24: Legacy Episode 12 Rebecca Ingram and Eric Carter
24: Legacy Episode 12 Rebecca Ingram and Eric Carter

Decision on 24: Legacy’s fate might be postponed

This is the time of year that television networks figure out their schedule for the next season, which involves doing some Spring cleaning and killing dozens of under-performing series to make room for new ones.

So far, Fox has gotten rid of five one-hour dramas (APB, Bones, Pitch, Rosewood, Sleepy Hollow) and picked up three new ones to replace them (The Gifted, The Orville, The Resident). According to Deadline, Fox is expected to announce a 13 episode straight-to-series order for a new midseason drama from Ryan Murphy on Monday, so that would be four.

At this point, Fox has decided on almost their entire lineup, with just a few existing shows (Legacy, The Exorcist, Scream Queens) and two pilots still awaiting their fate. One of those pilots comes from Legacy writer and producer Nikki Toscano. Update: Fox just renewed The Exorcist which means yet another hour on their schedule is accounted for, and this decreases the chance of a 24 renewal even further. 

As for what the reputable sites are saying, TVLine believes Legacy is “a long-shot” while Deadline refers to it as a “tossup.” And Entertainment Weekly’s James Hibberd is hearing the decision is so tough that it might not be made in time for Fox’s Upfront Presentation on May 15th.

But why the holdup? Legacy finished airing nearly a month ago, so Fox already has all of the data they need to make an informed decision. They’ve had plenty of time to analyze ratings and crunch the numbers, and the writers have already pitched a second season to them. Fox also owns the “24” franchise, so it’s not like they have to negotiate with an external studio.

The only reason such a delay would make sense is if Fox wanted a massive creative overhaul (likely another reboot) that would require additional time to figure out. Hibberd addressed this in a followup tweet:

But the longer this takes to figure out, the less likely there will be room on the schedule for it. If the show does get picked up, it might have to air during the Summer months.

This is a very fluid situation – things change quickly and a decision can be made literally any minute. Even if no decision is made by Monday, we’ll probably get some kind of update on the show. But if we don’t hear anything, the next most likely date would be FOX’s TCA Summer 2017 Press Tour on Tuesday August 8th.

And for those wondering, Kiefer Sutherland’s new series Designated Survivor was renewed for a second season by ABC, so there’s absolutely no chance of Jack Bauer returning to 24 any time soon.

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TV Grim Reaper tweeted the announcement may come today:

https://twitter.com/TVGrimReaper/status/862668809483591680

On second rewatch… correction, on second attempted rewatch I wasn’t that impressed. If 24 is to have a fighting chance, get rid of…

1. The cast
2. Evan, Manny and Hogo

I don’t really have an issue with them as writers, but perhaps Evan and Manny are not the greatest fit as showrunners. So much of 24: Legacy felt wishy washy and unsure of itself, there wasn’t a strong cohesive vision.

If you replace “Evan and Manny” with Howard Gordon and “24: Legacy” with Day 6 in the above post, it sounds like a re-run of past events, does it not? Wishy-washy? Unsure of itself? No cohesive vision? We’ve been here before… except that HoGo had the extraordinary Day 5 under his belt as showrunner (although I suspect Joel Surnow was still a greater influence in that season than many think, even if HoGo was the official showrunner) before the train came off the tracks for 6… Coto/Katz had no such cache to their credit when Legacy finished it’s run.

I’ve been saying this for a couple weeks now… Evan and Manny are good writers but perhaps not natural showrunners… not every musician, however good and talented, can be a great producer and not every actor, again however talented, can be a great director.

If/when Legacy is given the chop, I would suggest to the powers-that-be they let ’24’ rest for a couple years… let the dust settle, the smoke to clear, to let the audience at large miss the show again, and see if Kiefer continues with his current show for a while, but whilst that’s happening, explore if there’s a will or creative spark for a ’24’ movie with Kiefer (and Joel Surnow as co-writer/producer hopefully) coming back one last time… could any of the two or three unused ’24’ movie scripts be re-written and re-purposed for and as a new installment perhaps?

If it doesn’t happen (again), so be it, but it would be nice to have at least a back-up plan in place…

Exorcist just got renewed….bad sign….

Yeah, that’s another hour of Fox’s schedule that is accounted for now. Doesn’t bode well for 24.

The 24 Legacy experiment was a complete bust. This is a good cast of characters but it would have been more fun if perhaps the characters “phoned in” and had charters interact with the original cast. For example, Karen Hayes could have been answering a phone call in Washington DC as a 30 second cameo.

My prediction is that 24 Legacy will soon be synonymous with Chris Gaines. Either canceled or drops off the radar.

Yeah! Totally! 30 seconds of Karen Hayes! That’s what this season was missing!

24 Legacy will be renewed because of THE Almeida and Sidra

You could have Tom Hanks in there along with Scarlett Johansson and it won’t make a damn bit of difference with lousy writing. The show sucked and you had actors like Carlos Benard and Kiefer pitching it like it was the next best thing. It fucking sucked and hopefully it is canceled – big league.

