Line of Fire - "Eminence Front"

I wish I'd watched Line of Fire when it originally aired instead of now having to download the episodes, because last night's movie/two part episode was a gripping espionage thriller in the 24 vein, except with more, you know, realism. Certainly far from the perfection I've allotted to the infallible Alias, but it was consistent white knuckle suspense that's been missing from my tv diet.

First off, the way each episode was paced made me think that the show may have been more suited as a mini-series with each installment at two hours instead of hour-long (~43 minutes really) episodes, because "Eminence Front" starts off slowly establishing characters and scenarios before allowing the action to simmer over.

First off, Paige (Leslie Bibb's character) was fierce. I couldn't really keep track of her in the first hour, but once she had something to do, IMPRESSIVE. Not only did she acquit herself admirably in the kitchen fight (one of the most well done, messy brawls I've seen on the telly in a while, with participants of either gender)(though, burning her hand on the stovetop loses points!) and then get the perp to confess, but she RAMMED HER CAR INTO THE VAN AT WHAT, 70 MPH??? OMG WTF LOL!!1! SHE IS TEH SEXY!!

Line of the night, however, goes to the boss guy (Amiel?) back at the station interrogating the bad dude's girlfriend: "Bad news is, I'm going to beat you to an inch of your life. I don't care that you're a girl."

Now, the most obvious reason I invoked 24 above is Leslie Hope. She didn't get to do much -- her involvement was mostly just behind-the-scenes traffic-controller, but she did have her authority hat on. She's got bad luck with tv series, though.

But come on, we have Mrs. Malloy willing to sell out her crime boss husband, HOW DARE YOU END THERE.