24

So I am finally, after 4 seasons, starting to watch 24. And last night they had a 2 hour 24. During which 40% or some other extremely large number of people working at CTU were killed by nerve gas. The premise that CTU only found out about it with 2 minutes until it was released and sent everyone running out of the building and only was able to seal off 3 rooms in the whole building, and so anyone in the building not in those 3 rooms died, was just crazy.

I used to work at DARPA - a rather small DoD agency. I knew within 10 minutes of starting exactly where each safe room in the building was. In fact, they gave me a card to attach to my badge that listed emergency procedures and safe rooms for each floor of both buildings. I also knew that each safe room had enough hoods and masks as well as other emergency supplies to protect each person in the building. None of these rooms was more than 30 seconds away from me at any given moment and at a panic run, I am sure that I could have found one very quickly.

A few jobs before that, I worked at a law firm in DC. Not exactly the sort of place known for high security measures. Even so, each employee was fitted with a mask - that we were given to keep at our desks - for any sort of emergency.

My point is, I appreciate non-realistic shows as much as the next person (Gilmore Girls is my favorite show), but this was a little too far fetched even for me.