Watching 24

As I talked about in my article All I Want for Christmas 24 one thing I hope to see this season is Mandy back in a bigger role. Mandy, played by Mia Kirshner, has ducked in and out of season after season. Season 4 was her biggest part in 24 as she kidnapped Tony and threatened to kill him if she wasn’t able to get free of the horde of CTU agents closing in on her.

Not even Nina was able to elude Jack as long as Mandy has. Mandy has escaped custody time and time again, and I think if given a bigger role would be able to provide quite the antagonist for Jack. Although in the end I’m sure Jack would kill her, I would love to see her back in this upcoming season.

Over the next 10 days I’m going to list the top ten 24 events that I’m most excited for in this upcoming season. It’s going to be a mixture of things I already know are going to happen, and I just can’t wait to see them play out, and things that I hope will happen.

#10. I’ll be waiting to find out if my favorite Ghostbusters villain, Peter MacNicols (Dr. Janosz Poha) will end up being a good casting choice. For some reason I just don’t see the guy doing a show as dramatic as 24. Maybe it’s just because ever since I was a kid I loved Ghostbusters. When Ghostbusters 2 came out the image of MacNicols saying “Evil� in that high, whiney voice has been burned into my brain.

Then I think back to Ally McBeal, and his insane way of acting completely unsure of himself. I just don’t know how he’s going to mesh with 24 as a whole. But, then again I thought the same thing about Sean Astin last year and he did a pretty swell job. I was glad that he was killed off midway through the season though. Though he personally didn’t irritate me, his character did. He was a wannabe George Mason without the sharp wit.

What does everyone else think of MacNicols? Given we don’t know the exact role he will play in the show, what do you think of the casting choice as a whole?

The folks over at TVSquad have a great story.

It seems that Jennifer Aniston loves 24, so much so she put her name in for the running as one of the guest appearances. Producer Joel Surnow, did one of the smartest things ever, and turned her down. He also turned down Ben Stiller, saying that they were “too recognizable. They’ll take you out of the reality.”

I agree wholeheartedly with Surnow’s decision. 24 is no place for Aniston or Stiller. Don’t get me wrong, I love Ben Stiller, and when he guest starred on Arrested Development as Tony Wonder, I almost died laughing. But, where would Ben Stiller fit in at 24? As a quirky terrorist? I don’t think so.

Aniston would’ve been an awful choice for the show, period. Bring back Mia Kirshner (Mandy) that would work.

Some spoilers for PREVIOUS seasons lay ahead.

Well, it’s that time of year again. Grab a piece of paper and a pen, make a list of what you want, and hope that you don’t get tube socks again.

But, for me I’d like to make a list of what I’d like to see happen in the upcoming season of 24.

1. How did we get Jack back from the Chinese? The first thing I would’ve listed, if I didn’t know better, was that we get Jack back from the Chinese. Since we know that happens, I hope that it isn’t some ridiculously unbelievable reason. Also, I would like to know, how the Americans know that Jack was actually captured by the Chinese. It’s obvious that the new President Palmer knew Jack and so when this new crisis arises it’s a no-brainer that he’d want Jack back in play. But, I’m really hoping of a good believable story on why the Chinese gave Jack Bauer back.

2. Revenge Jack is back. This is something that I actually wished for a long time ago, when I first started watching 24. During the end of the first season there’s a scene where Jack feels/thinks like he’s lost everything. Like he doesn’t have anything to live for, and just goes in guns blazing. It’s one of my favorite 24 moments. Something that’s happening in this season leads me to believe that Jack is going to pull out the little number of “stops� he has left. When Jack is out for revenge, he’s a hundred times more dangerous and deadly. Numerous sources have claimed that this season will be more about Jack saving himself, rather than the country as a whole.
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TV nowadays is very different from what it was like in the late 80’s or early 90’s. 15 years ago it was the age of the sitcom. You remember TGIF? Family Matters, Full House, Step-by-step, and even that crazy show called Dinosaurs. That was the TV of yester-year.

Today the “one-couch-sitcom� is all but dead. Serial dramas like Lost, 24, and The Sopranos rule the airways. So, what happened to create the television landscape we see today?

Back in 2001 the first season of 24 premiered. It was a modest hit. Then the DVD came out which started selling like mad. In an interview with IGN in 2002 Kiefer said that the DVD sales, for 24, in the UK actually knocked Lord of The Rings out of first place, something totally unheard of in the TV/DVD world.
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So what are some of the extras you can expect on the season 5 DVD which comes out December 5th?

Here’s a list:
* season 6 trailer
* season 6 prequel (probably like the mini-episodes on the season 4 and season 5 DVD sets, which give us glimpses of Jack Bauer’s life between the end of last season and the beginning of the next one)
* short featurette on the supporting players of “24″
* short featurette called “unsung heroes: 24 camera department”
* music by Sean Callery
* short featurette on President Logan’s L.A. retreat
* extra DVD-ROM features
* “100th episode reel” (I’m not sure what this is)
* an excerpt from the book “24: behind the scenes”
* 23 extended or deleted scenes that you can watch with or without a commentary track

Add in some commentary from Kiefer, Cassar, and the rest of the 24 gang, and you’ve got yourself a smoking new DVD. I’ve got seasons 1-4 and this will most likely be on my Christmas list.

First off check out this sweet Promo cast picture that I found over at 24podcast.net (which is a sweet site BTW)…

You can notice a few things from this. Seems like Chole’s husband, the weird British guy from the end of last season, is back.

Milo from the very first season seems to have returned. Where’s Curtis or Aaron? I hope they’re still on the show. They are two of my favorite. It’ll be weird not having Tony around

The check out the blog there. Some sweet pictures of Kiefer getting ready to do a stunt in front of a house about to be blown up.

For all of you that are concerned about how the 24 movie is going to play out, here’s the skinny.
I found an article on National Ledger.

The movie will be a 2 hour representation of a ‘24′ hour day.
Kiefer explains:

“It will be weird because the film will be a two-hour representation of the 24 day, which will really give us an incredible amount of freedom,� he says.

I don’t know what to think about this. The whole hour by hour thing is what made the show ground-breaking and original. Take away that, and what do you have? The Sentinel? Please, anything but that!

As of right now I have faith in the 24 team.

But, this could truly make or break season 8. As the movie will be placed between seasons 7 and 8, if people think the movie was awful. Then they’ll be less likely to watch the upcoming season.

I’ve been searching around the net trying to find a site that has catalogued all of Jack Bauer’s kills throughout all five of his insanely intense days. I found a great site that does a very good job at not only counting the kills, but telling you who it was and how Bauer killed them.

The running total for all five seasons is a whopping 114 people.

A fun contest would be who can guess the closest number to how many people Jack will kill this upcoming season. Remember Jack’s pretty mad after being captured by the Chinese. So, that may add a few to his kill total. What do you think? How many people do you think Jack will kill?

I think later on, right before the show premieres, if there’s enough people coming to this site, I just might be tempted to do this as a real contest. I’m not sure what the prize would be. Maybe I could get something from 451, I don’t know. Or maybe we could just have fun guessing.

My guess–35.

I’ve just been welcomed in here at 451 Press. It’s a great Honor. I’ll be writing two blogs on two different TV shows. As you can see from this one of them is the high octane thriller 24 (FOX), the other being The Office (NBC).

Jumping right into it. 24 doesn’t premiere until January 14th, but that didn’t stop FOX from putting up one of the most amazing, nail biting trailers ever. This trailer out does most movie trailers. Check it out here.