These days, unless Discovery & History channels are doing something controversial (like covering who Jesus really was), television isn’t really my thing.  But 24 has managed to keep my Monday nights consistently clear between 9-10pm.  There’s something about a plot that seems to never end, a field agent with overbearing moral convictions, and an entangling bureaucracy that can captivate an audience.

The season finale tonight, a 2 hour special, has me wondering about the TV biz a little.  24’s past seasons really had me glued to the set cheering the good guys on.  The terrorists were internationals and Jack Bauer was constantly engaged in action sequences that reflected his sense of duty.  Now, the terrorists are a band of American corporations set on overthrowing the government, and the thrill has changed to dramatic encounters that has characters conflicted about their moral decisions.  When I first started watching the show, I believed these producers had an ideology and that 24 reflected this ideology.  But what seems to have happened, for better or worse, is that the producers have changed the values and plot to reflect the American people (notice how the White House administrations parallel each other).

Though the direction has changed, a common thread remains: the show is intensely morally charged.  Given that the series is a political thriller, we should be expect this.  The actions of a president, bureaucracy, and field agents have epic implications.  That’s the nature of things involving politics, law enforcement, and the gathering of intelligence.  Tonight’s season finale was especially packed with one-liners that reflect the shift our culture has taken toward moral relativism, religious pluralism, and tolerance.

Consider these morally charged quotes and scenes:

• “Make a decision you can live with” says Jack Bauer to Renee Walker as she considers “torturing” a terrorist (to gain further intelligence & help prevent a further attack) who will most likely walk because there is not enough evidence to condemn him in our courts.
• Jack Bauer is told “We live in complex times,” and “Nothing is black and white” as he reflects on his life, lying in a hospital bed anticipating his death.
• A Muslim Imam serves as Jack Bauer’s spiritual counsel on his death-bed.  Furthermore, the Imam offers a short prayer saying “Let us forgive ourselves.”  I don’t think orthodox Islam would condone this as any sort of significant prayer or as representative of Muslim theology.

-To torture or not to torture?
-Is there an objective moral standard against which our actions will be judged?
-Are all faiths equally true and useful?

All of these themes are treated throughout the series in a way that seems to be moving toward tolerance, relativism, and diversity.  Not to say anything of the plot’s value (how “good it was”), the show may come to a point where it alienates its more conversative audience who’ve celebrated the battle between good and evil, not relativism, until this point.  Only time, and season 8 will tell!