"24:" Fewer dead than usual

Fox doesn’t seem too broken up about nuking Valencia last week: Its official site for the show cheekily asks, “What other terrorist body part do you think Jack could easily bite off? The multiple-choice answers are: “Ear,� “Nose,� “Pinky toe,� “Nuclear bomb trigger finger.�

Well, “pinky toe� is right out. No one’d want to see that.

Would they?

At any rate, tonight’s episode didn't bomb, which in the case of this show isn't necessarily a good thing. It spent a lot of time introducing a bunch of characters writers were obviously hoping to throw against a wall to see which ones would stick.

The fun started with the narrator’s salacious reading of the rote disclaimer, “Viewer discretion is advised:� like it’s a boast.

Valencia’s blast left only 12,000 dead. Fortunately, we in L.A. turn out to be upwind of the blast, which means we won’t succumb to the grisly effects of radiation poisoning. But which sucks for everyone north of Valencia. And there are four more nukes out there, but it seems not all that bright to have all five nukes in L.A. How deeply into the ground do they want to blow the place, anyway?

Other thoughts on tonight’s episode of “24:�

* Learning of Curtis’s death, Chloe opines, “Why do people I know keep dying?" Has she also been losing friends over the 20 months Jack was in China? Because, otherwise, the show’s death toll last season, impressive as it was, doesn’t really qualify as “keep dying.� And the answer to her question can pretty much be answered by another question: Um, where do you work, exactly?

* The helicopter thing, where it crashed into a house; then fell to the earth, was an exciting moment, but had little to do with the overriding storyline (though it did feature an amusingly clueless guy who had no idea there had been a nuclear attack, despite the obvious presence of a mushroom cloud on the horizon). But it was essentially the only action set piece tonight.

* Assad got back to CTU awfully quickly, but then, they always particularly fudge travel time between episodes. And then they send Assad to Washington. Too bad – his knife use on that one guy’s knee last week suggested he’d serve as one great sidekick for Jack.

* Why was so much time allotted to a peripheral British terrorist character arguing with a nitwit girlfriend? Clearly, this can’t go anywhere interesting.

* Jack has major family issues. His father (who will turn out to be, next week, James Cromwell) has contact with the Russian general who gave Fayed the nukes. “I haven’t spoken to him in over nine years,� Jack notes. Of course, he has spent a lot of that time in hiding, getting tortured, in mourning and, of course, saving the country.

His brother Graham, on the other hand, is even worse: He’s championed killing him in the past. His justification: “My brother has a way of digging things up that need to stay buried.� His other justification: His wife Marilyn (Rena Sofer) is still hot for Jack (after God knows how long?).

Graham’s family is not so much distraught about the nuclear blast. Marilyn can still dredge up bitterness about her husband’s doofus-y-ness. “Insecurity in a grown man is unattractive,� she tells him. His son says, “It’s kinda been a weird day.� Hmm. I don’t remember anyone saying, on Sept. 11, “It’s kinda been a weird day.� And this is waaay beyond that.

Jack and his brother: awkward. (Though Jack doesn't know this, his brother was one of last year's bad guys.) He punches his brother, straps him to a chair and hisses, “I will rip your tongue out.� Graham whines, “You’re hurting me now;� Jack says, “Trust me: I’m not.�

Now, I’ve occasionally felt like doing that to my brother, but then, dear reader, I didn’t.