I’ll be honest, and this confession might make me very unpopular with our readers and fellow writers, but I’ve never watched an episode of the series 24. I typically don’t watch a lot of TV and so am very selective with what I do watch and this was one of those I unfortunately missed out on. Everyone I know who has seen it, loved it though and the show was groundbreaking in its use of building tension and narrative that all took place within a short time. Something which kept the show at the top of ratings and critical acclaim from the beginning.
The good news is that the show is making a return next year in the form of 24: Legacy. The bad news is that the original show’s star Kiefer Sutherland and his character Jack Bauer aren’t going to be in it, as the show will instead feature a new hero played by Corey Hawkins. Kiefer Sutherland is returning as an executive producer, but currently does not have any deal to appear in the new show and is also very committed to ABC’s Designated Survivor which he is fronting already. Producer Howard Gordon however, says that there is still some chance we will get to see him in the new series in an interview at the TX TV Festival in Austin recently:
I do think the character has life in him, whether it’s a movie or if he intersects with this new iteration of 24, [Legacy]. I sure would love to see him at some point on the show, and I don’t think he’s ruled it out, either.
So although there is no guarantee that we will see Jack Bauer appearing in the new show, we shouldn’t be ruling it out either. Fans of the series can certainly hope to get a glimpse of their revered character in a guest appearance at least on the show. There are some however, who felt that the way the last season closed out – it seemed almost clear there would be no chance of Bauer returning in this new series.
I don’t know how public this is but we didn’t question or consider this being Jack’s last moment, Jack’s end. We couldn’t bring ourselves [to kill him].
So, if the character and actor are both still able to continue, why take a completely different direction for the spin-off and star again without Jack Bauer as a lead focus:
That character has, in fact, lost too much to be the center of an ongoing enterprise
However, Gordon went further to reiterate that Hawkin’s character won’t be a simple Bauer copy, but would still be equally compelling. Hawkins went on to say, “Once we put Jack to rest as the center of the story, we could [do another story],” We will have to wait and see how they close out the one chapter and bring in a new one.
24: Legacy is scheduled for broadcast on FOX after Super Bowl LI on February 5, 2017. So, fans will have to wait till then to find out if the new series and Hawkin’s character are equally appealing to audiences as Bauer was in the first series.
What do you think of the new series? Do you think it can live up the incredible hype created by the first or will it need Kiefer’s magic to be equally compelling?
Last Updated: June 21, 2016
