24 - Season 7: Jack Bauer vs Tony Almeida
Almeida is Alive and Part of Homegrown Terrorist Group
Eighteen months is a long time to be separated from a loved one. Expectations run deep and disappointment is a blink away. So, fans will be relieved when 24 returns to television in a two-night, four-hour premiere on January 11 and 12. (New episodes of 24 were delayed as a result of the writers' strike in 2007.) The Jack Bauer marathon gives viewers plenty to chew on including multiple shootings, explosions, double-crossings, abductions, and general chaos.
24: Redemption, which aired last fall, helped knit together Bauer's (Kiefer Sutherland) whereabouts and state-of-mind but it left viewers hankering for more. As Season Seven begins, the Democrats are in the White House and they’ve no stomach for torture. Bauer is back from Africa and on a firing line of sorts in Washington, D.C.
He chafes in a suit during a Senate investigative hearing to discuss his abundant use of torture while part of the counter-terrorism unit (CTU). “We’ve created two worlds,” Bauer says. “Ours and the people we’ve promised to protect.” Bauer’s two worlds are about to collide.
Spoiler Alert – Kidnapping, Torture, Shooting.
Elsewhere in D.C., a civil servant (John Billingsley, The Nine) is kidnapped and forced to put together a “module”. That module allows the bad guys to hack into the government’s security system and attack everything from air traffic control, to the electric grid, to water sanitation plants and more. In other words the basic infrastructure of the U.S. is in trouble.
Cherry Jones plays Allison Taylor, the first female president of the United States of America. She’s inherited a hotpot of both national and international problems, including dealing with the theft of the module.
All About Tony
The rumours are true. Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard) is back and he is working on the wrong side of the law. Almedia is older, pudgier, and angrier, and it’s hard to blame him for hating the government. His wife, Michelle died because of President Logan's shenanigans in Season Five.
Bauer’s friendship with Almeida makes him a hot commodity to the FBI. An agent temporarily springs Bauer from the Senate hearings and enlists him to find Almeida. Janeane Garafalo has a funny turn as Janis Gold, a twitchy, and brainy FBI computer geek i.e. the new Chloe O'Brian.
Bauer’s unofficial return to duty is magical. He hunts down Almeida and goes fist to fist and fist to throat with his former best-bud after the FBI have taken Almeida into custody. Bauer allows himself only a moment of grief: “What happened to you? What the hell happened to you” he growls to Almeida. (Almeida did "die" in Jack’s arms so his confusion and sense of betrayal are understandable.)
A second storyline involves President Taylor’s son, Roger, who allegedly committed suicide. Colm Feore is the First Gentleman, Henry Taylor, whose grief has convinced him that his son was murdered. He will stop at nothing to prove it. (24 producers seem to be obsessed with unhinged spouses.)
Sangala – Another Day at the Office
Storyline C involves an uprising in the fictitious African country of Sangala. President Taylor sends the navy to stop further humanitarian atrocities… themes from Hotel Rwanda and Blood Diamond are tangled into the story arcs. No sign of Jon Voight who appeared in 24: Redemption but there’s evil enough in General Ike Dubaku, the Butcher of Sangala, who has the aforementioned module and is blackmailing the U.S. government.
Final Spoiler
The CTU team is back in action but working off the grid. Chloe is quiet, Bill is in a track suit and their minds are on fire with a conspiracy theory – namely that members of the inner presidential council are helping Dubaku and receiving kickbacks from the diamond trade.
- 24 airs on Global on January 11 at 8 p.m. ET and January 12 at 8 p.m. ET .
BOOKTelevision Delivers Mid-Winter Heat
These mid-winter offerings on BookTV will appeal to viewers who love smutty novels and wish Valentine's Day was year-round.
Who's Afraid of Happy Endings, a documentary about romance novels filled with bare-chested hunks and bodice ripping airs Fri. Jan. 30 at 9 p.m. ET.
Don Juan De Marco paired Marlon Brando as a psychiatrist assisting a delusional patient, played by Johnny Depp. Sun. Jan. 18 at 9 p.m. ET.
- The Harlequin film, Diamond Girl starring Joely Collins airs Mon. Jan. 26 at 9 p.m. ET.
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