The Writers' Room at 24

The Writers’ Room at ‘24’

Otto Steininger

By ALEX BERENSON

Published: April 2, 2010

The following takes place in real time:

09:35:05.36 ...

The California sun is shining as I stop at the gate outside the warehouse where the show “24” is written and filmed. My first day on set, baby! I’ll admit I’m excited. I’ve heard that some writers have no interest in Hollywood. In my experience these creatures exist only in myth, or maybe in Brooklyn.

I am here because Howard Gordon, the show’s lead writer, liked my novel “The Faithful Spy.” He has invited me to Los Angeles to “consult” for a month on the show’s eighth season, which will turn out to be its last.

I have no idea what consulting actually entails. All I know is that I have spent a week trying to imagine new adventures for Jack Bauer, the show’s hero, a counterterrorism agent played by Kiefer Sutherland. But the show’s writers have beaten me to every possible plot twist. Terrorists unleashing an Ebola-type virus? Yep. A nuclear weapon? Check. Government corruption at the highest levels? Absolutely.

I am left with a single idea: Give Jack a sense of humor. Jack has not even smiled in seven years. I will change that.

I give my name to the guard at the gate and inch onto the lot. I don’t want to hit anyone’s Ferrari.

09:36:23.78 ...

I pass a Prius, a Volvo and other unsexy cars. Don’t these people know they work in Hollywood? O.K., there’s a Maserati. It’ll have to do.

10:27:28.38 ...

Alex Gansa, a writer, introduces me around. The men who write “24” — and, no surprise, they are all men — are an accomplished lot. Several ran other shows. While Hollywood famously skews young, they are in their 40s and 50s. All but one are married. (Guess who owns the Maserati.) Despite the pro-torture reputation of “24,” their political views run the gamut.

Their building provides no clue that “24” is one of the most successful — and profitable — shows on television. The writers have small individual offices. At the building’s west end is a large wood-paneled room that looks like a suburban basement. This is the “writers’ room.”

11:15:47.19 ...

The world is watching Season 7, which had its premiere a few weeks ago. But aside from a few minor edits, the writers no longer care about Season 7. They are worried about Season 8.

Season 8 is a blank canvas, 24 episodes of 42 minutes apiece, not counting commercials or credits. Generally, one minute of screen time requires a bit more than a page of script. Season 8 is 1,100 pages that must be written. Today we will try to answer a terrifying question: How can we fill all those pages?

We sit on couches and comfortable chairs, looking for answers. Season 8 will be set in New York. But why is Jack in New York? He’s a diplomat. No, he’s in a hospital, rehabilitating from his near-death experience in Season 7. No, he’s handling security for a rich guy.

We spitball possible plots. When the process is going well, it is like playing soccer with an invisible ball. One writer pushes an idea forward until another steps in. Someone says, “So the terrorists seize a school bus filled with rich kids. ...” “except one kid hides a cellphone. ...”

And away we go.

But all too soon someone finds a hole in the plot, or argues that it doesn’t give Jack enough to do, or that it’s too maudlin. We backtrack. Sometimes we succeed in addressing the complaint. Sometimes, after a few minutes of arguing, we fail. Howard steers us in a new direction. But the original argument will flare up a few minutes later, like a fire in a garbage dump.

Howard has a reputation as a very democratic lead writer. He likes to build consensus. The good news is that everyone gets a say. The bad news is ... that everyone gets a say. The debate can seem exhausting and circular. As a novelist, I’m not used to this. My ideas are my own. I don’t have to listen to other people tell me how stupid they are. Maybe I should. Maybe I’d write better books. Or maybe I’d never finish one.

13:34:29.54 ...

Why is “24” called “24”? Anyone who’s ever seen the show knows the answer. “24” takes place in real time. Each episode represents a single hour of a single day. In general, television dramas fall into two categories: “procedurals,” where each episode can stand alone, and “serials,” where each episode builds on the next. “24” is the ultimate serial.

The real-time conceit is central to the show’s appeal. And it is sacrosanct. Jack exists in a permanent now. He never flashes back or forward.

Cool idea. Unfortunately, pulling it off has gotten increasingly hard. Every show faces creative challenges by its eighth season. But they are amplified on “24,” because many plots simply won’t work in real time. Whatever the danger is, it has to develop immediately.

This real-time approach is also the reason that Jack so often resorts to torture. He doesn’t have time to develop a rapport with the terrorists he captures. He has to break them immediately.

15:50:15.93 ...

The cigar room. In midafternoon, Howard announces that it’s time for a smoke. We decamp to a windowless cinderblock room that serves as a smoking area. (To comply with California law, it vents separately from the rest of the building.) If you want a drink with your smoke, that’s fine too. The bottles of scotch are next to the cigars.

16:44:69.02 ...

Fortified by Macallan, I decide to unveil my brilliant idea: make Jack funny! At least have him acknowledge the absurdity of the situations he’s in. Howard gently explains that they’ve considered this idea before but that it doesn’t work. Like most of life, “24” is best served unironically, at full speed ahead.

Oh well. I have no idea what to say the rest of the month.

18:29:59.88 ...

I head out of the lot for the 45-minute drive back to my hotel. The day hasn’t been long by any reasonable standard, and yet I’m wiped out.

Epilogue ...

I wish I could say I contributed mightily to Season 8, but when I left a month later Howard and the guys were still plotting the first episode. Not one line had been written. In the end, they did find an arc for the season, and the reviews have been reasonably good. But when Howard told me a few months ago that he couldn’t imagine coming back for Season 9, I understood.

