24 Season 8 episode 22 with Jack Bauer (or Darth Bauer/Iron Jack as fans called him) donning black body armor and kidnapping Charles Logan made the list of TV.com’s year end top 100 moments of 2010 list. It came in at a very nice 20th place.
20. Jack Bauer’s assault on Logan’s motorcade
24‘s final season provided one of the most OMG moments of the series when one-man wrecking crew Jack Bauer, outfitted in the sweetest black assault leotard ever, went ballistic on Charles Logan’s vehicle procession.
The 24 series finale came in at number six on TV Guide’s “Best episodes of 2010″ list, beating out the Lost series finale (which came in eighth place) among others. Here’s what they had to say:
6. “Day 8: 3:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m.,” 24
24‘s final hour ended on a complicated note — President Taylor realized the grave error of her ways, while Charles Logan went down for good. But it was Jack, hurt, spent and forced to go on the run, whose predicament was both familiar and bittersweet for those fans wanting closure. His tearful goodbye with Chloe — appropriately via video screen — broke our hearts.
Jack’s final call to Chloe O’Brian in the 24 Series Finale made TV Guide’s #14 unforgettable TV moment of 2010. “For a year that had a lot of big finales, that was definitely one of the best ones,” said entertainment journalist Jim Halterman. “It perfectly tied up the series and of course left it open for the movie.”
The 24 Season 8 DVD has sold 178,830 copies and grossed $6,716,855 dollars in its first week on sale (December 14-19).
That’s quite a large drop from last years 24 Season 7′s DVD debut which sold 275,000 copies during its first week on store shelves and became the second highest-grossing TV DVD of 2009 (behind HBO’s True Blood) after eleven weeks on sale.
Reviewers have criticized the 24 Season 8 DVD for its dissapointing lack of extras – zero audio commentaries, no bloopers, and just two special features. The “Chloe’s Arrest” epilogue was also excluded from the US standalone DVD set despite being available on the DVD in every other regions release.
Here’s how sales stack up compared to the last few seasons: [click to continue…]
The Los Angeles Times has listed Renee Walker as one of the ten beloved television characters who passed away in 2010 which will be missed. I can definitely agree with this one!
Here’s what they say:
Renee (Annie Wersching on “24″). Jack Bauer finally gets to have sex and minutes later his girlfriend is shot by a sniper. Man, it sucks to be Jack.
Blu-Ray.com has reviewed the 24 Season 8 Blu-Ray set giving it high marks for the audio and video quality while dinging it for the lack of extras. If you’re one of those video and audiophile types that want to know all the specific technical details of the transfer, this is the review you want to read.
If you’re a longtime 24 follower, you owe it to yourself to see the series to its completion. Season 8 may not be as groundbreaking or intense as the show’s first few seasons—really, how could it be?—but it’s still damn good television. This is a satisfying Blu-ray release as well. Minor compression issues aside, the high definition image is a pleasure to watch, and the show’s frequently bombastic sound design is given the full lossless audio treatment. Certainly worth a purchase for fans.
Here’s the special feature “Presidents, Friends and Villains” found on the 24 Complete Series bonus disc, the second segment of the “Eight Days” feature. This feature runs just under 5 minutes and shows a lot of the big 24 characters and their defining moments.
As requested, here’s the special feature “Goodbye” found on the 24 Complete Series box set bonus disc. This eight-minute video shows you the final scene filmed on 24 between Kiefer Sutherland and Mary Lynn Rajskub along with some emotional cast and crew interviews.
24 Season 8 Blu-Ray, DVD, and Complete Series box set
The picture quality is excellent on both the Blu-Ray and DVD and presentation is really nice as usual, with fancy animated menus playing brief scenes from the episodes on that disc. Unfortunately if you’re a first time viewer these fancy menu backgrounds may spoil certain key moments (such as Kayla’s kidnapping) for you before you get to see them unfold in the episode.
I’m not going to bother reviewing the plot of Season 8 since I assume most people reading this have already watched, so I’ll mostly focus on the extras in this review. For the final season of such a monumental television series like 24 you would expect them to go all out and produce a fantastic DVD with tons of extras celebrating the series long run. Unfortunately that isn’t the case and this ends up being the weakest 24 DVD release yet.
There was a question mark hanging over Season 8 for a long time, as to whether it would be the last year of the show. When the decision was made, do you feel you were given sufficient warning to make your peace with it?
Yes and no. We all kind of knew, we all felt it coming. We felt it the year before it happened. And the only thing that I can complain about is they waited and waited and waited to let the crew and everybody know. It was just that feeling of, O.K., come on, just tell us. Because it was really down to the wire. On the other hand, from the little that I heard on the business side of it, I think it was something they were grappling with down to the wire. It’s a strange thing. In some ways, you’re like, why couldn’t they make this work? This show could go on forever. But then, on the other hand, it’s like, we’ve had our time and why push it farther? Let’s make the ending work the best that it can.
Here’s the full “Chloe’s Arrest” epilogue found on the 24 Season 8 Blu-Ray and the Complete Series bonus disc (not the standalone DVD release unfortunately). It was written by Howard Gordon, directed by Michael Klick, and features Mary Lynn Rajskub and Carlo Rota as Chloe and Morris O’Brian. Runs about three minutes long.
The Ultimate CTU is a special feature found on disk 6 of the 24 Season 8 DVD.
Production designer Carlos Barbosa, art director Carlos Osorio, construction coordinator Philip Stone, Olivier Benamou who creates the computer graphics, and showrunner Howard Gordon describe the new CTU New York.
Virtually New York special feature found on disk 6 of the 24 Season 8 DVD.
Director Brad Turner, showrunner Howard Gordon, Director of Photography Rodney Charters, producer Paul Gadd, and visual effects supervisors Sam Nicholson, Eddie Bonin, James Riley, digital compositing supervisor Chris Martin, and CGI supervisor Al Lopez describe how they faked New York with creative use of green screens and CG technology.
The people have spoken: 24 is the best series finale as voted on by TV.com readers, beating out both Lost and Heroes, two other long-running dramas.
Back when I first posted about this last month it was winning with nearly half of the votes. A well-deserved win – great ending to a fantastic series. Long live 24!
