One of the most touted aspects of 24: Live Another Day was the newfound freedom to skip hours. But it seems that was more challenging than the writers originally envisioned and the first two-thirds of the season will take place consecutively just like prior seasons.
The 12-episode season, half its usual length, is “a little bit faster and a little more intense,” Rajskub says, while Sutherland likens it to “concentrated orange juice.”
But some issues remain unchanged. The shorter season, still confined to a single 24-hour day, was designed to allow writers the flexibility to skip through time here and there, but the first eight episodes are set in consecutive hours.
“I thought it was going to be an amazing opportunity to go, ‘Hey, next week we’re going to be in Istanbul,'” Sutherland says.
“It seemed like a liberating idea at the time,” says executive producer Howard Gordon, “until you try to do that. The sweaters are interwoven tightly,” so stopping multiple story lines and later accounting for the passage of time proved too difficult. “There were more moving parts than we imagined.”
The final episodes still haven’t been written, and producers are running into the same plotting hurdles in the same spot, two-thirds of the way to the finish line, despite having half as many episodes. Turns out that fewer installments provide “less runway to land the plane,” metaphorically speaking, Gordon says. “You can’t mold chapter and verse how things are going to morph; there’s still a bit of improvisation.”
But the persistent obstacle “surprised me immensely,” Sutherland says. “That dynamic hasn’t shifted. The challenges from telling a story in real time are what they are. It’s still a bend to try to finish it, and now we’re trying to make the shift.”
And somehow fill the rest of Jack’s bad day. “In the end, it might be me on one long flight for 11 hours from London to L.A.”
As for the future of 24? Different people are saying different things.
Could Jack come back yet again? “Anything’s possible, if the audience responds to it,” Gordon says. “I think it’s something we’d all be open to.”
Except Sutherland, who’s 47. “My bones are creaking. What am I going to do, Jack Bauer in a walker? So, yeah, this is it. For me, it’s done.”
42 Comments
Comments ClosedJack
May 5, 2014 at 3:36 amAcer4666
May 5, 2014 at 6:51 am24fan
May 5, 2014 at 7:21 amXAM
May 5, 2014 at 9:10 am“Next season will take place one day after the current one, it will be the closest we’ve ever come to making 48…Not really folks 18 months it is”
“Jack will be on his own and the threats more personal… Jack will have the assistance of Chloe and the CIA and the threat will be a huge international one as usual”
“The 12 hour format will allow Jack to jump on a plane… Except we’re not going anywhere now”
And now…
“Howard told me he had an idea for 12 episodes… Howard had an idea for 1 episode and made it up as he went along”
At this rate LAD will be an even worse way to close out 24 than 8 was. I suggest they play the usual conspirator/recording/loose end trainwreck they’re so good at for these last 4 and then piss off for good this time. What an utterly clueless Cunch of bunts these people are… Liars too. That includes
Kiefer with his constant upspeak “I think Jack is a little darker? This time around? “
XAM
May 5, 2014 at 9:47 am24marathonman
May 5, 2014 at 7:23 am24 Spoilers
May 5, 2014 at 10:37 amBrad
May 5, 2014 at 8:32 amDave
May 5, 2014 at 9:26 amof the California Presidential primary.
WouldntYouLikeToKnow
May 5, 2014 at 11:52 amTJ
May 5, 2014 at 9:48 amAs for Kiefer’s admission of “being done” after this arc, as much as I hate to read it, at least that’s a frank and honest acknowledgement of reality, given his age. I just wish he hadn’t admitted it before the season kicks off – it would have been better at the end of the 12 episodes so we don’t have it running through our minds as we watch the season that each show is part of Kiefer’s “farewell tour”.
Pat Hatt
May 5, 2014 at 10:01 amThe one that always pissed me off is after season 7 they said it would pick right up the next day, or close to it, then we got season 8 and we were all told how the cabal was beaten because of Renee’s outlook, riiigght, stupid, pffft. I never trust a word the comes from their yaps.
Kiefer is just angling for more money to come back again, that is all. Just wait.
Be fun though if some random person threw a bag over jack’s head and took him back to L.A. then that person turned out to be Almeida lol heck they don’t know where they are going anyway, may as well just do something ridiculous.
Shaun Clark
May 5, 2014 at 10:09 amBloody hell, some people can’t be pleased. give them a chance and see how this new series unfolds before making horrible comments on the producers, you never know, this new series might be brilliant and Kiefer Sutherland could return for another new series if Jack doesn’t get killed of in the series final but not holding much up sine Kiefer stated this season is the final one ever.
24fan
May 5, 2014 at 11:00 amPat
May 5, 2014 at 11:46 am24fan
May 5, 2014 at 2:07 pmShaun Clark
May 5, 2014 at 11:13 amOn the homepage the clock states 3 hours to go before the season premiere, well how can this be the case when us in the uk get to watch it at 1am on Sky1, same time as the US broadcast. how can that be?
