10 Silliest Things On 24 (And The Lessons To Be Learned From Them)

7. Dana Walsh's Characterization (Day 8)

For the first dozen episodes of day 8, Dana Walsh was depicted as a weak-willed and easily manipulated woman whose darkest secret was lying about her past in order to get a job at CTU in New York. Although the series was beginning to show its age, nothing made it grind faster to a halt than when Walsh was on screen, fretting over issues that would have been solved if she just fessed up to her mistake. Fans and critics complained, and the writers must have been paying attention, because about half-way through the season they decided to abruptly reverse course on Walsh's characterization and backstory. In an instant, she went from being a weak-willed fool to a coldly calculating murderess who was in league with the terrorists of the moment €“ and had been since the beginning. Although her later characterization was certainly more entertaining, fans scratched their heads in vain trying to reconcile it with the character of Dana Walsh from the first half of day eight. The Lesson: Don't go for the shock value of a plot twist if it doesn't make any sense. Katee Sackhoff was fun to watch as a villain in the second half of day eight, but the transformation her character underwent only made sense if you ignored an entire half-season of character development.