Watching the last few seasons of 24 prior to the current one, did you ever look at Bill Buchanan and think, “That guy's probably good with a machine gun?”  I didn't, and I doubt that the 24 writers suspected as much at the time.  Even last season, when he helped Jack from his home, Bill was wearing a damn sweater.  Bill Buchanan has turned into a different character than he was for purposes of the story, and that's just fine.  I'm sure Bill was trained for field work at some point in the past (so says Wikipedia, at least), but this segues into a larger point: on 24, story comes before character, as much as the writers and producers and actors would like to convince you otherwise.  Because of 24's real-time format, the plot remains the number one concern for the writers, and you can look at the characters and the roles they've played this season for examples how.  But, is it time for the writers to put character first?

Tony Almeida

His return was going to be inherently far-fetched, but that's nothing new for 24, and they gave about the best possible, exhaustive explanation for Tony still being alive.  But, the reason the writers had to come up with Tony's reason for still being alive (that Emerson was scouting him and had a guy fake kill him and then steal his body from CTU), served the story of season 7 perfectly.  Without Tony, there is no connection to Emerson, and there's no need for Jack to go back undercover.  Dubaku would have killed all those people in Kidron, and Jack would probably be watching it all from a jail cell. 

Bill Buchanan

While the writers may not have wanted Bill to become a bad ass shadow field agent wielding a machine gun, it had to happen, because he had to be part of the shadow CTU with Tony and Chloe.  Who else could have been involved? 

24 is a slave to its format and, unfortunately, that formula grown a bit tiresome here in the seventh season.  Not that the season thus far hasn't been solid – it has – but just that that there are cracks in the format and, while the real-time conceit was a point in 24's favor in the early seasons, it is currently holding the series back.  Jack Bauer has always been the very best part of 24, and Kiefer Sutherland is as good as ever as the uncompromising protagonist.  In real-time, the amount of time we can spend with Jack is less than ideal.  While he travels from destination to destination, we are forced to listen to repetitive conversations inside the White House and deal with semi-interesting sub-plots that only exist because it's a formulaic necessity. 

There's been lots of talk in regards to a possible 24 movie.  There should be one, but it should not be in real time.  Think how great a 24 movie could be if it was directed by, say, Paul Greengrass (the second two Bourne movies), and featured Jack traveling around the world on some sort of crazy mission.  Doesn't that sound more exciting than the often claustrophobic nature of the TV show? 

24 does a great job of handling the inherent difficulties of its self-inflicted formula.  The real-time format was a cool device, but it's never been the crux of the series, and has probably hurt the story-telling more than helped it, at least in the last few seasons.  Maybe it's time to scrap the formula and see what happens.


-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image Courtesy of FOX)