As some may have heard, this season features yet another cast overhaul as many (READ: all) of our usuals have been put out to pasture. In fact, aside from Jack, the only returning cast member is Chloe, our favorite CTU ninny who's traded in her ugly vest and dowdy brown hair for the standard 24 upgrade of blonde highlights and a nice purple blouse. Gone from the show (although sure to return with a few guest spots - the IMDB already has a few spoilers on that front) are Michelle, Tony Almeida, President Palmer, Wayne Palmer, and thankfully, Kim and Chase (Jack quickly explains that the two have found a house in Valencia, CA and are working at a private security firm - which I'll just assume means they're doing the night watch at Six Flags Magic Mountain).

New to 24 is perennial hipster/misfit/geek Lukas Haas as a computer nerd, Knots Landing alumnus William Devane as the Secretary of Defense, Third Watch hottie Kim Raver as his daughter (and Jack's new secret lover), and deep voiced Alberta Watson as the standard CTU bureaucrat who just always focuses on the wrong leads. Damn her! Oh, and there's Shohreh. She plays the matriarch of a lovely, suburban Persian family that just so happens to be hatching some evil internet virus on the world. Truthfully, the show establishes her as #2 to her stern husband, but if there's anything we know about 24, it's that the women always wear the pants on this show.

There wasn't much plot in the first twenty four minutes, but here's what we have so far: the show kicks off with the traditional 24 transportational disaster — in this case a train exploding in Santa Clarita. CTU is soon abuzz with the sounds of phones transferring (you know that sound: "do do doooo do") and before long, Chloe is snapping at some poor sap (who just happened to be Big Pussy's FBI liaison in The Sopranos). Jack gets cozy with his new girl, and he of course shutters when she tells him that she's falling in love (Oh no! Everyone he's ever loved has been hurt, raped, or killed! Anguish!!!). Elsewhere, the Persian family sees the train wreck on the news over breakfast. The parents speak slowly to each other with deep bass in their voices, as if to say "They shall all die. Mwahahaha!" But alas, their teenage son seems to be cavorting with an American girl. A kink in the plan? Those interracial romances haven't panned out so well on 24 — to date, the non-white people have lost a leg, suffered a biological attack, and well, died (Miguel, Palmer, and Reza - for those of you keeping score).

At an internet cafe, Lukas Haas tries to steal code from Microsoft Office and winds up discovering some evil virus (we know it's evil because it's written in evil red text, not peaceful white text). He calls Chloe (they're old friends, duh!) and she mentions this development to her boss. Oh, but those CTU bureaucrats NEVER listen! Ominous music ensues. Well, there's always ominous music. Anyway, while William Devane moans about his annoying anti-William Devane son, Jack drops by CTU to talk budget with the aforementioned CTU bureaucrat - aka Erin. This serves as a perfect opportunity to introduce us to more CTU newbies, including a raven haired looker (yes, Chloe serves her some passive aggression), a black guy, and a poor man's Goran Visnjic who serves as CTU's new Jack Bauer.

Jack heads upstairs to shoot the shit with Erin who, by the way, had him fired from CTU. Apparently she wasn't a big fan of the heroin-at-the-office habit. The two are about to get into it when that Goran Visnjic-ish guy arrives at a dry cleaners which may or may not be hiding a Turkish terrorist. Of course, this field agent is no Jack Bauer, and as Erin watches him interrogate the manager, Jack spies something on the monitor that might... just... indicate... yep, a terrorist! There's some minor scuffling, the terrorist is caught, and Jack smirks happily. Still got it!

And with that, the DVD came to an abrupt halt as the words "To Be Continued..." flashed across the screen. Dammit.

Honestly, it's hard to really draw many conclusions from just twenty four minutes of the show, but what Fox did leak to us was tight and exciting. I'm optimistic that the excising of Palmer, Kim and others means that we'll only be seeing characters relevant to the central conflict, and hopefully that will translate to a stronger season than last year's silly romp to Mexico, not to mention the purely tangental Milliken murder plot. And maybe this season they'll get around to addressing that whole assassination attempt on Palmer. You know, the one they used as a cliffhanger at the end of season 2 and never followed up with AGAIN???

Posted by B-side on January 3, 2005 10:40 PM