The Longest Day: Final Season of 24 Now Out on DVD

WARREN CLEMENTS: THE GOODS

The longest day: Final season of '24' now out on DVD

WARREN CLEMENTS

From Saturday's Globe and Mail Dec 18, 2010

Kiefer Sutherland enjoyed a memorable film career before starring in the TV series 24 – a vampire in The Lost Boys, a scientist with a Peter Lorre voice in Dark City – but it was as Jack Bauer that he really came into his own. He was the scrappy counterterrorism agent who could hold his own in the toughest scrapes and sound authoritative when he barked, “I’m going to cover you. You make a run for the door. You ready? Go! Go!” Now, with 24: Season 8 out on DVD and Blu-ray, he comes to the end of the run. On the ninth day, he gets to rest.

The premise was that 24 played out in real time, with each season adding up to 24 hours, though the days weren’t consecutive and it wasn’t clear what everyone did during commercials. Fortunately, the writers never picked a day when Bauer had the 24-hour flu, or just felt like crashing on the couch for an afternoon instead of crashing through a skyscraper window. No, it was always solve this political crisis, or avenge this murder, or that’ll teach you to trust anyone.

This time round, Bauer is called in to prevent the assassination of President Omar Hassan of Kamistan, who is on the verge of signing a peace treaty with U.S. President Allison Taylor. Bombs go off under cars, rockets blow up helicopters, and events get so complicated that even Chloe O’Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub), who has always had Bauer’s back at the CTU, is beginning to suspect his intentions.

The series was set in Los Angeles for the longest time and journeyed to Washington for the seventh season, but it was moved for this final sprint to New York. Because the plot focuses on the United Nations, the headquarters of the Counter Terrorist Unit is conveniently located on Roosevelt Island, just a couple of underwater blocks from the UN through an abandoned subway tunnel. The gizmos in the CTU bunker include a video screen that can track anyone anywhere and measures 24 feet wide – “not by chance,” production designer Carlos Barbosa says in the bonus features.

There was a hitch, though. Financial constraints meant the producers had to shoot the show in Los Angeles, so background shots were filmed in New York, the actors stood before a green screen in L.A., and after a few licks of post-production it was hard to tell the difference. The sitcom Ugly Betty did the same thing for the first two seasons.

At least it’s easier to finesse the weather that way. The trouble with shooting a series over nine months that’s supposed to take place in a single day is that you have to make sure it doesn’t look as if New York is experiencing three seasons in one 24-hour period. That’s the global-warming crisis, and Bauer didn’t suit up for that one.

Also out this week is a box containing the entire run of the series, so if you’ve been collecting the seasons individually, you can buy them all over again. Not, alas, for $24.

Source: theglobeandmail.com