TVSquad

I was playing Call of Duty: World at War with my son the other day (hey, I'm the cool mom), and he said, "You know, that sounds like Jack Bauer." I listened, and sure enough, that unmistakable "Fire!" was indeed Kiefer Sutherland, a.k.a. Jack Bauer on 24.

It's always fun when stuff like this happens, where you recognize a beloved TV character's voice elsewhere. I surfed around YouTube and found a video of Sutherland in the recording studio, along with Gary Oldman, who played James Gordon on The Dark Knight, among dozens of other films.

At least that's what it sounds like 24 EP Evan Katz told EW's Ausiello. According to Katz, some of the things they have planned for the FOX drama's eighth season don't involve a Jack/Audrey reunion.

Can you blame them? 24 has had some doosie plots in the past that are pretty hard to swallow, but the last we saw of Audrey was at the very end of season six, and she didn't look so good. If she somehow ended up in the fold again next year (which takes place in New York City), I can't see people being too happy about it.

Fox's charge to make 24 a completely green show is admirable.

It's not only expensive and harder to do than one might think, but it also flies in the face of 24's core audience. Of course, that's not its boldest effect. These days, pissing off the right wing is more "in" than Twittering about your Snuggie.

The boldest move is the effect these new measures could have on the body of the show in ways you may not expect. You might even see Jack Bauer tie a guy to a chair and hook up his nipples to a car battery to get him to admit he doesn't put his plastics and newspapers in separate recycling bins.

Early on in 24's run, and long before Fox knew it was going to be a staple of their network and one of their few reliable sources for solid ratings, Kiefer Sutherland talked about the possibility of the show going on without him. But that was before 24 became a phenomenon and Jack Bauer became an icon in his own right. Now, it's hard to imagine the show without him. And there hasn't really been any talk of it lately, but you do have to wonder if Fox isn't thinking about it.

Don't get me wrong, Season 7 is shaping up to be the second best season of the series so far (sorry, I don't think it will be possible to top Season 5), but what Monday's two-parter showed me was that 24 can be just as compelling without Jack Bauer. For the first hour of the night Jack was behind bars or being lead around by Secret Service agents. And yet there was plenty of action and excitement to keep the adrenaline pumping. Annie Wersching is a blast to watch as FBI Agent Renee Walker. Her ballsy dive both onto Juma's boat and off of it was pure Bauer.

He hasn't won an Emmy (although that might change in a little over a week from now) and he's not going to win People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive (although I think he very attractive), but at least Hugh Laurie, the star of Fox's House, is being rewarded in another way -- the wallet.

Laurie is getting a raise in salary to $400,000 an episode. That's not as much as 24's Kiefer Sutherland ($500,000) or CSI's William Petersen ($600,000) or Two and a Half Men's Charlie Sheen ($825,000), but it's pretty darn good.

Whether you think Charlie is worth that much money or Bill (who's actually only going to be in half the shows on CSI in 2008-2009) or Kiefer, for that matter, but Hugh Laurie has earned this raise. He's the center of House, the most important character, and there is no show without him.

Even though 24 isn't actually coming back on the air for another, what is it? Nine years? Ten? (Okay, January '09, but still), there's news coming out about next season. While a very pregnant Mary Lynn Rajskub, who plays Chloe, has already begun filming on Day 7 of the series, Rajskub's impending due date will force her to take a hiatus from Jack Bauer's really long, bad day. So who's going to lie for Jack and help him out with all of his nerd toys? None other than Chloe's sourpuss ex, Morris O'Brian (Carlo Rota).

Morris, who on Day 6 was kidnapped by terrorists, forced to arm a nuclear weapon, slipped up on his sobriety, broke up with Chloe, found out that he was going to be a daddy and got back together with Chloe, will be having some problems of his own come Day 7.

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILER AFTER THE JUMP

To tie us over until 24's seventh season premieres in January 2009 (it's closer than we think), Fox is appeasing us with The Rookie, five-minute webisodes following the adventures of American Counter Terrorism agent Jason Blaine, played by Jeremy Valdez. Check out Keith's post about The Rookie here.

It all ties in with the TV series. Blaine was first seen in 24's fifth season aboard a Russian sub. "If Jack Bauer and Jason Bourne had a love child, it would be Jason Blaine," says co-writer Kevin Townsend in an Associated Press story. "He's a younger, more ambitious, less experienced -- but no less talented -- version of those two characters."

Ok, that's kind of a creepy way to put it, but we get it. Now in its third phase, titled Day 3 - Extraction, the web series finds Blaine sent to Mexico City to rescue his mentor, Alton Maxwell (Eric Beck), who's been kidnapped by drug czar, Estaban Salazar. Remember him? The Salazar brothers were introduced to us in 24's third season.

Fans of 24 will have to wait until January 2009 for the seventh season to commence, but in a move that's likely to be met with cheers all around, Fox has announced that the producers of the Keifer Sutherland action drama are creating a 24 two-hour TV movie which will be a prequel to the next new season. The story will cover the two years between the end of season six and the beginning of season seven. The actors are being cast now, presumably the essential members of the team who survived the previous 24-hours of a nuclear disaster, terrorism, lies, betrayals, shootings and tragedies.

