24 Review

The conceit is the whole show, and it is a brilliant one: one day per season, every hour happening in real time, with a digital clock ticking between scenes and split screens tracking three crises at once. The form manufactures its own suspense, and for five seasons 24 uses it better than anything else on network television. Kiefer Sutherland makes Jack Bauer a man permanently out of time, whispering into a phone while the building burns, and the role won him a Golden Globe and an Emmy. Dennis Haysbert's President Palmer, Gregory Itzin's rattled Charles Logan and Mary Lynn Rajskub's Chloe give each day its fixed points.

The fifth season, which won the Emmy for outstanding drama, is the peak. After that the machinery shows. Every day needs a mole inside the counter-terrorism unit, a fresh threat in the final hours and a loved one in peril, and the dialogue rarely rises above clipped orders and exposition. Its routine depiction of torture as quick and effective drew sustained criticism and has aged worst of all. At its best it is the most propulsive thriller network television has produced; at its worst it is the same day on repeat.