put down your weapon

On the show "24," Jack Bauer has a reputation for beating confessions out of people. I am unbloodied and unbruised but I have a confession for Mr. Bauer nevertheless. I've been watching your show and enjoying it... from 2009.

As my DVR automatically started recording the new season 8 of "24," I began feeling bad that I hadn't seen season 7. Like many shows, I was saving the episodes to watch together with my wife. Our son viewed the whole season online while at college and raved about how good it was. Last week, after I had gotten caught up on some recent episodes of "Fringe," my wife gave me the go-ahead to watch and delete season 7 of "24" without her.

If I were doing a marathon viewing of "24" on DVD, it would be no big deal. Why does keeping it on a DVR for a year seem weird? Could it be the commercials and promos? In one of the first few episodes, I saw a news tease about the Pope's appointment of Bishop Stika.

I've also seen a lot of promos for the debut of season 8 of "American Idol." They show face after face of contestants headed to Hollywood. I recognized none of them. So far I haven't seen anyone who remotely resembles Adam Lambert or Kris Allen or Danny Gokey or Anoop Desai. It makes me think that the televised audition process is truly a waste of time. They may as well start the show with Hollywood week.