Remember last year when 24 had a panel at Comic-Con? Those were the good ol’ days. Anyway, here’s video of the Comic-Con panel Q&A session for NBC’s new TV series The Event which is getting a lot of buzz. 24 fans should keep an eye out on this show which seems to have a very similar vibe (and the same time slot – Mondays at 9PM starting on September 20th).

24 veteran Evan Katz (writer seasons 2-8) is the showrunner of The Event and several familiar faces appear in the first episode including Željko Ivanek (who played Andre Drazen on 24) and Tony Todd (General Juma). Here’s the brief Q&A which has one or two references to the show (Jason Ritter is called the new Jack Bauer, etc).

Video Link: The Event Panel Comic-Con 2010

Kiefer Sutherland has won E! Online’s “Star You’ll Miss the Most” award by an absolute landslide, gathering nearly 40% of the vote.

STAR YOU’LL MISS THE MOST

Winner: Kiefer Sutherland (39.7%)
Terry O’Quinn (15.3%)
Jonathan Groff (14.8%)
America Ferrera (12.0%)
Simon Cowell (10.9%)
Zachary Quinto (7.2%)

Source: Tater Top Awards 2010 Winners

Before the new TV season starts I plan to write a post detailing where all the 24 cast and crew have wound up and which projects they are attached to. For now, word comes that Greg Itzin has joined HBO’s Big Love series in a major role:

With casting coups like this, Big Love is well on its way to making up for a lackluster season 4: Legendary (and twice Emmy-nominated) 24 villain Gregory Itzin has signed up for a major recurring gig on season 5 of HBO’s Big Love, sources confirm to me exclusively.

Itzin will play Senator Richard Dwyer, the Republican Majority Leader of the Utah State Senate — of which Bill (Bill Paxton) is now a member.

Production on Big Love‘s fifth season is scheduled to get underway this week.

Itzin will also be guest-starring on USA Network’s Covert Affairs.

Source: EW.com Ausiello

24 has received five Emmy nominations for its final season, bringing it’s total nominations to 68 across the entire series run. Unfortunately no nominations were given to Kiefer Sutherland or Annie Wersching (both gave incredible performances), nor was 24 nominated for best drama.

Outstanding Guest Actor In A Drama Series
24 • 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM (Episode 22)
Gregory Itzin as President Charles Logan

Outstanding Stunt Coordination
24 • 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM (Episode 3)
Jeff David Cadiente, Stunt Coordinator

Outstanding Music Composition For A Series (Original Dramatic Score)
24 • 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Episode 24/Series Finale)
Sean P. Callery, Music by

Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Comedy Or Drama Series (One
Hour)
24 • 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Episode 24/Series Finale)
William F. Gocke, C.A.S., Production Mixer
Michael Olman, C.A.S., Supervising Re-Recording Mixer
Kenneth Kobett, C.A.S., Supervising Re-Recording Mixer
Larold Rebhun, Music Mixer

Outstanding Sound Editing For A Series
24 • 4:00 AM – 5:00 AM (Episode 13)
William D. Dotson, Supervising Sound Editor
Catherine M. Speakman, Supervising ADR/DX Editor
Pembrooke Andrews, Sound Editor
Jeffrey Whitcher, Sound Editor
Shawn Kennelly, Sound Editor
Daryl Fontenault, Sound Editor
Melissa Kennelly, Sound Editor
Jeffrey Charboneau, Music Editor
Laura Macias, Foley Artist
Vincent Nicastro, Foley Artist

One of my favorite scenes in the 24 series has made Entertainment Weekly’s “20 of the Most Disturbing TV Scenes Ever” list at number 18 of 21.

JACK KEEPS HIS HEAD AND TAKES SOMEONE ELSE’S
Jack Bauer has always espoused an ends-justify-the-means philosophy but we really didn’t start to get it until that second season when he executed lowlife Marshall Green and decapitated his corpse to help establish cred. Heroic? Not so much. Just disturbing. —Abby West

Source: Entertainment Weekly – 20 of the Most Disturbing TV Scenes Ever

For the first time in years, Howard Gordon has some time on his hands. Last month, the 49-year-old writer sat down with his family in Los Angeles to watch the very last episode of 24, the television drama he helped mould into one of America’s most successful exports.

Gordon was the driving force behind 24, both as writer and executive producer, for eight years. With its cast of nihilist terrorist networks hell bent on destruction, the show became a global phenomenon.

Kiefer Sutherland’s rugged, all-American hero Jack Bauer helped the show surpass both Mission Impossible and The Avengers as the longest spy-themed TV show, picking up 18 Emmys along the way and beaming into the homes of millions of viewers around the world.

Now Gordon hopes to weave the same sort of magic with a subtler take on America’s so-called “war on terror” with a new TV series based on a popular Israeli drama about prisoners of war.

Gordon has bought the rights to Hahatufim [The Kidnapped], which began broadcasting in Israel earlier this year and tells the story of three soldiers battling to adjust to family life after years in captivity in Lebanon.

