24 has entered Goofyland

It happens most years. With the budding of spring's trees the Fox rollercoaster ride called "24" leaves its compelling track and skids into fantasyland, stupidville, dopeycity, crazyhaus. The whole Chinese subplot just keeps getting dumber. Logic failed last night when Karen Hayes agreed that she must fire her husband; in real life the accusations of letting a terrorist go free would have taken months or years and still not resulted in much (witness the claims that Clinton should have taken out certain terrorists when he had the chance). Audrey Raines looks as confused and shellshocked as viewers. That was a decent scene between the VP and Tom Lennox about trust and leverage. I rank this season slightly behind last year and (my favorite) the year before that.