I think Fox executives and the Walden/Newman crew are hesitating because they are embarrassed to admit how big of a bomb this was.

It’s just delaying the inevitable.

I suspect they will release a statement saying something very vague like “legacy will not return in its current form with the current cast next year but don’t count out another limited event series and/or ‘reboot'” along with something like “24 could come back at some point in the future but there are no plans currently for another installment at this time”.

Wonder if the renewal decision is a creative issue as much as a ratings issue. I don’t think Fox would renew unless the writers come up with something really good that can sustain an entire season.

Fans should be very sad if 24: Legacy is “one and done”.

No fucks given. I’m a 24 fan, not a 24:Legacy fan.

Nor a 24: Live Another Day fan for that matter.

Maybe they should do a 6 week season run with 2 hour episodes a week.
The best way to view 24 is binge-watching.
2 hour nights within a short time frame is much better than a 12 week upkeep.
Immersion is key.

I’m guessing Tony Almeida will be the main character with Eric Carter partnering up with him as co-star.
Look at the ratings chart for Legacy: Viewership shot up when Tony Almeida made his debut.

I really enjoyed Legacy and that’s how it should have been (if it was going to be a new cast doing the same shit the old cast did): character-focused and intimate.

I don’t care either way if it’s renewed or not.
The series should have ended with Jack Bauer in Live Another Day, which was a very appropriate ending for Jack.
I like series to end and not be elongated beyond what it should be.

24 should be remade as a science-fiction or comedy; totally separate from the current 24 universe.
I hated that they’re continuing CTU and political BS and making everything a copy of what came before.
But despite that fact, I really enjoyed Legacy and will look forward to another season.

I think they’ll cancel and we’ll just have to wait again for 3-4 years until we see it come back. Which is EXTREMELY frustrating.

Legacy bombed. Why? It was a compressed version of 24. All twists and turned seemed forced and lacked creativity.

I read someone who said they think that Jacks ending in LAD is justified. And I tend to agree.

This could be the end guys. Let’s face it.

Just make another 24 season centering on Tony with a lot of returning chracters, that would work out fine!

Right now, Tony, although loved, is not a good guy, and doesn’t have the “moral compass” that Jack had. He could not carry the show unless he was somehow rehabilitated with the moral drive and passion that made Jack heroic. Tony reacts too personally, and goes bad when he loses his wife. Jack kept being heroic even when he lost his.
I don’t think we know who Eric is at all, and mostly didn’t see him be heroic. There is a hero vacuum, that only Jack has filled so far.

Jack was almost as bad as Tony after Renee’s death in Day 8.

No, he didn’t sell out the country or his friends, and he didn’t kill innocents. All those people in the department store were agents. And all the Russians , besides murdering Renee, had conspired to put a nuclear device in New York City.

Tony killed the head of the FBI (Moss) and would have killed Jack, and also brought down an airliner.

In fairness, Tony did not bring down an airliner.

As far as I remember, he caused it to happen–he got that device for Dubaku

Well, technically, you could then blame Chloe O’Brian and Bill Buchanan as well. They were working closely with Tony when he was undercover tracking the CIP device. It’s impossible to know what may or may not have happened had Jack not intervened and apprehended Tony.

He killed Novakovich’s bodyguards. There is no indication that they involved in any of this other than doing their job, they don’t deserve to be killed.

He was absolutely hell bent on killing Suvarov too before Chloe talked him down. That would have caused more innocent deaths than Tony ever committed. This doesn’t absolve either Jack or Tony. It just makes them interesting characters.

I think these are all well-taken points. However, Subarov directly ordered Renee’s death. And Russians were responsible for the department store massacre, really. And those were a Russian hit team.
And Dana certainly wasn’t innocent.
Tony was an interesting character who I think they let go too far down the rabbit hole. He is honest that he joined Emerson because he needed connection, and deliberately did bad things with them. The way he surfaced in Legacy as a mercenary does not help. I see him as much less morally driven than Jack.

Despite the unevenness of 24: Legacy, (loved the pilot) then wavered… I really think it deserves a second chance. Corey Hawkins is a capable lead… and it’s too bad the creative team didn’t go balls to the wall on sociological, psychological, and action… so many different angles they could have gone for…. but didn’t tackle it.

I just want a 24/X-Files crossover!!

24 Spoilers I am curious to know what is your personal thoughts on what fox networks should do here? renew or cancel it?

Legacy certainly doesn’t deserve a second season in my view. It might barely scrape by with a renewal simply because the 0.8 rating for Legacy is a slightly higher number than (the now cancelled) APB’s 0.6 or whatever. But from a creative standpoint, this season was a dumpster fire.

Nothing about 24 Legacy worked. The storylines were bad, but worst of all, they failed to create even a single compelling new character. So I’m not really interested in seeing this iteration of the show continue. I’d still watch it out of obligation, not out of genuine interest or excitement.

But a complete start-from-scratch reboot… maybe that would be more intriguing? The writers would need to really take their time and get things right, try their hardest to give the show a fresh new feel. Listen to all the feedback and maybe bring in a new showrunner (or beg Joel Surnow) to lead the charge. Basically do the complete opposite of Legacy. Even this idea I’m lukewarm on though, because the rotating door of cast members is getting really tiresome. It’s hard to become attached to any of these new characters when you know they won’t stick around long.