Is the clock wrong? by the way, not watching it at 1am, I am watching it at 9pm on Wednesday on Sky1 :) to late at 1am as I am in bed by then lol.
24 Spoilers
May 5, 2014 at 12:16 pmSo the countdown is inaccurate if you’re not in America (as UK time is five hours ahead of US). I don’t have separate countdowns for UK, France, etc but I’ll look into doing that in future weeks.
Shaun Clark
May 5, 2014 at 12:31 pm24 Spoilers
May 5, 2014 at 12:53 pmBasically… 8:00pm in US = 1:00am in UK.
Catherine
May 5, 2014 at 12:40 pmBesides Kiefer is pretty stupid : 24 had revived his carrer. What did he play before 24 ? 2 or 3 successful movies…and a lot of rubbish ones! and after 24? supporting roles in auteur films almost nobody have seen (Melancholia, the Reluctant fundamentalist) and Pompeii, a pop corn movie that made a flop. He did a play in Broadway, I’ve seen it, very good but not a big hit too…And I almost forget Touch, that cheesy show.
He’s famous only for 24 and he wants to stop ?
At 47, he could do another season at least, Harrison Ford was 65 when he did the last Indiana Jones…
I can understand he’s fed up with Jack Bauer..but age isn’t an the good argument
Or does he want Fox to pay him much more ? (I’ve read his fee is less than it was in previous seasons)
Jack
May 5, 2014 at 3:08 pmI did feel it was a bit of a downgrade seeing Kiefer in movies such as Pompeii & The Reluctant Fundamentalist. I think this is the only thing Kiefer has that is mainstream & which can rake in the dollars compared with any sub-par tv shows or movies.
Pat
May 5, 2014 at 8:20 pmAnd the Harrison Ford comparison, blah, Indy 4 was a big turd. But if Jack gets like Bruce Willis/McClane in that god awful Die Hard 5, a shark needs to come and eat him.
Shaun Clark
May 5, 2014 at 4:28 pmRoll on 1am on Sky1, I decided to watch it at 1am after all, I am still going to watch it again on Wednesday at 9pm :)
Brad
May 5, 2014 at 4:31 pmHe will not be in it.
XAM
May 5, 2014 at 4:43 pmBrad
May 5, 2014 at 5:37 pmPat
May 5, 2014 at 8:22 pmShaun Clark
May 5, 2014 at 4:37 pmSnooze
May 5, 2014 at 4:39 pmCatherine
May 5, 2014 at 4:37 pm24bauerfan
May 5, 2014 at 6:36 pmI mean, one of the things that gave me hope for the season was the fact that HG had an idea, a SPECIFIC idea of what he wanted to do with the format. Now it just seems like they wrote themselves into a corner like they have done before. The first thing they should have done when they started writing the show over SEVEN months ago was figure out the time plan. I’m still hopeful, and I’ll probably love much of it (even season 8’s last 8-10 episodes were pretty damn good) and I’ll give them all the chances they need, but I’d be lying if I said this didn’t have me concerned.
Brad
May 5, 2014 at 6:55 pm24bauerfan
May 5, 2014 at 7:00 pmBrad
May 5, 2014 at 7:04 pm24bauerfan
May 5, 2014 at 7:22 pmI feel like I’m coming off more judgmental that I really am. It’s just that as a fan when I read stuff like “It seemed like a liberating idea at the time”, it worries me. Because it really underscores how vague HG’s ideas were regarding the 12 episode structure. I mean, what idea did HG have that convinced Kiefer that 12 episodes was the way to go and not a movie or 24 episodes. That’s what worries me because it begins to sound like he really only had an idea for 1 episode and then just made it up as he went along.
Brad
May 5, 2014 at 7:30 pmpaul bonnici
May 6, 2014 at 8:44 am1 Jack and Kate team up,
2 Just say that Jack gets killed by the end of the season the show is renewed what about Kate Morgan becoming the lead character, as she is a younger version of Jack as Kiefer said in an interview { that maybe a wild idea}
3 For all the work Jack has done over the years the President gives Jack a pardon , Kim comes back for the final episode Jack meets his grandson for the first time, the show ends for good
4 there was no real empasis on the Russins hunting Bauer it was just the Americans maybe towards seasons end and into next season he will have to contend with the FSB , he is taken to a prison camp me manages to escape with a few trusted allies
Chlojack
May 6, 2014 at 8:57 amTJ
May 6, 2014 at 9:33 amThe cross-continental flight seems too convenient a way for the writers to back them out of the corner they’ve put themselves into with only 4 episodes left and 16 hours to cover. And, if they really are viewing this season as a one-shot return with no idea of future seasons, then it seems like a poetic and pragmatic concept to get Jack back home in some form.
Catherine
May 6, 2014 at 2:52 pmBut now, they have to find a better idea, and I don’t think killing Jack is a good idea, too predictable, too commonplace…
Pat
May 6, 2014 at 6:58 pm