“Our version is about a US soldier who is presumed missing in the [2003] Iraq invasion,” the 49-year-old writer told The Independent. “Ten years later he is found in the rubble of a drone strike in Afghanistan. It’s a bit of a Rip Van Winkle story but there’s a female CIA agent who was herself a field agent in Pakistan and Iraq. She comes to believe that this POW has actually been brainwashed and is now the tip of the spear of another big attack on US soil.”

Gordon is currently working on the script with Alex Gansa, an old friend who studied with him at Princeton and began his writing career on The X-Files. The show has a working title of “Homeland” and has yet to have a full pilot commissioned. Fox (which made 24) has, however, provided Gordon with the finance to buy up the rights to Hahatufim.

It was under Gordon’s leadership that 24 became the ultimate adrenaline shot for the post 9/11 generation and an alternate reality for a country terrified by the spectre of international terrorism. The series ran to eight seasons, with the final episode airing in the UK earlier this month. There are rumours of a film in the offing, but otherwise Jack Bauer will not be appearing on our screens again.

Bauer burst on to US screens two months after the al-Qa’ida’s attacks and for eight years served as America’s ultimate fantasy response to global terrorism – an impeccably loyal hero who would stop at nothing to defend his country, even if “nothing” means copious amounts of torture.

Gordon’s new project will tackle similar themes as 24 but will, he hopes, be a more nuanced product. He is keen to keep the war-on-terror theme, but combine it with a less frantic pace into something that might sit comfortably between 24 and more novelistic dramas such as HBO’s The Wire.

“24 was full of testosterone,” he said. “We often called it a soap opera on crack. Homeland will be different. It is very dense and very slow moving. We have qualified it as being very British when we pitched it.”

But will there still be explosions, 24-esque bomb plots and double- dealing agents? “The Israeli version is really a soft family drama about these guys coming home. Ours is more a thriller. But it is a little bit slower going than 24. It doesn’t have the same tensions and the suspension. It’s very much a post-24 treatment of some of the complex issues surrounding the war on terror.”

It was exactly those issues which made 24 such a runaway success but also contributed to its eventual shelving. Critics of the show – particularly on the American left – accused it of being an apology for the sort of gung-ho foreign policy that was adopted by the Bush administration.

Gordon – a self-described “left-leaning centrist” – has voiced his frustration at the politicisation of his show, which was, after all, meant to be an entertaining rip-roarer for an insecure nation struggling to understand terrorism. But the criticism hasn’t put him off tackling the same subject matter.

“I’m still fascinated by the ongoing debates about at what point do we draw the line between our security and some of the values that we cherish as democracies,” he explains. “These are issues that will be with us for a really long time and I think it’ll create fodder for dramatic material.”

And, in the meantime, there is also his book, The Obelisk, which seems to be almost as prophetic in its timing as 24 was. “It’s an airport thriller set on a deep-sea oil rig,” he said. Does the rig blow up? “It might,” he adds, breaking into a wide smile.

Source: The Independent

Looks like another show to watch – Jon Cassar is one of the best directors out there, and David Fury is a very strong writer. Nice little 24 reunion on this show which sounds pretty interesting. Congrats Jon!

EXCLUSIVE: It will be an even larger 24 reunion on Fox’s upcoming prehistoric drama Terra Nova, which is executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Peter Chernin. Long-time 24 director-executive producer Jon Cassar has joined the 13-episode midseason series as an executive producer and regular series director. He joins fellow 24 executive producers Brandon Braga and David Fury who are executive producing Terra Nova. (Braga also serves as the series’ showrunner). Cassar, who won an Emmy for his directing work on Fox/20th TV/Imagine’s 24 and shared the show’s 2006 best drama series Emmy, will direct multiple episodes of Terra Nova following the pilot episode, which is being helmed by Alex Graves. “This is a huge coup for us,” said Dana Walden, chairman of 20th TV, which is co-producing Terra Nova with DreamWorks TV, Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment and Chernin Entertainment. “Jon is one of the best directors we have ever worked with, and this project is a huge priority for our company.”

Terra Nova, one of the highlights at the Fox upfront presentation, stars Jason O’Mara as a father from 2149 who, along with his family, is transported back 85 million years to prehistoric Earth where they join Terra Nova, a colony of humans with a second chance to build a civilization. For those keeping score, Cassar will be the 11th executive producer on Terra Nova, joining Spielberg, Chernin, Braga, Fury, Kaplan, the pilot’s writers Craig Silverstein and Kelly Marcel, Katherine Pope, Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank.

In addition to Braga and Fury, Cassar also has an existing relationship with with another Terra Nova executive producer, Spielberg, as he was once attached to direct the DreamWorks feature Motorcade but the project was eventually sidelined because of budgetary issues. Paradigm-repped Cassar is currently directing and executive producing all 8 hours of History’s miniseries The Kennedys, working with another 24 alum, Joel Surnow. The cast of the mini includes Greg Kinnear, Katie Holmes, Barry Pepper and Tom Wilkinson.

