You've got to be kidding me!!

My opinion of 24's Monday season finale just went from bad to worse in less than four days.
That's got to be a record.

From TVGuide:

Despite how Monday's season finale left off, the sixth season of Fox's 24 will not pick up with Jack Bauer riding a slow boat to China as a political prisoner. "I don't think much of the story will take place in China," executive producer Howard Gordon tells the trade mag TV Week. "It's just an impractical thing given the real-time constraints, because it would take Jack 16 hours -- three-quarters of the [season] -- to get back to L.A."

Which basically means that the lousy finale they came up with wasn't even intended as a springboard for the show's next season. It really means that they just ran out of ideas and creativity at the very end of the season, and threw in whatever they could think of.

So, help me understand here: it would be impractical to follow up on the Chinese storyline because it would take Jack too long to come back to the US. NOW you realize that?!! Are you trying to tell me that nobody foresaw that during a brainstorming session, nobody said anything about its impracticality, and/or nobody considered it a problem to put it in the finale anyway?! Who writes for this show? George Bush?

I ranted about 24's lousy finale in this previous post. This development makes it that much worse, because now we know that Jack's kidnapping won't lead to anything. Either it won't be developed at all (which is like telling us, "Forget about the finale we just showed you" -- to which I reply, "Then why should I bother sticking around the next time if you tell me that I wasted my time?") or will be quickly glossed over, maybe in some kind of flashback or dream sequence.

This also implies that there will be the usual passage of time between seasons, thereby precluding any closure on the part of President Logan's cabal's future and whether they were ever caught and brought to justice.

Thoroughly unsatisfactory.