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The television thriller 24 brought the audience a fresh
and rapid TV series depicting genuine drama in real time.
The title stems from the notion of real time, as each season
takes 24 hours and covers one concern while each episode
covers one of these hours. Within each hour, the audience
gets to witness the actions of the bad guys, usually terrorists,
being combated by the Los Angeles Counter Terrorist Unit
(CTU) together with the involvement of the White House,
as these matters are of highest priority to the national
security. **
The concept of 24 is brilliant, as Homeland Security
has generated a color-coded security advisory system that
reminds the people of the United States about the true nature
of the terror threat. While the people often ponder the
notion of terror in fear, 24 merely cashes in on the audience’s
anxiety, by creating fictional scenarios that remain close
to the politics and management of terrorism. It is within
the realism that the audience can connect with the events
on the show, as similar incidents might (God forbid) happen
to the people of United States. ***
The fourth season starts at 7:00AM, as a man on a train
carries a metal briefcase chained to his wrist and has two
guards with him. However, the train runs into a truck and
creates an explosion on impact. It was a planned move by
the attacker, Dar, who cuts the briefcase from the man’s
wrist. The sudden opening catches the viewer’s attention,
as does the reason why the briefcase was stolen. Shortly
after, CTU is contacted and a meeting between the CTU and
the Defense Department reveals that the main character,
Agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), has been fired from
CTU by Erin Driscoll (Alberta Watson). ***
Jack now works for the Secretary of Defense James Heller
(William Devane) and he is secretively having an affair
with Heller’s daughter Audrey (Kim Raver). It is a year
and a half past the deadly virus that threatened Los Angeles
in season 3, but now a new threat has emerged in this season.
Besides the theft of the briefcase, the Secretary of Defense
is kidnapped along with his daughter and later someone steals
a stealth bomber, but all of these acts are preplanned to
serve a greater malevolent scheme with a greater destructive
purpose. These plans surround one specific Habib Marvan,
an Arabian terrorist, which the American government has
been trying to locate, as he is in charge of a number of
Middle Eastern terrorist cells. A clear difference surfaces
in the fourth season compared to the previous seasons, as
there is not one threat, but multiple. ***
Season four is darker and stronger in some aspects.
For example, Jack has to face the dilemma of having his
secret lover kidnapped, which possibly brings back memories
when his wife was killed in the first season. It could also
be because the terrorists are rougher than before, which
makes Jack approach the problems in a gloves-off approach.
In addition, the hideous act of torture for information
has been an element in the previous seasons as well, but
in the fourth season this too becomes more uncomplicated
and cruel. Otherwise the show continues to apply the split
screens to help the audience understand what is happening
while the occasional scurrying photography adds emotional
aspects to the show such as realism, stress, and the element
that time is of short supply. ***
24’s fourth season does not reach the same high level
as previous seasons. One reason that affected 24’s quality
was the musical chair rotation of new and old faces in and
out of the television thriller. The changing of actors made
it a little difficult to build connections with the new
performers, and it affected the show somewhat. Nonetheless,
24 offers a truly suspenseful political thriller that must
be approached with the notion that it is fiction, or else
it could intensify the anguish of watching the news and
living life in the light of modern day politics. ***
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