When things weren’t going well, Howard sometimes proclaimed that his writing motto was: “Not good. Never boring. ” Yes, “24” had its share of absurd plot twists and banal villains. Every television show (except maybe “The Wire”) has those. The shock is that the real-time conceit survived for 194 episodes over eight years. Television will be less exciting without it, and without Jack Bauer.

Source: nytimes

After 8 Seasons Kiefer Sutherland Hangs Up His Lethal Toys

When All Good Quests Must Come to an End

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

Published: May 24, 2010

“24” came to an end on Monday night with what was literally a vengeance: Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) went on one last cathartic killing jag that rivaled scenes from “The Terminator” and Charles Bronson in “Death Wish” mode.

For eight seasons Kiefer Sutherland has

been Jack Bauer, a counterterrorism

agent for the post-9/11 era on “24.”

Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) shares an

uncollegial moment with his colleague

Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub).

And the finale was a satisfying close to a suspenseful and dazzlingly violent Fox series that may have gone on too long but never stopped trying to outdo its own best moments. The plot of “24” was thicker this season than in the past, and the return of the deliciously weaselly ex-president Charles Logan (Gregory Itzin) also helped. The last few episodes pulled out all the stops. No more dithering over the ethics of torture and vigilante justice, just lots of it, including Jack disemboweling a Russian hit man to avenge his murdered lover — and to retrieve a swallowed SIM card encoded with crucial evidence.

Perhaps because a movie version is under consideration, Jack didn’t die in the end; he went off the grid having felled another corroded presidency and saved the nation from nuclear attack.

And “24” won’t die either — the series lives on as a time capsule of the post-9/11 era. The show was famous for its real-time conceit that each episode cover one hour in an uninterrupted 24-hour period, the minutes marked by a ticking clock. It may be better remembered for its real-life conceit, being a counterterrorism drama that went on the air two months after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and lasted long enough to play off of two presidencies and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The series stretched credulity and also the limits of the espionage genre. Without ever abandoning its core entertainment values, “24” was one of the few dramas that grappled at length — if at times cartoonishly — with some of the most divisive issues of the times, from the ethics of torture to the role of civil liberties in wartime.

And it was taken seriously — and often cited — by hawks in the Bush administration as well as by liberal opponents of the Iraq war. The show popped up in law school lectures and Internet parodies. Its split-screen device was widely imitated, including by Keep America Safe, an organization founded by Liz Cheney and others, which copied the show’s trademark graphics to punch up an ad attacking the Obama administration’s response to last year’s Christmas Day bombing attempt.

Other series that tried to imitate the success — and gravity — of “24” didn’t last as long. “Sleeper Cell,” on Showtime, had only two seasons, and “The Unit,” on CBS, was canceled after four as viewers moved on to more irreverent spy shows like “Chuck” and “Burn Notice.” (The ABC drama “Alias,” which began shortly before “24,” lasted five seasons, possibly because it saw which way viewers were leaning and grew increasingly frivolous.)

“24,” which had to stretch treachery and malfeasance over a 24-episode arc each season, grew ever more outlandish, including one subplot in Season 7 that had African frogmen staging an underwater attack on the White House. In almost every White House there was a high-level West Wing conspiracy; behind almost every cabal of Islamic extremists there was a shadowy group of powerful Western businessmen intent on destroying peace to preserve their own prosperity. But no matter how ludicrous the plot twists, the series kept a straight face.

The last season was, if anything, more plausibly preposterous than the preceding few. It began with a terrorist attack by Islamic extremists set on torpedoing a treaty to disarm the nuclear capabilities of Kamistan, an Iran-like nation in the Middle East led by a moderate leader, Omar Hassan (Anil Kapoor).

Naturally, there had to be more, and this season, the writers gave the Russians the black hat, positing that Moscow was so threatened by the peace agreement that it helped terrorists acquire nuclear weapons and also helped them assassinate President Hassan. That may seem a bit far-fetched in the post-cold-war era. Then again, Britain has not yet been able to extradite the former K.G.B. agent whom officials suspect of using radiation poisoning to kill Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former spy who turned on his masters. (The prime suspect was elected to the Duma and so gained parliamentary immunity.)

And it isn’t ahistorical for American presidents to choose expediency over principle. It was fun to watch President Allison Taylor lose her rectitude and moral compass in a desperate attempt to keep the peace treaty going, particularly since she was coaxed and cajoled by her slippery predecessor, President Logan. “24” was rarely very imaginative when it came to character development, but Mr. Itzin infused the role with Nixonian guile and reptilian gusto.

Only Jack Bauer — with the help of his faithful Counter-Terrorism Unit colleague Chloe O’Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub) — could save the country from a sinister collusion between the White House and the Kremlin. Jack had motives of his own, of course, namely avenging the murder of Renee Walker, the comely F.B.I. agent shot by a Russian sniper moments after she and Jack had sex at his apartment.

Jack expressed no regrets about turning into a vigilante.

“I would have accepted justice by law, but that was taken away from me by people like you,” Jack told a corrupt F.B.I. official while holding him at gunpoint. “So you’re right, I am judge and jury.”

“24” was an action-adventure fantasy filtered through realpolitik, mixing real and present dangers into a plot so convoluted and outlandish that viewers never felt too far from popcorn escapism.

After eight seasons, it was high time for Jack Bauer to go away. But the series ended in just the right way — leaving viewers wanting just a little bit more.

Source: NYTimes