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24 is back, and this time it’s bringing it’s Dad… oops, wrong franchise.
Jack Bauer is back to save the day, yet again, in ’24’ with 12 episodes of action-packed goodness… pardon? Yes, I said “12 episodes”. What? ….Oh, I see. Well, yes, they had 24 episodes in all of the previous seasons, even though they weren’t sure if the first would be a success so it was only commissioned for 13 episodes, hence why it appears to ‘end’ at that point, but they got extended for the full run so they filled a few hours by making Teri faint. Tedious that bit, wasn’t it? Anyway, so it runs for 12 episodes, with the first few in London – where the ubiquitous Stephen Fry is the Prime Minister – and later they’ll presumably head back to the US, meaning hours will go by off-screen while they take a plane, so that since the first episode starts at 11am, so the last one will also end at 11am. Got it?
Not really? Well, tough.
In fact, I’m not sure if this should be classed as ‘Season 9’, since it follows on directly from Season 8, but it’s ‘24: Live Another Day‘ so it’s technically renamed… so is it an off-shoot of ’24’ or a continuation? After weeks and weeks of deep thought and contemplation, as well as looking it up on that internet thing, I’ve decided it is, indeed, Season 9.
The following review contains some spoilers about the episode. Typing my thoughts occured in real time.
After spending four years off the grid, the feds finally find Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) living in a squat somewhere in London. Well, with austerity the way that it is, if you’ve been out of work that long you’re not going to be living it up in a swanky apartment. He’s captured and taken to London CTU, headed up by Chief Smoothie Steve Navarro (Benjamin Bratt), which just happens to be where Chloe O’Brian (the ever-lovely Mary Lynn Rajskub) is also being held.
Neither of them are in a particularly good place – Jack because he’s made to realise that his fugitive lifestyle means he’ll never see what’s left of his family ever again, and Chloe because she’s strapped to a table being forced to talk, after being arrested on hacking charges. Or something like that. I got the impression she’d rubbed someone up the wrong way, whereas when it came to Jack – what had he done? I think his government just hate his guts, and they think he’s in town to do harm to the President anyway, despite him having a good track record for *helping* the office incumbents over the years. Well… usually.
Jack has a friend with him of random and undetermined Eastern European origin, who helps him escape after it turns out he orchestrated his own capture by the powers that be, which he did in order to rescue Chloe. When they’ve figured out what they need to do in the double-bill, she wants to act as his backup on comms, so basically, they’re “getting the band back together“.
Chloe is actually one of a group of hackers who use some massive studio flat as a squat, and can apparently pack up and leave whenever the heat gets too close for them, despite the fact that they’ve got more technical equipment to carry than a Currys superstore, including laptops with whizzy blue-backlit keys.
You can tell Chloe’s a hacker because she’s dressed up as a choppy-haired Goth. Yes, that’s all Goths do, apparently. Not that any of the others are Goths. There’s the token speccy kid, the token ginger kid and Saz from BBC3’s Some Girls. Also there is a chap called Adrian Cross (Michael Wincott), Chloe’s squat-leader, or boss or something. When Jack and Adrian first met, they had an argument in very anger-filled hushed tones. It was bizarre to say the least.
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on this episode…
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.