Why is Ricky Schroder joining ’24′?

Day Six is going to be very crowded for Jack Bauer, as yet another familiar performer has signed on to run around and very likely get blown up, gassed or nuked– or replace someone else who is when 24 returns on January 14.

The latest potential short-timer to join the cast is poor Ricky Schroder, who’s on the team as Mike Doyle, Jack’s man in the field. We say “poor Ricky” because even though he’s 36 years old, married with four kids, an accomplished film director and mature actor who made his bones on NYPD Blue, people still refuse to call him “Rick,” as he and his agents have requested. Once a child sitcom star, always a child sitcom star…

There’s already talk that Mr. Schroder could possibly be replacing Kiefer Sutherland, whose Jack Bauer might not make it to the Seventh Day. But for now, that’s only talk– and Ricky–er, Rick, will have to fight for airtime unless there’s a nice mass killing in the two-hour season premiere.

Among the co-stars who’ve signed up so far…Peter MacNicol… Regina King… DB Woodside… James Cromwell… Chad Lowe… Powers Boothe… David Hunt… Kal Penn… Jean Smart… William Devane (isn’t his character dead?)… and Mary Lynn Rajskub. Oh yeah, and Kiefer Sutherland.

The return of 24 will unspool over a two-night television “event,” with two hours on January 14th followed by another two hours the following night. That’s not an event, that’s a TiVo.

–Tabloid Baby