24: Still Smokin'
by David Hochman January 12, 2010 01:40 PM EST
It happens 15 minutes into the conversation. Kiefer Sutherland, his boots kicked up on a couch, has been talking inside his trailer, on the 24 set, on the outskirts of Los Angeles. He’s making his usual pitch that the new season—the show’s eighth, which begins with a two-night, four-hour premiere on January 17—is “absolutely mind-blowing” and “includes some of the heaviest s--t we’ve ever done.”
Once again, Sutherland’s character, Jack Bauer, will be fighting fictitious terrorists over the course of a single day divided into 24 ridiculously intense episodes. And though there are plenty of changes this time around (the season is set in New York City, and there’s a veritable SWAT team of sexy new cast members), the show will again employ a formula that’s reliably drawn 10 million-plus viewers a week for years, even as other dramas have fizzled and died. As Sutherland puts it in that earnest, whispery voice of his, “Jack Bauer is going to have a bad day. He’s going to face impossible odds and moral dilemmas. And in the end, he’s going to triumph.”
It’s all on message until Sutherland slips a little. He’s comparing 24 to a Rubik’s Cube. “It was this insolvable puzzle,” he says. “Except that one guy down the block knew how to solve it. 24 was like that, too, and Jack Bauer was that guy.”
Was?
After nearly 200 episodes pulsating with bombs, assassination attempts, viruses, nuclear threats, torture, terror and that endlessly ticking clock, is Day 8 finally the last for dear, depleted Jack?
Sutherland smirks at the question. Kicks his boots off the couch.
“Want a soda or something?” he asks, sauntering over to his mini fridge. “Water? Uh, dinner?” Clearly, this answer is going to take a while.
You might as well stick a fork in Jack Bauer at the start of Day 8. He’s done.
“For the first time in a long time, Jack is happy,” says Sutherland. “The season opens with Jack in New York enjoying time with his daughter and granddaughter. He’s human again. He’s essentially retired.”
Which means we get to watch Jack play canasta with the fellas from the Elks Lodge all season long, right? Well, not quite. Jack’s “retirement” lasts less than 20 minutes in Episode 1 before he’s summoned to help President Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones) with a peacekeeping mission that’s gone aput-kay. One of the Middle Eastern potentates with whom the president is negotiating—the dashing President Omar Hassan, played by Anil Kapoor (“Slumdog Millionaire”)—is targeted by factions from his homeland that are opposing the talks. Faster than you can say “bagel and a schmear,” Jack is King Konging it through Midtown.
“By the end of the first episode, Jack is on top of buildings watching helicopters blow up,” says executive producer Howard Gordon. And once again, he’s taking cues from CTU, which has been fabulously upgraded in its new digs beneath Manhattan’s Roosevelt Island.
“New York is the ultimate 24 city,” Gordon says. “It’s moving 24/7. You can get from one end of the city to the other in minutes. And the shadow of 9/11 is implicit.” It was also just a “very invigorating place to shoot,” adds Sutherland, who says every cabbie and construction guy shouted, “Yo, Jack!” wherever he went. Then there were the unwitting pedestrians. “We did a scene where I come around a corner, with a gun drawn, and yell, ‘Guys!’ Three random New Yorkers immediately dropped to the ground. They must have thought, ‘Another thrilling day in Chinatown.’”
Thrilling indeed. In part, that comes from the new locale, but the real heat is between Jack and FBI Agt. Renee Walker (Annie Wersching). Last season, Walker went from being a by-the-book Fed to adopting Jack’s by-whatever-means-necessary tactics. In Day 8, she’s like Rambo on Red Bull. “By the end of the premiere, it’s revealed that she has a dark history with the villains, and she goes into total ruthless mode,” Wersching says. Then she laughs, “Oh, my God, it was so much fun playing the badass!”
Walker’s increasingly Jack-like behavior causes concern, even for Jack, and he remains close by her side to keep her in check. How close? Let’s just say spoiler-alert close: “Right from the beginning, we see something in Jack and Renee’s eyes when they look at each other that wasn’t there last season,” Gordon says, and then dishes way more than we can reveal here. But suffice it to say, sparks will fly, and not just the kind you see on tight curves in the subway. “Romances have always been tough to develop on this show, because it’s a hard push to romance someone you met on the same day,” Sutherland says. “But with Renee and Jack, there’s a shared history from last season.” And come spring, they might be sharing more than just history, if you know what we mean.
CTU is also boom-chicka-boomin’. Against its sexy new backdrop, Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff and Freddie Prinze Jr. (“I Know What You Did Last Summer”) play a pair of hot CTU ops who hit the sheets when they aren’t commandeering drone aircraft from the subterranean bunker. It’s enough to make veteran Chloe O’Brien (Mary Lynn Rasjkub) wretch. Sniffs Rasjkub, “Chloe comes back to CTU after maternity leave and finds this goody-two-shoes alpha dog”—Dana Walsh, played by Sackhoff—“overseeing her at CTU. First time we see Chloe, she’s punching her keyboard.”
Even Jack’s a little out of sorts with the new kids in charge at CTU. Sutherland says, “There’s a great moment of me standing next to Freddie. He’s really young and eager to the point of being a bit threatening, and I’m going, ‘S--t, there’s no way I can outrun this guy.’”
