24: Season Four

Oh boy. Here we go again! Just another exciting day in the life of 24 super-agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland). The season kicks off with a deadly terrorist strike resulting in the kidnapping of his new boss, the U.S. Secretary of Defense James Heller (William Devane). Although a fired, ex-employee of the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU), it is no surprise who is going to shift into full gear to bring the terrorists to justice. However, it doesn't take the super-agent long to discover the kidnapping of his boss is part of a much larger plan, master-minded by Habib Marvan (Arnold Voslo) the middle eastern terrorist cell leader the US government has been trying to track down for years. Considered by many to be the best season of the first four, 24 - Season 4 is a definite departure from the first three seasons. For one, the cast is almost entirely new. Second, the pacing of each episode does not seem as frantic. There appears to be a shift from the reliance on plot-shifting cliff hangers (which in some ways dragged down the quality of Season 3), to a focus on complex, over-arcing, multiple storylines, albeit very violent. What may be missing in superficial action clichés is definitely compensated in a richer plot. That's not to say the show has slowed down, it's still amped up beyond anything else on TV, but compared to the previous seasons, 24 has gotten a lot smarter, and in turn, better. --Rob Bracco