Re: 24 Series 5 - Starts Sunday 12th Feb
24 ("Twenty Four") is a current U.S. television action/drama series, produced by the Fox Network and syndicated worldwide.
Each season covers the events of one day in the life of federal agent Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland. The show also follows Jack's colleagues at the Counter Terrorist Unit in Los Angeles, as well as the actions of both various terrorists and the White House.
This real-time nature of 24 gives the show a strong sense of urgency, emphasized by the ticking of an on-screen digital clock appearing from time to time. Throughout every episode the action switches between different locations, following the parallel adventures of different characters all involved in the same story.
24 was created by Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran, and premiered in 2001.
Season synopses
Every season so far follows a similar format, centering on Jack Bauer and the elite Counter Terrorist Unit dealing with a central threat posed to national security, including terrorists in later seasons. Surprise sacrifices, backstabbings, and other plot twists are common. Besides the central threat, each season has several major subplots that span the majority of the episodes and become interwoven with the main plot, which itself tends to change once or twice as a season progresses. Throughout each season, Jack Bauer often faces intense personal anguish in addition to his tasks to stop the terrorists.
Each season runs in "real-time" and starts at a different time on different days. The show is set largely in Los Angeles, so the "time" is set in Pacific Standard Time. Every episode begins with: "The following takes place between [time] and [time]."
* Each episode portrays one hour of time, and one season is comprised of 24 episodes.
* The first half of season 1 begins each episode with Kiefer Sutherland reciting this line, followed by, "on the day of the California Presidential Primary." The importance of this episode introduction can be understood below in season one's synopsis.
Season 1
In Season 1, terrorists are plotting to assassinate a presidential candidate, David Palmer, while Jack Bauer's wife and daughter have been targeted by individuals unknown to Jack. Jack suspects that people that he works with may have been involved in both, and works simultaneously at defending Palmer from attack while unraveling the situation behind the capture of his wife and daughter.
Season 2
In Season 2, Jack deals with the death of his wife and the estrangement of his daughter, who believes that Jack's dangerous line of work caused her mother's death. Bauer is no longer on the government payroll, but President David Palmer counts on Jack as the only man he can trust to figure out who is threatening to detonate a nuclear device in Los Angeles, and to stop it from happening. Meanwhile, a subplot develops with Kate Warner planning a wedding between her sister and soon to be brother-in-law, when CTU suspects the groom in the terrorist plot.
Season 3
In Season 3, Jack has returned from a deep undercover assignment, infiltrating the Salazar drug family, which has ties to terrorism. At the same time, a van drops off a dead body infected with a bio-weapon at the National Health Services. Jack's new partner is a brash but successful agent, Chase Edmunds, who is in a relationship with Jack's daughter, now employed by CTU. Jack and Chase must now find the terrorists responsible for the virus and destroy all specimens before Los Angeles becomes infected.
Season 4
In Season 4, Jack Bauer now works in Washington D.C. for the Secretary of Defense, while having an affair with the Secretary's daughter. CTU has been gutted under a new Presidential Administration, but the new CTU head calls for a meeting with Jack about an impending terrorist threat. However, the Secretary and his daughter are held hostage and Jack must rescue them. After the rescue, they realize that the kidnapping was used to conceal a plot that would result in the meltdown of U.S. nuclear power plants nationwide, but again, this is just a cover for a much larger terrorist plot.
