Past cast members of 24 have talked about the stress of having to act totally creepy and sketchy all the time because who knew what the writers would come up with, who would be the next big twist, so they all had to act like the mole all the time, and like they were simultaneously in love and secretly planning to kill each other. But honestly I think the real problem is that it's just a symptom, of the writers not planning things out far enough to justify the meandering, and needing a lot of blank room in the margins to scribble their last-minute ideas, which would be harder if the characters were allowed any emotional arc across the season. Not to mention that as the technology of focus groups and network notes and ratings and such get closer to realtime, the storyline can be adjusted to suit the whim of whomsoever's wearing the biggest jock in the room -- which means those long-term plans don't mean shit, because who doesn't like to swing it around every now and then, just for fun, not to mention that everybody in management or production, whatever the industry, has this big idea that their notes are going to be the thing that puts their stamp on it, that they're going to make their name by suggesting that Apollo start fucking hookers because they're "bad" even though they're not, or whatever. I'm clearly no different, which is why this paragraph exists, but fuck it. That's not what I'm getting paid for.