The Final Countdown; Its nerve-jangling plot has already packed in

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Aug 18, 2002 | by Graeme Virtue

BOOM! A jumbo jet en route to LA blows up over the Mojave desert. We'd assumed the razor-cheekboned German photographer was an assassin sent to kill Senator Palmer, but it was actually the lady sitting next to him - who snogged him in the toilets, stole his press pass and then calmly sent 523 innocent passengers to a fiery death while lazily parachuting to the ground.

1.50am

KAPOW! Teenage party girls Kim Bauer and Janet York have been frantically fleeing their evil kidnappers Dan and Nick. Janet's had the worst of it, so far; forcibly injected with smack and having her arm smashed up with a crowbar. But just as it looks like they might both escape, Janet's hit by a speeding car, her body flopping onto the tarmac like a landed salmon. She must be dead, right?

5.24am

ARGH! Janet's not dead, she's in the hospital recovering from an emergency operation. Her father - who's been chumming around with Jack's wife Teri looking for the two runaways - goes to check on the progress of his daughter and promptly suffocates her! He's actually one of the baddies sent to eliminate Kim and Teri. Come to think of it, he did look a little too muscley to be a suburban dad 4.34pm

OUCH! Evil assassin Alexis Drazen has been sleeping with Palmer aide Elizabeth in order to keep tabs on the Presidential candidate. After Jack explains the truth about her boyfriend, Elizabeth is supposed to plant a tracking device on Alexis in their hotel lovenest and then scarper. But instead, she suddenly stabs him in the chest with a room-service butter knife! That wasn't in the plan!

10.58pm

OOF! Federal Agent Nina Myers - loyal, loving, dedicated Nina - reveals herself to be Yelena, a Serbian conspirator absolutely dedicated to slaughtering Jack, Teri, Kim and Senator Palmer. No wonder the baddies have been one step ahead of the Counter Terrorism Unit all day. But there's only an hour left what fresh evil can she perpetrate in that time?