Fox is set to kick off the new season of 24 with a two hour premiere tonight. To get you in the mood, have a look at this list of all the people Jack has killed in his first five days. If you're playing along at home, Jack's kill count stands at 136 going into day 6. Not a bad 120 hours worth of work.

This isn't just any list though. Along with who Jack killed, each entry has a video or picture of the kill as well as the method or weapon. It's well done, and the kind of crazy fanaticism that makes television and the internet a great match. Imagine how hard it was back in the day for Green Hornet fans to track the kills of Britt Reed and Kato.

[ via Digg ]

Look, I know that his years on NYPD Blue redeemed him from a crash course with the child star curse of reality shows and cultural irrelevance, but he'll always be Ricky Schroeder to me. Ricky Schroeder - Silver Spoons star, friend to "Tap Dance Kid" Alfonso Riberio and owner of the racing car bed. Fortunately for Ricky, he overcame the 80s with the aforementioned three seasons on NYPD Blue, a comedic turn as Nurse Paul Flowers on Scrubs and his latest outing as Dr. Dylan West on Lifetime's Strong Medicine.

Ricky has made another great career move - further distancing himself from that plucky young lad in The Champ. He'll be joining the cast of 24 as CTU operative Mike Doyle. Expect to see Schroder team up with Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer in executing "key field ops." 24 is really pulling out all the stops with its latest casting decisions. Schroder is just one of a list of fancy new cast members including Chad Lowe, Regina King, Powers Boothe, Peter MacNicol, James Cromwell, Kal Penn and David Hunt. That's right - Deadwood's Cy Tolliver meets Babe's Father Hoggett meets The Boondocks' Huey Freeman meets Kumar. Who doesn't want to see that?

Here's something you don't usually see: an actor joining a show as a series regular, but staying on his current show, on another network, also as a series regular.

Peter MacNicol will join the cast of 24 in the fall. He'll play a top government official on the spy drama when it comes back in January. But MacNicol is going to stay as a regular on Numb3rs, where he plays mentor and friend to Charlie.

Maybe Charlie can make a guest appearance on 24. He can help Jack Bauer solve an international conspiracy with, um, math or something. I mean, the show does have a number as its title.

...himself!

Keifer Sutherland says that the upcoming season of 24 will have everyone's favorite, tired hero Jack Bauer not saving the world, but saving himself, from bad guys who are hunting him around the world and want to kill him.

I think this is a fantastic idea. It would make the show more Bourne Identity and less James Bond. Meaning, more a personal story about survival than a story about bad guys trying to destroy the world. I think I'll even watch this upcoming season, even though I haven't watched any of the other seasons (not a knock against the show. I love spy/action shows, but there was always something else on).

The FOX show returns in January.

[via TV Tattle]

I'm taking this story with a grain of salt, but if true it's pretty funny.

While vacationing at a ski resort, 24 star Keifer Sutherland was approached by someone who said they worked for the CIA. That person told him his portrayal of uber-efficient (and seriously sleep-deprived) Bauer had set expectations for CIA operatives too high. Seems the agent's mother had remarked to him that he should be more like Jack Bauer, who gets things accomplished quickly. No word on if the mother in question also advised her son to shoot people in the legs should they not cooperate willingly.

Anna mentioned earlier that Elisha Cuthbert will return to the 24 universe tonight as Jack's daughter Kim. The character is rightly surprised to find her father alive after believing he was...you know...not. In fact she's so surprised she hires a therapist to see if he can't calm Jack down a bit. That therapist will be played by none other than the Soul Man himself, C. Thomas Howell. Howell's character will debut later this month. I mean later in the day. I mean.. oh just forget it. Sometime after what's happening now and before what happens later. I'm keen (did I really just say that?) to see how Jack will react to the idea of therapy in the middle of trying to contain the latest terrorist threat that only he can prevent. Maybe if he just shoots Nina again everything will be fine.

In advance of this fifth season of FOX's 24, we were told everything from "You don't know Jack" to the fact that the premiere would be "explosive." Little did we know what the show's creators had in mind for us. Jack is playing "Frank Flynn," and attempting to get some work on an oil site - apparently part of his cover since he's supposedly dead to the U.S. government. Palmer is in the middle of working on his book, Tony and Michelle are back together, and even Chloe's got someone in her bed (and who knew she had ink?!). But 24 wouldn't be 24 without a big way of opening the show. Just minutes in, we see Palmer shot in the neck from a sniper at a building across from where he is standing - and it appears that he really is dead, no faking. And it would only get more intense from there.

The last person we expect to be sleeping with a co-worker is definitely Chloe, but sure enough, there she is with Spenser, who works for her, shortly after the open. Clearly she'll be integral to Jack's return to the living, if she can only make it through the barrage of hitmen who are after anyone connected to Jack and Palmer. Seeing Tony & Michelle at home was a nice scene, which wouldn't last long enough for us to say goodbye. We're quickly thrown into asking who is behind this whole thing, and what's the point. Thankfully, the producers didn't make us wait too long to figure out what was going on - this was clearly a way to spring Jack from wherever he was hiding, and get rid of a few "loose ends" in the process.