24 – Season 7

How old is Jack Bauer? Presuming that during his hero-defining wife-losing first "worst day of my life" he was in his late 30's (estimating from his hot teenage daughter), and knowing that each season gap usually represents between 1 and 2 years in the 24 'verse, that must mean he'll soon be approaching 50. And he's still kicking ass and taking names. Even age can't defeat him, it would seem. But in Season 7, what might be described as the most preposterous one yet had we not already been subjected to Mexican brotherly spats and deliciously evil American presidents, a poxy bio-agent might just be the thing to force Jack to submit to legend-heaven where he could lounge around and divide by zero with Chuck Norris and Jesus Christ…

Jack may have aged gracefully (wouldn't you agree, Fliss?) and fortunately the show still might too. After an abysmal Season 6, which perhaps I shouldn't pass full judgement on as its surprising tedium led me to give up half way through – 24 is one of the few shows I have stopped watching but then picked up again, definitely due to a much more enjoyable social collective viewing – Season 7 managed to surpass expectations and become one of its strongest seasons to date. A number of things could be attributed to this, but the most obvious was the production delay due to 2007's writers' strike that allowed the show a year – a whole year – to reclaim its marbles. The disbanding of CTU and the change of locale (finally!) to Washington helped this stale show to feel a little fresh again, and also enabled the crew to deliver the money shots halfway through of Jack Bauer beating up black people in a white house with his cock (most of this is true).

Other things worked but not quite so much. Viewers breathed a sigh of relief when the constant bickering and sniping of techy CTU employees was done away with, then sighed 'Oh.' when it turned out we were just going to be treated to the constant bickering and sniping of techy FBI employees instead. It didn't help that Janeane Garofalo's Janis, aka Chole-lite, was really really annoying (she's good in other shows, honest!) and that there was to be no more of that memorable office phone ringtone. You know the one. Doo doo, DOO doo. Doo doo, DOO doo. Still, we were fortunately given a new hero worth caring about in the form of hard-but-moral Renee. She may have been promoted as 'female Jack Bauer' and unlikely rumours continue that perhaps she could take over the spotlight when it's Kiefer's day to retire, but in truth she was sometimes a bit crap in action (don't ask her about trespassing on boats, it's a sore point). Her emotional attachment to Jack's questionable actions did help in highlighting one of the season's other main strengths, which was the constant running theme of Jack's redemption and answering for his past. Often in the past, 24 has attempted to highlight 'issues' such as racial profiling and, um, cougar protection, but they're discussed for a couple of episodes and then either trivialized to a case of political leverage or simply never mentioned again. This time, the thread of whether Jack's extreme actions in the name of protecting his country are acceptable is incorporated much better into the season's individual scenarios and leads to a satisfying conclusion that provokes something not seen since the Season 3 finale – a moment of earnest self-reflection.

If there is any major gripe I had with the season, it was with the reappearance of Tony Almeida as a villain. I don't so much object to his return as he is perhaps the only character who can out-gravel Jack's insanely gravelly voice. However, his constant to-ing and fro-ing between good and evil was a bit too much to take in the latter half of the season, and degraded the character somewhat. Also, despite most of the season's consistently exciting suspense, complete with the memorably camp-but-intense villains of Dubaku and Jonas Hodges and the newly elected President Taylor giving us the first leader we can truly root for since David Palmer, the final act was definitely lacking. Still, the season was mostly solid and I look forward to the next one, apparently to take place in New York (and, geek alert, to star Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar Galactica and Freddie Prinze Jr, from, erm, Scooby Doo) and to see a newly reformed CTU. Doo doo, DOO doo!