Eight assumptions I'm making about 24: Live Another Day

Ed Williamson

24th April 2014

I never quite managed to get along with 24. After three episodes of the first season I was just about done. Then I tried them again about a week ago. Same result: booooooring. It doesn't half move slow for something with a built-in device for urgency. So with 24: Live Another Day coming up on Sky 1 I have no choice but to base this article on a series of ill-informed assumptions. Or, you know, just write nothing at all.

At no point will Jack go to sleep

I'm presuming he was awake for every hour of the previous seasons? Though it would've been interesting for pacing if nothing else to go through six consecutive episodes in which Jack gets his nut down with a mug of cocoa and The Archers omnibus on the radio, then stirs briefly in the next before rolling over, drooling on his pillow then hitting snooze on the alarm when it goes off.

In the new season we'll only see 12 hours rather than 24, but I am fairly certain Jack will be awake for all of them. Even I can stay awake for 12 hours and I don't have a terrorist plot to foil outside the fact that the Somalis who run my local corner shop are definitely up to something.
Stephen Fry will be massively distracting

Splendid fellow and jolly good actor though he is, it's a silly casting decision if you have UK viewers in mind. Yes, to American eyes he's the Englishest person you could possibly imagine so who better to play the Prime Minister, but to us he's Stephen Fry and there'll be no shifting that. This can only be rescued if Hugh Laurie's in it too and they spend 20-minute sequences saying "DAMN!" to each other very loudly.
Every so often it will make the point that it's in London

See for example: everything happening in front of recognisable London landmarks, lots of things with Union Flags on them, and the presence of hard-man actors from Nick Love films. (Tamer Hassan and Ross McCall are both involved, but for some reason Danny Dyer isn't.)
There might be a Danny Dyer cameo

No, no, all right, there probably won't be. But there might! No, OK.
There'll probably be an invisible car like in Die Another Day

It would surprise me enormously if this were not the case. I mean, why bother with the similarity in titles otherwise? At some point Jack should run into it accidentally, knock himself out then raise his head slightly to show cuckoos flying around it. Wait, 24's the show where the coyote tries to catch the roadrunner, isn't it?
The hacker character will be a bit like Julian Assange

Michael Wincott will play Adrian Cross, an "infamous" and "charismatic" hacker. Expect long white hair, a drawling Australian accent, strong hints of sexual deviancy and the overriding impression that a show made by FOX is not hugely sympathetic to the free information movement.
Jack will point guns at things quite a lot

He will do this despite being in London, where pointing guns is widely thought not cricket, and because it reinforces his sense of self. For Jack, pointing a gun at you is just his way of saying "Hello".
Tate Donovan will not be the White House Chief of Staff

No, he'll be Joshua, who was scared of the chick and the duck.
Yes, I think three episodes is plenty to decide I don't fancy watching something. Worked for Lost and it's worked for this. But if there's a Danny Dyer cameo I'm in.


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