"Today is the longest day of my life" Jack Bauer
And that was just the first day. Jack Bauer's is having to deal with his sixth such day now.
Jack works(or rather more recently worked) for the fictitious Counter Terrorism Unit(CTU) out of their Los Angeles office. Which basically means that whenever a bunch of psychos tried to pull something major in LA, it's Jack that was the guy who had to deal with it.
Another guy who usually got caught up in the action was black politician David Palmer. A senator running for President in the first season, the guy gets elected then resigns when his dodgy as hell wife gets killed in the third season. And then got dragged in to save a recently sworn in succsessor's bacon after Air Force One got shot down.
Each series takes place over a period of 24 hours. Each episode is set over a period of an hour - in real time. An episode of 24 in full flow is not for the faint-hearted - especially if you don't know who's on what side.
Series 1 started with Jack initially concerned about a hit on Senator Palmer's life during the Californian Presidential primary and possible moles within CTU before his daughter gets kidnapped and his wife later gets abducted as well, allowing a guy called Ira Gaines to try to coerce him into doing the hit on Palmer. Managing to avoid that and free his family, Jack found that the real masterminds were a Serbian family who he led an operation against in his special forces days. Before the end of this day his wife's gotten killed by his colleague Nina Myers who turned out to be a mole working for an unknown organisation.
Series 2 and the problem was nuclear. Palmer was now President and Jack had originally quit CTU and had to be called back in to revive an old cover with a US anti-government group that went on to blow up CTU's LA office. This group unwittingly had ties to an Islamist group(via Nina Myers)looking to detonate a nuke in LA, who unwiitingly in turn are being backed by a greedy bunch of oil execs. And that's leaving out Palmer only holding on to the Presidency by the skin of his teeth.
By the time Series 3 has come around, Jack's gotten addicted to heroin after an undercover op in Mexico and soon winds up having to go back down there when LA is threatened with a biolgical attack in an attempt to snap up the virus in question. The mastermind behind this attack is ex-MI6 agent-turned-anti-American Stephen Saunders. And while the initial viral outbreak is more or less taken care of, Saunders turns out to be an expert player of mind games.
And then season 4. Jack's now quit CTU and is working for the Secretary of Defence James Heller and about to get married to Heller's daughter Audrey Raines when Al Queda come to LA again with a combination of cyber-attack, the melting down of nuclear plants, the shooting down of Air Force One, the stealing of a nuclear missile...and most importantly to start off with for Jack, the abduction of James Heller. Jack goes rogue in his efforts to rescue him and later winds up having to abduct a scientist from the Chinese consulate for vital information only for the consul himself to get killed in friendly fire during the raid. By the end of this series, Jack had lost everything as he had to fake his own death to avoid spending the rest of his life in a Chinese prision or getting assasinated by elements within the current US administration who don't want him to talk. Jack was last seen heading into Mexico with a new identity...
Only to return Stateside under the alias of oil worker Frank Flynn in season 5....only for Jack Bauer to be forced to resurface when both Palmer and old CTU colleagues got assasinated(though Tony Almeida survived before later being killed). Racing back to LA, Jack found himself having to deal with Russian separatist terrorists led by Vladmir Bierko, who was set up by corrupt US President Charles Logan. All badguys finished off...the Chinese finally caught up with Jack and bunged him in a Chinabound tanker.
Twenty months later and Jack is not only still alive after the best part of two years of torture by Chinese government agencies but he's been returned to the US at the request of new President Wayne Palmer(brother of David). With the US battered by Islamist terrorism, Jack's became the lead man against terrorist leader Fayed. Fayed had already detonated one nuke in LA and Jack only stopped a second bomb by the skin of his teeth before eventually killing the Arab. However, the Chinese caught up with Jack again, catching him in a web that involved both his father, corrupt businessman Philip Bauer and the Russian government. A situation that led the US and Russia to the brink of war! Now, desperate to put his past behind him, Jack has decided to dissapear again, alone!
Comments go here
Return to TV and film homepage
