoever oversees CTU’s assignments says “Who is the absolute dumbest person we can send to CTU Los Angeles to be in charge?”.
So who do you think is the worst/ most ineffectual leader of CTU? My vote is season four’s Erin Driscoll. I understand why she might have fired Jack between seasons 3 and 4. (over his heroin addiction that he acquired while undercover (as told in season 3) ), but after that every time she dealt with him she seemed to make her command decisions on the fact that she just didn’t like Jack. She went out of her way to thwart him constantly and to me it didn’t make sense. (well, except to add drama to the show of course) She didn’t even hesitate to torture Sarah who was framed as a traitor by someone else, but she was appalled that Jack wounded a known terrorist in interrogation to make him give up information of an imminent terror attack.

Seriously when her daughter committed suicide on the show I had a hard time feeling anything for her. I was like “Well the daughter was annoying at best, and Driscoll is a vindictive bitch, I’m glad she’s leaving”. She was an awful leader. I wouldn’t want to work for her. If I were Curtis, Chloe or even Edgar I’d have been looking for another job. (its not like they couldn’t find one, I’m sure, considering the qualifications they must have had…hell, Jack was on Heroin and got a job working for the Secretary of Defense!)

I thought that Season 3’s Ryan Chappellewas a jerk, but I could understand his position. He was a good man, just not likable. And he didn’t make decisions on whether or not he got along with people. He was just a by the book asshole, but not a vindictive power mad jerk. So I really felt for him when Jack was forced to kill him.

You can go further back to George Mason. He was a weaslly kind of guy, he wasn’t a bad person. He was heroic at the end of his time on the show, actually.

The only person close to as bad as Driscoll was Lynn McGill. He coompletely melted down when he was in charge, and he lost his access card in a robbery and didn’t report it. Here’s a clue Lynn…if you have a card that allows you into important gov’t facilities and someone steals it, you report it immediately. A normal military ID card from a buck private is dangerous in the wrong hands. Yours give you access to a top level facility. What a moron. At least he did something brave at the end of his time on the show. Driscoll just seemed like the wrong person overall for the job. (Though one would think McGill had serious emotional problems by the way he acted…which I guess is why he was relieved eventually)
Sure, 24 pretty much jumped the shark in season six (President Wayne Palmer? I can’t buy it. Nah-ah. Its an awful thing to say, and hell, I’m black myself, but every time I saw Wayne as the CiC I thought “Why’d they elect a drug dealer as president?”. Yes, I know thats a horrible attitude, and I’ll probably get flamed for it, but its what I thought. Not to mention as a character Wayne didn’t seem presidential at all in any of his appearances on the show.)

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Well, to be fair to Wayne, he was previously a good Vampire Fighter. That’s one very underrated skill for a president.

And what about Jack himself? He did have a double agent operating as his second.

3

I stopped watching after the third season, but for dramatic purposes I guess Jack’s boss has to be either an asshole who’s always wrong, or tragically killed, in order to provide (even more) conflict and angst. (And, if they made the right decisions all the time, the show would be wrapped up a lot quicker.)

24. . . things I can do to your nuts until you feel like talking Torture early, torture often.

4

I didn’t know that. but as a president he just didn’t look or feel like he could be president. I think they should have found someone else to play the part. It didn’t seem right for Wayne and the show would have been a bit more realistic without him in that capacity.

True, but his not realizing Nina was a spy was the extent of his mishap and that was the first season. At the time he was dirstracted by other things also. Driscoll actually had someone tortured on flimsy evidence without even looking into if she was set up. Edgar spent 5 minutes looking into it and discovered the truth.

Driscoll also went out of her way to stop Jack from following the terror suspect…which she stopped doing only when she saw the obvious…that it was the best way to find out where the kidnapped SoD was being held. She was more unlikable than McGill because McGill obviously had some kind of self esteem/ emotional issues. Driscoll was just a bitch. I was happy to see her go.

5

But think about Jack: former girlfriend and trusted second happens to be a double agent. his own father and brother head a terrorist conspiracy, his daughter is so incredibly clumsy that gets kidnapped by different people every twenty minutes… And he never notices that something’s wrong? Clearly the man is unsuited for anything but shooting and screaming.

6

Nina must have been very good at fooling people since she essentially fooled everyone at CTU, not just Jack.

By the time Jacks father was introduced, Jack hadn’t spoken to him in years. He was also in a chinese prison for what, a year? It makes sense that Jack wouldn’t know about anything his pop was doing until the situation arose.

…and well, Kim? She is such an unrealistic damsel in distress character she’s almost on the Wayne Palmer as president level of unbelievability. (Season three with her working at CTU? I don’t buy it, they just needed to try and write the character into the story. I think its a mistake to do that, myself.)

I don’t think that makes Jack a worse director than any of the others, though you’re right about Jack’s strong points. He’s more of a field agent than a manager.

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So when do we get to see CTU Director Chloe O’Brien?

8

I agree with Erin Driscoll as the worst, but I feel an awful lot of that is bad writing. Her story line made so little sense (like the daughter showing up and committing suicide pretty much out of the blue) that I always wondered if the writers had needed to make some plot adjustments after the season story arc had begun filming.

And in general, I always wonder why no one seems to grasp the fact that Jack is always right. Don’t they have a learning curve? If I was the Director of CTU, by season three, I would have just stopped arguing with Jack. Jack, you go ahead and do what you want to do, and leave your expense reports on my desk – I’ll process them in the morning when I get in. See, I wouldn’t even need 24 hours to deal with these situations, I figure if I just let Jack off the leash at the get go, it will all get worked out in 8, maybe 9 hours tops. (Maybe this is why I’m not cut out for a career in intelligence.)

In my mind, I’ve invented a whole back story for how Wayne Palmer ran his election campaign. I think it relies heavily on riding the sympathy wave about David Palmer (who was uber-Presidential at all times), and maybe playing up a JFK/RFK theme.

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And torture. Don’t forget, he’s very good at torture.

10

Lynn McGill, hands down. He was incompetent beyond the dreams of Laurence J. Peter.

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Specifically, torture of the “stabbing/shooting folks in the thigh” type.

I think Tony Almeida and Bill Buchanan did ok jobs. Hell, Tony was Director for 3 whole years between seasons 2 and 3, and there seem to have been no massive breaches in national security - at least in the greater LA area - so I’d say he did a bangup job until he got shot in the neck.

I must say, I cannot wait for Season 7! If for no other reason than Dave Barry’s real-time 24 blogs: http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/24/index.html

12

Aaand upon review I see the OP was asking for worst CTU director - in which case, Tony and Bill are horrible choices.

My vote is with Samwise, the retarded Hobbit who can’t even keep his ID on his person. The most satisfying moment of that season was seeing him do the funky chicken on the floor after saving the day.

13

After rewatching that season I have to agree with you. Driscoll was vindictive. McGill was seriously emotionally damaged. Driscoll at least didn’t put the lives of all of the CTU agents at risk for her own ego.

14

Little known fact, the guy in charge of CTU-LA assignments started as a field agent trainer. His claim to fame is writing the training manual section “273.2.1a Perimeters, Impenetrable: Setting Up in the Field” The man is a genius. Show some respect.

15

Lynn McGill was definitely the worst. There’s a reason they don’t normally put hobbits in charge of counterterrorist organizations.

I though Chappelle was the best of all the ones they’ve had.