To the Writers of 24

Dear Writers on the hit show 24:

Although I've been a fan of your program since the first season, I have to say you are starting to tread some very familiar ground, and not in a particularly good way. And so, with that in mind, I have some humble suggestions - some mine, and some culled from other fans - that I think you should heed to give your show a fresh perspective.

1. Enough with the moles already. Every season has someone as a mole inside CTU. Now, isn't this supposed to be the Counter Terrorist Unit? Doesn't everybody have to be vetted or something before they can be hired? If you can't even police your own staff, how do we expect you to save the world?

2. Stop treating the women on this show like crap. Every season a woman is the mole, or is suspected of being the mole, and is tortured as part of the investigation. Or she's killed off in some horrifying fashion. Or she gets herself caught in a cougar trap. (Okay, that was just Kim.) Or she's dumb. (That's Kim too.) The only strong women are evil or whiners, or dead. Can we find somebody who is none of the above? We had her in Teri and Michelle, just to name two. Yep, they're pushing up daisies. Oh wait, we do have the softer, gentler Chloe. See corollary below.

3. Put the old brusque Chloe in the field or some other socially awkward situation. One of the show's funniest moments came when she Tasered the guy in the bar who wouldn't leave her alone. Softer kinder Chloe isn't getting any of her whipcrack line reading moments. This season she's just another CTU agent, albeit in a cute dress. Booooorrrrrringg.

4. Give Jack a female partner. Well, you had to kill off Tony, and Ricky Schroeder ain't cutting it. Any reason why a tough chick couldn't pick up a .45 and follow Jack into the field? She doesn't even need to be a love interest, although some crackling sexual tension would give this show a fun jolt. Jack's field partners always tend to be men in their 30s and sometimes they end up dead too. None of them have had much spark on screen. Except Tony. And he's six feet under. Man, I miss you, Tony.

5. Skip the President altogether. Nobody is going to be David Palmer. On the other side of the coin, nobody is going to be Charles Logan. Can we just write the Presidential character out of this storyline for a season and see how it goes? We've pretty much done all the personality combinations possible, and if we can find someone else for Jack to play off of, that would be fresh and interesting. I don't know who that would be, that's why they pay you the big bucks. I'm just a chick with a laptop.

6. Get out of LA. LA has seen every imaginable disaster. Let's go somewhere else, make use of another city. Bring some freakin' variety to the setting, for heaven's sake. If I were living in LA, by now I would have moved to the East Coast, after everything that has ever happened there. In fact, I would feel downright cursed. I mean, what's so special about LA anyway? Except for the fact that Tool wrote a song about sinking the whole thing into the sea.

7. Give Jack something to agonize over. He had a failing marriage in season 1, and his concern for his wife and child drove him. Season 5 could have been really something, as Jack tries to recover from years of captivity in China. But by now, he looks fine to me. I'd rather see him really wrestling with what he faces. Nobody does gun-toting badass like Keifer Sutherland, but can't he do more than shout while pointing a weapon at someone?

8. Suspending disbelief is one thing; going against human nature is another altogether. A nuclear bomb just went off in LA. But everybody is walking around like just another weekday. Huh?? Why aren't we seeing news helicopter shots of crowded freeways as people leave town? Hospitals swamped with radiation victims? Looting at area stores? Business as usual just doesn't cut it when a nuke went off near a big city. People would PANIC.

9. Speaking of which, where's the media? They're going to be all over this. But yet, they're not. In fact, we've hardly seen them at all as the seasons go on. Give the media a prominent role. And for heaven's sake, don't cast them as villains. That's SO been done.

10. Great casting makes all the difference. Powers Boothe is a coup. James Cromwell can do creepy and nice without breaking a sweat. Gregory Itzin and Jean Smart were so robbed of Emmy awards that I'm surprised police didn't rush the stage at the show when it was clear they weren't taking home a trophy. And nobody, but nobody, sounded more presidential than Dennis Haysbert. But then we have Ricky Schroeder, looking more like Silver Spoons than NYPD Blue. Showkiller Eric Balfour, as Milo, has come back after his last zillion series failed. And I can't even tell you anything about the chick who plays Nadia. You've had some great casting and some not so great casting. Stick with the great. Weed out the 'who?' group. (While I'm on it, why in the world didn't you cast Regina King as the President? If I wanna kick terrorist ass, I'd hire her. She's so underused this season, I don't even want to know how often her agent chews you out.)

There you go, ten suggestions to help make the show better. Thanks, and I'll keep watching this season, but just so you know, I'm starting to see fins in the water, and somebody is handing me water skiis.