Posted on: Tuesday, May 21, 2002

TV's wildest ride reaches 24th hour

By Frazier Moore
Associated Press

What fun we all could have had with "24" — especially now, with its conclusion.

In the tradition of "Survivor" mania, all of us might have been hashing out every clue, plot twist and potential outcome as this serial thriller speeds toward its finale tonight on Fox.

Will CIA agent Jack Bauer save his daughter from the clutches of Serbian terrorists?

Will presidential candidate David Palmer avoid disaster after two assassination attempts and the deceptions of his scheming wife?

Will Nina Myers, Jack's fellow agent and supposed defender, get what she deserves for covertly plotting against him?

Will Jack, after 24 hours of helter-skelter peril, get some shuteye?

These, and questions like them, should have been on everybody's lips. After 23 episodes that tracked in real time, hour by hour, what Bauer calls "the longest day of my life," it would have been fun to share the end of "24" communally.

But Sept. 11 dashed that hope. The hopped-up sense of dread that ensnares "24" may have struck many viewers not as sleek escapism, but as an echo of their own altered world.

Familiar rhythms are absent from "24." There is never a break. Just the fearsome rush of time, often flashing on the screen like a digital compulsion.

"24" surely isn't comfort-food TV. Indeed, the series got off to a particularly uncomfortable start when, on its first episode, a terrorist blew up the jetliner in which she had been a passenger after parachuting to safety.

Now the end (11 p.m. to midnight) is in sight.

"The day will be over, the story will come to an end — it's not a cliff-hanger," pledges Kiefer Sutherland.

Not that even he knew how it comes out until two weeks ago.

"Various endings were being considered, and when we started shooting, I said, 'Look, which one are we committing to?' And they said, 'We think this one.' But I looped (did voiceovers for) three different endings."

After the end? "24" still won't be over. Despite its 89th-place ranking this season, it was renewed last week by Fox.

"I expect that next year it will start in a really, really strong way," Sutherland says.

By then, more viewers might be ready.