24 - Seen it yet?

I'm one of those people who is perpetually in motion, so stopping once a week to take in 42 minutes of prime-time TV and 18 minutes of commercials isn't something I tap in to my Palm Pilot.

But I kept hearing such great things about Kiefer Sutherland's series 24, that I rented the six-disk DVD set (bonus: no commercials!). In fact, the show got three Golden Globe nominations, so how bad could it be?

The verdict? Way cool. Mostly.

Jack Bauer (Sutherland), head of the Los Angeles Counter Terrorist Unit, is having, in his words, the longest day of his life. The action begins at midnight in California. Each episode is one hour of a 24-hour period in which Bauer juggles an investigation of an assassination threat on a presidential candidate, searches for his missing wife and daughter, uncovers various moles within his own organization, and fights the chain of command that keeps trying to hold him accountable for calamities - without having all of the facts.

The pace is great, especially towards the beginning of the season. Sutherland is a convincing government agent, family man, and stress junkie. I'll never whine that I'm having a bad day again...

So what else is cool about it? How about the split screens (think Timecode without multiple dialogues) that emphasize the parallel timing of the scenes? Or the many clocks (some obvious, some not) ticking time off throughout each episode? Or how about multiple camera angles shown simultaneously of the same scene?

One of the really awesome aspects is how Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran (they also did La Femme Nikita) exploit the quandary Agent Bauer faces. Does he concentrate on the situation of his missing family or protect his country's interests? What would you do?

A few problems surfaced as well. I find it highly unlikely that one can come along halfway through and catch up on everything that's happened already. The complications start early, coiling and uncoiling around each other - it's like a nest of Slinkys. And that may be why ratings dropped as the season went on. This isn't the Sopranos (the only series I have ever, in my adult life, made a point not to miss). You can't possibly wait a week for the next episode because the writers leave each one hanging in a highly charged moment. Bill Chambers of Film Freak Central said, "24 is televised crack, after all, a show so addictive the FDA should've intervened at some point during its production."

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