24 returns for its seventh season almost two years after the last cycle ended. But does anyone still care?
Despite my left-wing politics, I’ve always had a soft-spot for 24, the right-leaning conservative action series that’s been running on FOX since 2001. Maybe that’s simply because the show’s relentless pace and “Holy crap!” plot twists make it easy to overlook the questionable tactics federal agent Jack Bauer (played, of course, by Kiefer Sutherland) uses in his one-man war against terrorism. In its best seasons–which, in my opinion, were the first, fourth and fifth–24 offered more thrills week in and week out than most big-budget Hollywood action flicks do in two hours.
Of course, Even the best shows can go through rough creative patches and that’s certainly what happened in 24‘s sixth season, which started out like gangbusters and then just as quickly jumped the shark when Jack’s extended family were woven into the plot. I actually gave up on the series halfway through that season, not just because it was sucking, but also because it was on opposite the first season of NBC’s Heroes, back when that show was arguably the best serial on network television. (I know…I can’t believe it was ever that good either.) Then the writer’s strike delayed production on 24‘s seventh season, originally set to be broadcast last January, to the point where the producers decided to cut their losses and ditch the episodes that had already been shot in favor of starting over from scratch in 2009.
I had hoped the extended hiatus would give the show’s writers plenty of time to come up with their best story arc yet, but the four hours I’ve seen of 24‘s seventh season suggest they needed more time off. Picking up where last fall’s TV movie left off, the first episode finds Jack testifying before a Congressional committee about the reign of torture he inflected on a parade of terrorist suspects (not to mention a few of his colleagues) during his time with CTU, which has since been disbanded. Barely five minutes into the hearing, Bauer is drafted back into service, this time for the FBI, which needs his help tracking down a ring of terrorists who are planning a high-tech hijacking of the federal government’s computer systems. This group is being led by a face that’s very familiar to both Jack and the 24 fanbase: Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard), who we supposedly saw collapse and die in the fifth season. How did Tony survive? I won’t spoil that bit of intel for you right now, but I will say that answer isn’t worth the wait. Meanwhile, as Jack is forced to grapple with his friend turned enemy, the country’s new President (played by Broadway icon Cherry Jones) has to decide whether or not to send U.S. troops into a African nation to unseat a hostile dictator. And, of course, there are a usual batch of moles and traitors both in the FBI and the White House to be exposed by Jack before they can help the terrorists win.
In other words, it’s business as usual in the 24-verse. Once upon a time, that would have been enough for me, but I’ve got to admit that the same-old, same-old just isn’t doing it for me anymore. While I still admire the show’s excellent production values and skillful action sequences, I regularly found myself tuning in and out of the actual plot. Part of the problem is that the season begins with the implication that everything is going to be different for Jack this time around, but by the third episode, he’s back working with many of the same people (including tech geek Chloe and stone-faced Bill) doing many of the same things he’s done before including…yes, torturing suspects. Sorry 24–I think we’re gonna have to call this relationship off at last. It’s not you, it’s me. I’m just looking for different things from my TV shows these days and you only seem interested in keeping the status quo. But hey, we’ll always have President Palmer, President Logan and, above all, Kim Bauer vs. The Cougar.
