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| Mad as Hell. Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) in 24. All images: FOX. |
And so the 24 series clock ticks towards the final two hours of revenge fuelled action for Jack Bauer tonight on SKY ONE and HD. It's been a thrilling ride since the season picked up in story quality around the episode nine mark, and we're really going to miss JB after tonight (the sooner that 24 movie comes out the better, I say!!). We'll be providing a full season review later in the week, but for the moment, KOOL TV, in celebration of the mighty hero of CTU, who's saved the world so many times the heads of state have probably run out of medals to give him, and a show which changed the storytelling rules back in 2001, thought we'd look back at our favourite scenes/action moments with the character from the previous seven seasons.
Here we go...
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| 24's first major league villain: the ruthless Victor Drazen (Dennis Hopper) in Season One. |
DAY 1. Believing his daughter Kim (Elisha Cuthbert) dead after numerous kidnappings, Jack takes on Victor Drazen (Dennis Hopper) and his family in the ultimate gun battle on a Los Angeles pier/harbour-its a spectacular sequence and feels totally cinematic. Then there's the shock that Nina Myers, Jack's lover, has been a Russian agent all along and kills a pregnant Terri Bauer in her escape bid from CTU. Jack will have his revenge.
Original FOX trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alFlZDwAkI4
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| Loyal friends to the end: Jack and President David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) |
DAY 2. The opening hour sees Jack's return to CTU where, almost immediately, he's killed someone and is cutting them up with a hacksaw!! He later tortures terrorist Syed Ali to find the location of the baddies lair but fails, so he resorts to killing the captured terrorists family on live TV!! Jack gets the information he wants but it all turns out to be a faked event and no one was killed. Later, Jack takes on an elite US assault team, code named Coral Snake, in the Los Angeles Stadium, and there's a spectacular one on one fight with one of its team members. Oh, and lets not forget that incredible helicopter attack scene on the British MI5 headquarters, either. A special note in this episode for George Mason (Xander Berkeley) who, dying of radiation poisoning, detonates the terrorist bomb in the Nevada desert!! We salute your heroism!
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTE3JJLgulc
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTE3JJLgulc
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| Jack and his captured ex-flame, and wife killer, Nina (Sarah Clarke) in Season Three. |
DAY 3. On the re-bound from drug addiction, Jack has no choice but to break Mexican crime lord Hector Salazar (Joaquim de Almedia) out of prison to stop a chemical weapons attack on the US, but the event happens in a downtown posh Los Angeles hotel anyway. Jack catches up with Nina for the second, and final time, and promptly blows her away when she no longer has any information that's useful to him. And spare a thought for Jack's poor CTU partner, the reliable Chase Edmonds (THE PACIFIC's James Badge Dale)-his hand attached to a bomb, Jack has no choice but amputate him before it detonates!! It had nothing to do with the fact that Jack was angry with him because he was going out with Kim! Cross my heart!!
Season trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh9Eeq63ZKg
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| CTU's Chloe O'Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub) gets bad-ass in Season Four! |
DAY 4. Jack's one man assault on the terrorists holding his new girlfriend, Audrey Raines (Kim Raver), and father-in law-to-be James Heller (William Devane) is pretty awesome, then there's the unstoppable death of President Keeler, and then the raid on the Chinese embassy that goes horribly wrong and lands both Jack and ex-President David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) in trouble. Special note to CTU operations gal Chloe O'Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub) for her classic moment where she takes on a terrorist sleeper cell all on her own with a sub machine-gun. Girl Power!
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AonJQGYcg6w
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AonJQGYcg6w
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| America's worst nightmare! Charles Logan (Gregory Itzin) confirms his presidency. |
DAY 5. Massacre day, as Jack tries to find the people responsible for the horrific murders of President Palmer, CTU leader Michelle Dessler (LOST's Reiko Aylesworth), and, later on, Tony Almeida (say it isn't so!). A terrific siege sequence in an airport terminal is followed by Jack taking on his old mentor Christopher Henderson (Peter Weller, in a thoroughly cool and calm performance of corrupt and wily villainy) and Russian separatist baddie Vladimir Bierko (Julian Sands) on board a docked nuclear submarine that's ready to fire its payload against Moscow. Oh, and what happens after all that-what thanks does Jack get for his troubles?- why, the Chinese capture him and put in him in a torture prison for nearly two years!! Special mentions to Gregory Itzin as the absolutely loony new president Charles Logan, and to Special Agent Ryan Pierce (Glenn Morshower), for saving Logan's not quite there wife from death in a presidential convoy that comes under attack.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym6a6lwHJDA
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| Daddy Philip Bauer (James Cromwell) takes care of some family business as one of the new baddies of Season Six. |
DAY 6. Where to start!! Jack, back from China after twenty months of torture, sees Los Angeles nuked in front of his eyes, has to take out a baddie covered in explosives on a subway, then has to fight his brother and father (James Cromwell) when their role in the terrorist attack is exposed, is later forced to attack the Russian Embassy (housing an excellent guest star in FRINGE's John Noble) and has to taken on the Chinese once more. Oh, and never go on to an oil rig with Jack Bauer. You might not get off it alive. Note: whatever happened to David Palmer's brother, Wayne (played by MURDER ONE's D.B. Woodside), who was also President? Suffering brain damage he leaves the story near the conclusion, replaced by the grim Powers Boothe as Noah Daniels, and is never heard from again!!
DVD trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4HbisYJkB0
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| Old CTU friend Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard) goes bad in Season Seven. |
DAY 7. All change! We're now in Washington DC and Jack, on trial after previously escaping to Africa (and pretty much causing a rumble in the jungle there in the TV movie REDEMPTION), is back in action to help stop terrorist leader Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard) destroying civilian airplanes. Then comes the real threat, as vicious African leader Benjamin Juma (an excellent Tony Todd) enters US soil and stages a daring attack on the White House and President Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones), an action extravaganza where ex- CTU boss Bill Buchanan (James Morrison) pays the ultimate sacrifice (God bless your bravery, sir!) and Jack fights back. Jon Voight's creepy over-acting then comes into play as a corrupt security company boss Jonas Hodges and Tony really does turns out to be a baddie after all. Cue big firefight, FBI agent Renee Walker (Annie Wersching) shooting things up left, right and centre, and Jack, foiling a new missile attack, contracting a deadly radiation disease that only super daughter Kim can help cure with her genetic tissue.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxCY59vsPPY
Phew, after all that (and there's still so many more great scenes and characters I haven't mentioned) I'm totally exhausted! I don't know how Jack does it!
All eight seasons of 24 are available on DVD, whilst Seasons Seven and Eight are also on high definition Blu-ray from FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT.
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