Source: Deadline.com

Kiefer Sutherland will be on Spike TV’s Guy Choice Awards 10PM tonight – he won the “Biggest Ass Kicker” award. No competition there, Jack Bauer rocks!

Carlos Bernard’s (24‘s Tony Almeida) new comedy series Scoundrels premieres on ABC tonight at 9PM.

It’s followed by Marisol Nichols (24‘s Nadia Yassir, Season 6) new drama series The Gates at 10PM and also on ABC.

Cherry Jones has sent LA Times an email to set the record straight and explain her decision not to submit herself for an Emmy this year. Unlike speculation, it’s not because of any drama with the writers or her storylines. Here’s her full email:

Hey Tom,

Cherry Jones here writing from balmy Manhattan. I wanted to clear up the mystery surrounding my not submitting myself for Emmy consideration.

I love and adore everyone I worked with on “24″ and am actively missing them.

I relished playing poor old Allison Taylor’s descent into Logan Hell. Like all actors on “24″ who realize their characters are being sent to the Dark Side, I resisted at first and then, of course, realized what a seductive playground the Dark Side presents for a dramatic actor.

This job has offered me time with my elderly parents, given me new lifelong friends, a bank account, and the memory of last year’s Emmy night which was one hell of a delicious ride. So honestly it never occurred to me (or my two agents who know me well) to submit me this year. One of the lessons in life is to know when to leave well enough alone and be grateful.

I will however be watching the Emmy’s from New York this year and rooting for all my “24″ team and the other actors I’ve had the pleasure to get to know in Hollywood during my West Coast baptism.

I genuinely appreciate your interest and hope you will find the space to clear up the assumption which was being made….which, as my old movement teacher used to say, was “exactly wrong.”

Thanks so much, Tom.

Warmly,
Cherry

Sent from my iPad

Source: LATimes

Ooh, drama. In a surprising move, Cherry Jones (24‘s President Allison Taylor, who won best supporting actress in a drama last year) has pulled out of the Emmy race and is refusing to comment on the matter.

Jones didn’t seem all that pleased about the direction her character took in the final episodes, telling Entertainment Weekly in an interview last month “President Taylor lost her marbles” and “Each script I got, I’d look at it and go, ‘Really? REALLY?’”.

Despite Taylor’s sudden behavior shift (which was necessary for the final storyline arc to work), I believe Cherry put on a great performance. Cherry certainly had Emmy-quality acting material in 24 Season 8.

Source: LA Times

Remember President Taylor urging Jack to flee for his life in 24‘s series finale? That’s probably just what he’ll do—straight to a movie theater.

“Jack ended in a way like never before—as a fugitive from everyone,” says executive producer Howard Gordon, who envisions Sutherland giving Bruce “Die Hard” Willis and Harrison “The Fugitive” Ford runs for their money. In the film, “Cold War themes bubble up, and it’s fair to say that Jack’s status as a fugitive remains that at the start of the movie.”

The screenplay’s first draft, written by Billy Ray (Shattered Glass, Flightplan) is now in the hands of Sutherland, and a director is expected to be attached shortly. Though all plot details are being guarded more closely than CTU secrets, Gordon says he expects Jack’s Girl Friday Chloe O’Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub) to make an appearance: “There will definitely be some familiar faces. Our idea is to make Jack Bauer someone we can revisit on a regular basis.”

Source: TV Guide

You can bid on 24 series memorabilia at this link. Some of the items for sale include the 24 pilot script, Jack Bauer’s season 8 jacket, Aaron Pierce’s season 5 wardrobe, Nina Myers season 1 outfit, Teri Bauer’s coat, and much more.

You can also get some of Annie Wersching’s event dresses on eBay such as the ones she wore to the 24 Season 7 and 24 Season 8 premieres. I myself love the blue BCBGeneration dress – trust me ladies, men will flock to you like bees on honey if you wear this dress. After Annie wore this dress, she hooked up with Jack Bauer – nuff said.

(CNN) — Dennis Hopper, the one-time Hollywood enfant terrible who portrayed such indelible characters as “Easy Rider’s” biker Billy and “Blue Velvet’s” and huffing villain Frank Booth, died of prostate cancer Saturday morning at his home in Venice, California, his wife said. He was 74.

Hopper, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer last October, was surrounded by his children when he died, his wife, Victoria Hopper. told CNN.

Funeral arrangements have not been decided, but Hopper’s wish was to be buried in Taos, New Mexico, “his heart home,” Victoria Hopper said.

The American film icon made his last public appearance on March 26, 2010, when his star was dedicated on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

Hopper played baddie Victor Drazen in 24‘s first season. He also starred with Kiefer Sutherland in the movies Flashback and The Last Days of Frankie The Fly. RIP.

Source: CNN

This is a great 24 retrospective video made by FOX. You may have seen the first 40 seconds or so on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, but here’s the full eleven minutes.

Nice little introduction by Kiefer Sutherland just before the 24 series finale.

YouTube Link: Kiefer Sutherland Thanks Fans – 24 Series Finale