The season finale of 24 is now over, and I’m still ticked off.

If you read the interviews with the writers and production staff, they have a thousand different excuses for why this season was so lousy. Heck, these guys have even blamed the mood of the country, saying we’re not close enough to 9/11 anymore to have the same bunker-mentality. But I’m certain I know exactly why this season was lousy.

Because they wrote it that way.

They decided this season that they were so clever they could serve us the last five seasons run through a blender and call it “new and exciting.” They figured the audience would swallow any regurgitated nonsense they pulled out and like it. Guess what…the audience (hey, that’s me!) is smarter than that. The bullpuckey with a Vice President trying to remove a sitting President named Palmer from office by using the Cabinet was insulting - we’ve seen it before, and to be blunt a whole lot better. Having Jack’s father kill his brother was just plain stupid. Having Jack himself go from years in a Chinese prison to completely operational in an hour is a bloody joke. And the season ending, which I won’t describe for those of you on the west coast, was done a whole lot better before, too.

This is directly to the producers of the show: Yeah, you have some of the most loyal fans in television today. But this year your hubris damned near cost you a whole lot of us. If you’re really lucky, we’ll give you another year to get your act together…but seriously, don’t think if you screw up next year Fox will honor it’s two-year contract. Treat me, and the rest of the fans, like an idiot again, and you’ll all be looking for work.

And, oh yeah - I darmed well expect the DVD version of this season to come with a price cut…this season isn’t worth full price.