Back on the couch, Sutherland says the first time he thought about life post-24 was near the end of Season 7. “I don’t think we were absolutely sure we were coming back for [Season] 8, and I remember looking around at the crew. Ninety percent of them have been here since the beginning. We’ve had something like 40 babies born on crew since we started. This is our life. This is my family. I got pretty overwhelmed thinking this could end.”
Eight seasons is an eternity in the realm of TV dramas, especially for a show that hinges almost exclusively on one star. Yet, even after all Jack Bauer—and Sutherland—have been through, the actor is as devoted to the show as ever. Later this season, for instance, Jack goes undercover and encounters a German arms dealer who is suspicious of him. “I thought, how cool would it be if Jack opened his mouth and started speaking fluent German?” says Sutherland, who routinely spends 14 hours a day on set during production. “Of course, I don’t speak a word of it, so I forced myself to memorize a complicated German speech phonetically spelled out.” He starts to recite it in what sounds like perfect Deutsche. “I just had to get it down perfectly.”
That sort of unwavering commitment explains why 24 remains a top hit from Peru to Paris and beyond. But it also suggests why Sutherland might be ready to call it quits.
“You don’t want to overstay your welcome or end on a low note,” he says. “I’m aware how rare this success is. We’re among a handful of shows—The West Wing, NYPD Blue, ER—that kept the quality going for years, and you don’t want to blow that.”
The final decision about 24’s future won’t be made until mid-to-late season. But whether this is Jack’s last hurrah or not, Sutherland clearly isn’t letting up till the clock stops. “If we got word that this was the end, I’d have no problem with it,” he says. “The second half of this season has some of the best scenes we’ve ever done on 24, and it ends in a way that could serve as a series finale.” Sutherland pauses, and his face lights up with a mischievous smile. “Of course, as long as Jack isn’t dead, someone with a good imagination could restart the story.”
Walker’s increasingly Jack-like behavior causes concern, even for Jack, and he remains close by her side to keep her in check. How close? Let’s just say spoiler-alert close: “Right from the beginning, we see something in Jack and Renee’s eyes when they look at each other that wasn’t there last season,” Gordon says, and then dishes way more than we can reveal here. But suffice it to say, sparks will fly, and not just the kind you see on tight curves in the subway. “Romances have always been tough to develop on this show, because it’s a hard push to romance someone you met on the same day,” Sutherland says. “But with Renee and Jack, there’s a shared history from last season.” And come spring, they might be sharing more than just history, if you know what we mean.
CTU is also boom-chicka-boomin’. Against its sexy new backdrop, Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff and Freddie Prinze Jr. (“I Know What You Did Last Summer”) play a pair of hot CTU ops who hit the sheets when they aren’t commandeering drone aircraft from the subterranean bunker. It’s enough to make veteran Chloe O’Brien (Mary Lynn Rasjkub) wretch. Sniffs Rasjkub, “Chloe comes back to CTU after maternity leave and finds this goody-two-shoes alpha dog”—Dana Walsh, played by Sackhoff—“overseeing her at CTU. First time we see Chloe, she’s punching her keyboard.”
Even Jack’s a little out of sorts with the new kids in charge at CTU. Sutherland says, “There’s a great moment of me standing next to Freddie. He’s really young and eager to the point of being a bit threatening, and I’m going, ‘S--t, there’s no way I can outrun this guy.’”
Back on the couch, Sutherland says the first time he thought about life post-24 was near the end of Season 7. “I don’t think we were absolutely sure we were coming back for [Season] 8, and I remember looking around at the crew. Ninety percent of them have been here since the beginning. We’ve had something like 40 babies born on crew since we started. This is our life. This is my family. I got pretty overwhelmed thinking this could end.”
Eight seasons is an eternity in the realm of TV dramas, especially for a show that hinges almost exclusively on one star. Yet, even after all Jack Bauer—and Sutherland—have been through, the actor is as devoted to the show as ever. Later this season, for instance, Jack goes undercover and encounters a German arms dealer who is suspicious of him. “I thought, how cool would it be if Jack opened his mouth and started speaking fluent German?” says Sutherland, who routinely spends 14 hours a day on set during production. “Of course, I don’t speak a word of it, so I forced myself to memorize a complicated German speech phonetically spelled out.” He starts to recite it in what sounds like perfect Deutsche. “I just had to get it down perfectly.”
That sort of unwavering commitment explains why 24 remains a top hit from Peru to Paris and beyond. But it also suggests why Sutherland might be ready to call it quits.
“You don’t want to overstay your welcome or end on a low note,” he says. “I’m aware how rare this success is. We’re among a handful of shows—The West Wing, NYPD Blue, ER—that kept the quality going for years, and you don’t want to blow that.”
The final decision about 24’s future won’t be made until mid-to-late season. But whether this is Jack’s last hurrah or not, Sutherland clearly isn’t letting up till the clock stops. “If we got word that this was the end, I’d have no problem with it,” he says. “The second half of this season has some of the best scenes we’ve ever done on 24, and it ends in a way that could serve as a series finale.” Sutherland pauses, and his face lights up with a mischievous smile. “Of course, as long as Jack isn’t dead, someone with a good imagination could restart the story.”
Source: TVGuideMagazine.com
No comments:
Post a Comment