24 Season 1 TV Review

• Running time: 45 minutes
• Year: 2001-2002
• Sound: Dolby Surround
• Languages: English
• Widescreen: 1.77:1 (16:9)
• 16:9-Enhanced: Yes

Directors:

Stephen Hopkins, Jon Cassar, Davis Guggenheim, Winrich Kolbe, Bryan Spicer

Producers:

Creators/Writers:

Music:

Cast:

Jack Bauer: Kiefer Sutherland
Teri Bauer: Leslie Hope
Nina Myers: Sarah Clarke
Kimberly Bauer: Elisha Cuthbert
Senator David Palmer: Dennis Haysbert
Sherry Palmer: Penny Johnson
Rick: Daniel Bess
Tony Almeida: Carlos Bernard
Carl: Zach Grenier
Mandy: Mia Kirshner
Jamey Farrell: Karina Arroyave
District Director George Mason: Xander Berkeley
Milo Pressman: Eric Balfour
Alan York: Richard Burgi
Dan: Matthew Carey
Alexis Drazen: Misha Collins
Andre Drazen: Zeljko Ivanek
Ira Gaines: Michael Massee
Janet York: Jacqui Maxwell
Ryan Chappelle: Paul Schulze
Keith Palmer: Vicellous Reon Shannon
Alberta Green: Tamara Tunie
Elizabeth Nash: Kara Zediker

WARNING: Spoilers are contained throughout this review.

So, it’s over. For the time being, at least., The longest 24 hours of CTU agent Jack Bauer’s life, a day of endless drama, of continuous strife, and a drain on his every physical, emotional and intellectual resource. He saved the President-elect, Senator David Palmer, from the assassination plot apparently cooked up by revenge-seeking Serbian terrorists. Not once, but twice, Bauer put his own life and the safety of his nearest and dearest on the line, in the name of duty and service.

Yet, come midnight, his wife Teri would be found dead, having been unfortunate (some would say plain stupid) enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, walking in on dastardly double agent Nina Myers (a.k.a. Yelena) just as she was planning a swift, untraceable exit once the Drazens were finally taken down shortly after 11.30pm.

You could say Jack’s day had been a success…sort of. But what of the programme itself?

Left to right (above): Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) has proved to be one of television’s most memorable and popular creations; Teri Bauer (Leslie Hope) copped plenty of flack from fans for her infamous cardigan and ultimately copped it as well; Kim Bauer (Elisha Cuthbert) aged about 18 months in one “day” and went from curly mop to straight cut as the hours wore on, but never mind…

Left to right (above): the hapless Ira Gaines (Michael Massee) was a better and more interesting villain than Victor Drazen (a lazy, late-in-the-day guest star turn from Dennis Hopper); she was a mole and she’s now in the hole – Nina Myers (Sarah Clarke) had viewers on the edge of their seats wondering if she was or wasn’t dirty… pity the script shortchanged her character; finally, has there ever been a more dignified, honourable and downright electable Presidential candidate than Senator David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert)?

Originally given the greenlight by Fox for an 8-episode run after the commissioned pilot’s positive reception, 24 was then extended to 13 “hours”, before eventually securing the full monty of one whole day as per its concept. Unfortunately, the uncertainty and continually varying parameters endured by the show’s writing team is reflected in the contrasting quality and narrative consistency between the earlier episodes and the concluding installments.

Disappointingly, 24 as a whole does not quite pull off its ambitious and highly intruiging premise with quite the panache it suggested initially. Indeed, the original comparisons with The X-Files, Heat, and water-tight attention to detail began to look somewhat misguided by the final third of the series, with increasingly silly manoeuvres more akin to an episode of Dynasty or some other ludicrously tongue-in-cheek confection than the straight-as-a-die cerebral approach the early hours used to such dazzling effect.

Left to right (above): doomed Janet York (Jaqui Maxwell) and her best bud Kim Bauer realise their secret double-date with a couple of frat boys isn’t going quite to plan; by 4.00am the parents – including someone who isn’t all they claim to be – are checking local hopsitals for any sign of the now-missing girls; CTU computer specialist Jamey Farrell (Karina Arroyave) is interrogated by District Director George Mason (Xander Berkley) under suspcicion of being the “mole” between 3.00am and 4.00am Left to right (above): Agent Pierce, head of Secret Service and assigned to Senator Palmer, discuss urgent security threats with his charge; shifty businessman Ted Coffell is cornered by Jack Bauer just before midday and a subsequent revelation of the reason behind events; being locked up in a disused barn by Gaines’ crew begins to take its toll on Teri and Kim; the Bauers prepare to make a run for it as Gaines and co. try to stop Jack rescuing his family…

What began as a hi-tech conspiracy thriller with a mind-boggling array of possible scenarios and potential double-bluffs somehow degenerated into a routine and hackneyed spin on the typical terrorist-themed action movie. The writer’s aforementioned uncertainty over exactly how many episodes they would have to convincingly wrap up the various plot strands gave us an unevenly-paced series. 12.00am-8.00am crammed in a tremendous range of gripping storylines and some genuinely shocking twists, before the first third climaxed with the thwarted hit at the Palmer breakfast speech. Setting up mercenary Ira Gaines as the initial bad-guy hired to take out the Senator for some unspecified reason created superb tension and endless scenes of almost unbearable suspense.

