If the Emmy Award is the most important television honor, then the Golden Globe has to be the classiest. Yet merely hours after 24 won the Golden Globe Award for Best Drama of the year, Fox followed the glitz with a trip close to the gutter. See for yourselfat www.24inside.com.

A few of us watched it together—here’s what we thought.

What was good about the Webcast? The guests themselves were great. Producer Howard Gordon didn’t say much. He wasn’t asked much. How does it feel to win a Golden Globe? He gave a cursory but thoughtful response. His big moment: he attempted to kiss attack Penny Johnson Jerald. It was supposed to be a cute joke but with the Internet’s drop frame graphics, it seemed way too aggressive. He seemed to mean well. We would have liked to hear more about ! how he develops characters or what is deep inside Jack Bauer’s soul.

And Penny Johnson Jerald? She did wonderful things with bad material. Clearly, Penny couldn’t reveal any of the future plot or go beyond the questions she was asked, Still, true fans had a chance to see this talented woman as she really is—witty, amusing, and always entertaining and watchable. Like when she answered the question about the Golden Globe, “How does it feel?” Penny answered, “a little phallic.” Our host said, I expected you to say heavy. Penny laughed as a way to change the subject. There is nothing quite like when the stra! ight guy ruins the gag.

The Worst Part: That Host. What was her name anyway? Funny, but no one really cares anyway. Through her bubbliness and exuberance, her questions showed she didn’t really follow the program or understand 24 is a mystery action drama, not a night time soap opera like the O.C. Sadly, the only questions allowed through, from the audience and the Internet, pushed on this soap opera theme. Hey guys, you have the wrong genre here!

Amanda somebody or other (she really didn’t enunciate her name), claimed her show was from the fans’ point of view. Acting like a guy imitating a cheerleader, she exhibited an interesting use of the English language—gutter English. She said Nina was like a bad fart. Wonder how Nina’s tens of thousands of fans consider this “fans eyes’ view” of Nina Myers? She asked Howard Gordon if he thinks up story lines on the toilet. Does Fox think 24’s fans wanted to know THAT most of all?

Clownish Amanda’s description of Sherry Palmer? Like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Penny gasped. Later, when Penny better compared Sherry to Lady MacBeth, Howard Gordon joked, mocking the host, “Lady MacBeth crossed with Jack Nicholson from the Shining!”

When our host asked what secrets will Sherry unravel? Penny said everything, every which way you can unravel. Before Penny could begin the second sentence, Amanda interrupted, attempting to be funny, tell us what it is? Before Penny could answer, Amanda again interrupted: Sex? Drugs? Rock and roll? Again, Penny gracefully laughed as a way to change the subject.

The good part was that Amanda whatever’s cheap look just made Penny seem that much more elegant in her plum colored blouse. Between our host’s poor clothing choices, a voice that goes up the scale like singing “Doe a Deer” at the end of a sentence, an obsession with inappropriately adding humiliating and unfunny references to bodily functions into every question she could, and all that interrupting, we wonder what Fox thinks of us as 24’s audience.

If this is a “fan’s eye view,” do they think we all are poorly dressed, self-embarrassing creatures obsessed with toilets and nose mucuous? Fox, let me set you straight. Most of us are over eight years old. Do we have to talk down to you to get you to understand, like you just talked down to us?

Perhaps it’s time that Fox, and other television companies, realize the Internet isn’t television. A low-cut pink undershirt with flowers on a flat chest doesn’t cut it on the Internet. Fast speech doesn't work in a drop frame environment. People with untrained, screechy, cheerleader voices don't sound good over the $20 speakers that come with most of our personal computers. Sultry works. Falsetto doesn't.

The worst part is the Lame Webcast is still up on the website. If you are really a masochist, you can watch it over and over again, any time you want. Try it drunk maybe. It's probably quite funny that way. Each time, remember that Fox thinks this particular Internet talk show embodies the compleat “fan’s eye view” of 24.

Lena St. Lee