First, he saved presidential candidate David Palmer from an assassination attempt, while also trying to free his wife and daughter from kidnappers.
The following season, he tried to stop a nuclear bomb. The next scenario featured a virus, and then last year’s plotline involved a sleeper terrorist cell planning an attack.
Through it all, two things have remained consistent:
1. The show has always operated in “real time,� with each episode representing one hour in a particularly hellacious day in Jack’s life.
2. People die. A lot. Even regular characters, like Jack’s wife Teri or his bosses George Mason and Ryan Chappelle, aren’t safe. That ups the tension, since we know that any character can go at any minute. In fact, it’s such an integral part of the series that last season, when Jack’s fellow agent and confidante Tony seemed fated to meet his maker and didn’t, it was actually shocking.
Even Jack himself bought the farm last season – sort of. To avoid arrest for a crime he committed in the name of public protection, Jack faked his own death.
The new season will, inevitably, find him hiding out under a new identity. That is, until he has to save the world again.
Sigh. Poor Jack. You’d think that at least death would allow him to rest in peace.
But we like our Jack pushed to the limit, and nobody does urgent, clenched teeth dialogue like Sutherland.
One of the things I look forward to every season is seeing whether the show can maintain its heightened sense of tension from beginning to end. It often can’t. Like any real day, some parts are just more exciting than others.
But last season was a high point, maintaining momentum all the way through, and delivering that whammy of a finale.
This season, there’s an impressive array of new cast members, including everyone’s favorite hobbit, Sean Astin, playing an agent at Jack’s former place of employ, the Counter Terrorism Unit. The always reliable Jean Smart is also on hand, playing First Lady to the annoying President Logan.
Unfortunately, the season also marks the return of the show’s least successful character, Jack’s constantly jeopardized daughter, Kim. After a season-long reprieve, she’s back. Those affiliated with the series have said that she’ll actually have an important role this time out.
We’ll see.
But, overall, I’m looking forward to the new season of “24.� What once seemed like a gimmick that would wear thin after a season has proven to have longevity.
Let’s hope they can keep it going another day.