All kinds of mayhem were unfolding, with the CTU forever busting a collective gut to keep abreast of the situation while being undermined from within by an known dirty agent. Because of the real-time format, details would be revealed in chronological fashion, the true motives behind the day’s events gradually unfolding.

Then, perhaps as an inevitable anti-climax, 8.00am through to 1.00pm seemed to exist purely to set up the next major revelation, when a lead traced to a high-flying businessman takes Jack into Gaines’ lair for a protracted but gripping attempt to rescue the captured Teri and Kim from certain execution. Once Gaines had been removed from the equation, however, and his bosses, the Drazen brothers, activated their Plan B, 24 began to lose its way. It’s easy to see how the 13th episode was designed to provide a conclusion of sorts if the powers that be didn’t extend the show’s contract to the full 24 shows.

1.00pm onwards is definitely a rather different beast, driven as it is by the decision taken by the writers on the mole’s identity halfway through the programme and their task of how to best set up 11.59pm’s bombshell. It all pans out fairly neatly, if the purpose of 24 was to degenerate into cliche and abandon a host of fascinating plot threads just so they have a supposedly good twist right at the end. Red-herrings were doubtless to be expected, of course, but unless the second series has some tricks up its sleeve and reveals an even bigger picture, too much of these 24 episodes contained details that ultimately meant little or just took the story up a stylised blind alley for a while.

It would have been satisfying to find the resolution of 24 long hours afford its audience more respect than the rushed, almost anti-climactic last 30 minutes after Jack’s all-guns-blazing assault on the Drazen’s riverside HQ. Even that was somewhat banal in its execution after so much cat-and-mouse for 23 and a half hours. All that intricate planning, synchronization, hiring of great teams of mercenaries, the complex backstory with its call for payback…. and what does it boil down to? Oh, let that Jack Bauer come find us, the terrorists-with-dodgy-accents say, then he can drive one of our unattended vans straight into our hideout, shoot everyone on his own, and kill us too without any trouble at all. Simple!

Except 24 has literally shot its load a full 30 minutes early. What happens now? Oh yes, we’ll take the seemingly compassionate, trustworthy confidante and colleague of the main character and turn her into a murderous, duplicitous maniac with a Russian accent. Ha ha! And it will add up because the last 11 episodes featured so many unbelievable plot devices and daft behaviour from supposedly intelligent characters just so our twist would make sense.

Er, right.

Left to right (above): Sherry Palmer (Penny Johnson Jerald) has some tough decisions to make concerning her son Keith (Vicellous Shannon) and the cover-up they kept from the Senator; Jack continues to trust Nina, unaware of her devastating betrayal; Elizabeth Nash (Kara Zediker) and hitman Alexis Drazen (Misha Collins) canoodle under the surveillance of CTU, minutes before disaster strikes and Nash gets the knife out Left to right (above): Eez dat Deneez Oppa? Vot eez ee douwin een 24 wiz dat derribal ackzent? Bauer confronts Victor Drazen with the big questions shortly after the covert military drop-off at 7.30pm; The one and only time all three Drazens are onscreen together, as youngest brother Alexis takes his dying breaths while both father and big bro Andre watch helplessly; Nina reassures Teri just after 11.30pm – “Everything is going to be fine…” – lies, damn lies!; finally, father and daughter are properly reunited….. but where’s Mom? Oh no….

It’s only entertainment. Sure. Don’t take it so seriously. Okay. The writing team admit they made mistakes, and forgot to tie up certain loose ends. Nobody’s perfect. The production crew, hampered by their schedule and the weather conditions, goofed up the continuity in later episodes simply because logistics for the time of year made it near impossible (hence errors, such as the gentle evening sunset at 6.59pm becomes total darkness a couple of minutes later when the 7.00pm episode begins, slipped through). Fair enough. Kim Bauer’s hair straightens completely in the space of less than a day. Maybe she needs more powerful curling tongs.

Seriously though, of all the eventualities the developments of 24‘s opening dozen episodes might have pointed towards, the one actually offered was the dullest imaginable. Two-dimensional villains from the Baltic states on some pathological mission of revenge, aided from the inside by a two-faced bitch with a well-concealed Russian accent….? What of the menacing behind-the-scenes machinations of Senator Palmer’s campaign backers and the insidious Carl? Or the possible links between the rapist who was accidentally killed by Keith Palmer seven years earlier – and the resulting cover-up – to any security risk or plan to undermine Palmer’s election hopes? Was it just there to open the Senator’s eyes to how little he really knew his family? Is Sherry just a power-mad wife from hell, and up to nothing more sinister after all? Oh well.

For much of the final third, 24 only remained compulsive viewing for the chance that, come midnight, something special, something worth waiting for, would occur or be revealed. The main problem with the hours 1.00pm to 12.00am was they merely went over the same ground as their morning counterparts – and sometimes more than once. Bad guy wants Palmer dead. Still. Jack foils assassination. Again. Teri and Kim are kidnapped. Again. They escape. Again. Then recaptured. Again. And so on.

A procession of sketchily-written or purely annoying characters came and went in what followers of 24 term the “Drazen hours” (as opposed to the “Gaines hours”). Too many by half, in fact. Teddy Hanlin, the sniper with a chip on his shoulder, was the worst example. Victor Drazen, a pivotal role, was given to a hammy Dennis Hopper, long the stereotyped bad guy in Hollywood and as such burdened by predictability when the very opposite was needed. Some, such as the enigmatic Dr. Phil Parslow and the brave DoD agent DeSalvo, were better but sadly underused.