Unfortunately, I have zero faith in this writing team right now They seem completely out of touch with the audience, especially after reading those post-finale interviews. Whatever their next move is, they need to be extremely careful, because the 24 franchise might never recover if they do two bad seasons in a row.

I think the smartest move would be to just let the series rest for a couple years, and then do one final season with Jack, Chloe, Tony.

I reckon the smartest move (for the good of the show) would be to sell the rights to someone like Netflix. I bet they’d at least try to do something interesting with the formula.

Netflix would be the ideal scenario for sure. Binge watching this show would be amazing. No ad breaks, each episode could be a full 60 minutes, no limitations on language or violence like there is on broadcast. Netflix shows also seem to have insane budgets and total creative freedom too.

I just don’t think Fox would ever sell the rights though.

Thank you for insights. So you don’t believe there’s ANY chance the show can be successful or redeemed with this same cast? I didn’t like any of the characters either, but maybe they could be improved next year.

If it gets cancel though I won’t be sad, it just wasn’t good enough to care about or to help fight for.

I’m glad Justin has been keeping himself busy since getting banned from commenting here…who’d’ve thought he’d get featured in an article though? :P

Haha. I don’t even really consider Justin banned since he’s just been sending all his comments as emails to me instead :P

You. Are. Kidding. Me!

Why isn’t the gold bar along the left rim of your posts anymore?

The .css file was updated in the last 2-3 days and your browser probably has it cached. Try doing a hard refresh (usually ctrl + F5 if you’re on a PC) or refreshing this page a couple of times and you should see it.

24 Legacy will be renewed and 24 Legacy will be renewed because of THE Almeida!

Having a stroke? :D

24 Legacy will probably renewed because Fox has a lot of shows with low ratings and I hope that in 24 Legacy season 2 THE Almeida, Chloe O’brain and Kate Morgan will be in the main cast and they can rescue Jack Bauer from Russia in the final two episode ( because of Designated Survivor Kiefer can only do a cameo in 24 Legacy for 2 episodes. )

I tend to agree here. Just hope the writing improves by 100%.

I’d go with a mini-series event to end 24 once and for all. Possibly 12 episodes, maybe less.

I think a pretty good twist would be to see the gang try and rescue Jack from Russia to find he is not in prison but has escaped deep into Siberia somewhere and gone relcluse.

Tony remembers a hideout/meeting place from when they worked together and they eventually find him.

Russians secretly follow the gang so that they can apprehend Jack.

And it becomes a chase to the finish line where the US government are waiting to pick them all up at the border (with Kim waiting) and at the end….Tony sacrifices himself to save Jack who has already been injured/shot but is looked after by the paramedics (similar to the end of season 2) with Kim and family watching over him. THE END

24 Legacy will probably be renewed because of THE Almeida and because Carlos Bernard is looking for work and 24 Legacy season 2 is steady work for THE Almeida

Has anyone done the math and seen how much screen-time Tony/Carlos Bernard actually got? 30 mins?

Tony’s character is a wild card and seriously flawed in many respects. I don’t think that Carlos Bernard has ever had his own TV show, and sure, Tony has his die hard fans, but I think these are fringe enthusiasts and don’t represent the wide audience.

I thought when 24 was coming back, they were going to do the T3 thing and give Yvonne Strahovski the main role. Somebody above said that 24 Legacy was a dumpster fire, they couldn’t have been more correct. I would imagine that the only way to salvage this POS is let this ferment for a while, bring back a safe core of 5-6 characters, including Chloe, Kate Morgan, Charles Logan, and yes, cameos by Jack and Tony. Heck, bring Eric into the mix, but not as the main character. Some of the writing was fresh and had a 24 feel to it. Eric getting arrested in E2 or E3 was a brilliant twist on the gas station/highway pursuit chronology in S4. But despite all the other crappy writing, Eric kept having to get “saved by the bell” by his wife, CTU, ect… Eric just seemed to always be the luckiest son of a bitch in the world and no actual heroics or craftiness.

If the show does get renewed they have to do a show about Jack without having Kiefer in it. I am starting to like the idea of having the backdrop be “the search and rescue of Jack”.

This would require them to bring back a number of the original core characters that are still alive from the first few seasons to work well.

Kim, Tony, Chloe, Pierce, and Novick would be a good base cast to start with. Would love to see Mandy too and maybe Kieth Palmer as a Congressman following in his fathers footsteps.

24 Legacy will be renewed. There’s no reason to cancel. Because canceling 24 Legacy means canceling THE Carlos Bernard and canceling THE Almeida and that’s NOT gunna happen!

24 spoilers please ban this crazy Andy fucked up troll… what the hell is he talking about …

ha ha but what if it’s actually Carlos Bernard?

what i’m talking about is if 24 Legacy is canceled that means THE Almeida is canceled and it means Carlos Bernard will be looking for work and that’s NOT cool and that’s NOT gunna happen!