so isn’t it funny how caught up in tv shows we can get? i hardly watch tv for this specific reason. but occasionally i will come across a show that i just can’t get enough of. recently, the show of choice has been “24“. if you’ve never seen it, it is a series that has 24 episodes in a season with each episode consisting of an hour of real time events, all the shows adding up to one 24 hour day. during this 24 episode “day”, a number of terroist events take place and they have to be resolved by Jack Bauer (played by Kiefer Sutherland) and his CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) agency which is a branch of the government much like the CIA or FBI.

since this show is a government agency type show, of course there is a lot of lingo that you pick up during the course of a season, as well as a plethora of cool gadgets that i just know would make my life better if i was as cool as Jack and had some of them. this aforementioned lingo has a funny way of sneaking into the daily vocabulary of those that are hooked on the show. i have recently found myself saying things like “patch this through…”, a reference to nearly everytime Jack needs CTU to send him something to either his PDA or cell phone or in-car computer, etc. i also find myself driving kind of fast-like as i imagine myself (especially at night) having to get somewhere as soon as possible in order to find out the next piece of information that will help me piece the puzzle of the ongoing terrorist threat together. of course…..there is no ongoing terrorist threat in my life, and i am hardly a government field agent. but all the same, the show has encapsulated me.

i had not even watched this show until the most recent season, and then only about the last half of the season, but i am completely hooked. needing to fill my weekly need for “24″, my fiancee and i rented the first season through Netflix. now, on DVD, each season is 6 discs with each disc containing four episodes. on average, each disc is about 2 hours and 45 minutes long (amazing how much time is taken away by commercials), making the entire season about 16.5 hours of actual show time. we finished the first season in about 3.5 days.

we couldn’t help it. the show is COMPLETELY riveting and you just have to watch and watch and watch until the end because it’s so intense and each episode (naturally) leaves you with a cliffhanger. it was hard enough having to wait a week between episodes while the actual season was playing out. but with all episodes at the ready thanks to the novelty of home video, there is no need for an interim period. you can watch and watch and watch, until there is no more watching left. if it were up to me, i probably would have watched the entire season all in one day. that’s how hooked i am on this show. but now that there are no more episodes to watch of the first season, i find myself in withdrawl. the second season is on its way to my house, but i have been instructed that i cannot fulfill this gaping need in my life until after my fiancee and i get married 11 days from now. that’s a further 11 days without Jack Bauer in my life. i truly do not know what to do about this. i mean….with the way season one ended, i have to watch season two to see what happened and to see if my buddy Jack is ok (at least see if he’s ok before the next terrorist event takes place). and then of course i will have to have Netflix send me season three to see what happens to Jack next and will have to wait an even longer time for season five to begin in January.

i think i have a problem.