(24AUN) Preview #4
Like last time, I'm gonna give you just a bulleted list of preview items. All of these are notes that would have appeared in a series called THE ALTERNATE VERSIONS OF 24: ALTERED UNIVERSE.
- "...That was one of those lines that really felt right for Chappelle's character. It was just a great moment where you read it and get a chill, like when viewers saw that great awkward hug in Season Three. The thing that took me a while to understand was that Chappelle isn't just Jack's asshole boss. He's also a CTU employee, a former husband and father, and other things. This line led to the establishment of Chappelle's background, which I felt was necessary to make him a more sympathetic character."
- "One thing that you have to remember about Tony is that he doesn't like Jack when the first season starts. Tony's attitude and his actions in the early episodes of the season were designed to make us think that he was the mole in CTU. Now that we know he is not, looking back on his actions makes him just look like an asshole who really doesn't like Jack Bauer. I decided to exploit that for this season, and you end up with some tense but interesting conversations. It's through this new method, however, that the two men come to an understanding and eventually become the friends that they seem to be in seasons 2 and 3."
- "[This particular scene] was very difficult for me, because I knew it had to end in a specific result, but as it was written originally, it looked very bad for the Secret Service agents of the show. I'm a big supporter and believer of the Secret Service, and I just couldn't in good conscious leave it the way it was originally written. It took me three or four re-workings just to get the original outline to satisfaction, and for the script I think that I finally got a nice balance. Part of the reason that the [text deleted] happens the way it does is because I wanted to make the Secret Service look better, and show that Jack Bauer isn't the only one trying to keep David Palmer alive. It was an interesting challenge, too, because I didn't allow for much room to give Agent Pierce and the other agents an actual storyline since I removed much of Palmer's tale for this series."
- "[The decision to take Palmer's storyline out] was very easy for me because while on the show it is very interesting, it's not something I wanted to write when I first started on the series. It was a little too slow, and all of the information relevant to his tale was out there in the show. Since I was already faced with bringing out the information on Operation Nightfall in a new way, I wasn't about to try to rework the Carl/Keith/Lyle Gibson storyline too."
- "Many of the character names, such as this one, are combinations of the names of Detroit radio hosts. If you know my tastes in radio shows, you can probably figure out where the names came from and who the character was based on."
- "Humor became a larger part of 24:AU than it is in the actual show. This is partly because I have a twisted sense of humor that I have a hard time restraining. There were a few instances where I just had to let it pop up in the series. In this way, George Mason became a fun character for me to write because he was the only character that I could write quips or jokes for and they felt right for the character. I mean, I gave a few quips to Jack and Chappelle and a few other characters, but they never really felt like something the character would actually say. The only character the lines would have felt right with is Mason, but in most of those scenes, Mason was tied up. As a result, there are a few moments in the series that are cute little lines that may not feel right for that particular character."
Can't type more today--I'll post more tomorrow.
