24 is an American television series starring Kiefer Sutherland as Counter Terrorist Unit agent Jack Bauer, produced for the Fox Network and syndicated worldwide. Each 24-episode season covers 24 hours in the life of Bauer, using the real time method of narration.First broadcast on November 6, 2001, the show ran for 192 episodes over eight seasons, with the series finale broadcast on May 24, 2010. In addition, the television movie 24: Redemption was broadcast between seasons six and seven, while a feature film is also planned.
Bauer is the only character to have appeared in all eight seasons, as well as appearing in every episode of the series. The series begins with him working for the Los Angeles based Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU), for whom he is characterized as a highly proficient agent, but one taking an "ends justify the means" approach regardless of the perceived morality of some of his actions. Throughout the series most of the main plot elements unfold like a political thriller. A typical plot has Jack Bauer racing against the clock as he attempts to thwart multiple terrorist plots, including presidential assassination attempts, nuclear, biological and chemical threats, cyber attacks, as well as conspiracies dealing with government and corporate corruption.
The show has won numerous awards, including 20 Emmy Awards over its eight seasons. It won for Best Drama Series at the 2003 Golden Globe Awards and Outstanding Drama Series at the 2006 Primetime Emmy Awards. Kiefer Sutherland has been awarded Best Actor – Television Series Drama at the 2001 Golden Globe Awards, and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series at the 2006 Primetime Emmy Awards. At the conclusion of its eighth and final season, 24 became the longest-running espionage-themed television drama ever, surpassing both Mission: Impossible and The Avengers.
The show's real-time nature is emphasized by an on-screen digital clock which appears before and after commercial breaks. Smaller, silent, clock displays also appear at other points in the narrative, between commercial breaks. The time shown is the in-universe time of the story. The narrative will often place time windows on key story events. This will often be "within the hour", suggesting the event will occur within the episode.24 uses the 12-hour clock rather than the 24-hour clock, although am and pm are not used for the on-screen clock, they are only seen during the opening narration.
Each episode duration without commercials is approximately 43 minutes, as is common for hour-long television shows on commercial networks. Time continues to elapse during the commercial breaks, with the exact amount denoted by the digital clock display at the beginning and end of each act. Mundane events, such as travel, sometimes occur during commercial breaks and thus these events are largely unseen. The season 2 and season 3 premiere episodes aired without commercial interruption and just contained advertisement from show sponsor Ford at the beginning and end. The total running time of the premiere episodes are 51 minutes, approximately 8 minutes longer than normal episodes.
The story time correlates with elapsed viewing time if episodes are broadcast with commercials inserted at the commercial break points prescribed by the episode, and commercials run for the correct duration. In line with the depiction of events in real time, 24 does not use slow motion techniques. The series also does not use flashbacks, except once during the first season finale. Watched continuously without advertisements, each season would run approximately 17 hours.
Where the clock is shown either side of a commercial break a distinct beeping noise for each second was usually heard, along with a steady pounding. These beeps alternate between C and D tones. However, after highly emotional moments, such as the death of a major character, the clock will run without the beeping, with ambient noise (if any) allowed to play instead. The producers and fans have dubbed this the "silent clock", and its use has become a hallmark of the show. The silent clock was used eleven times; six were following the death of a character, while five were not. At the end of the series finale, the clock counts down instead of up for the only time, from 00:00:03 to 00:00:00.
The first season began and ended at midnight, and during its ninth episode (8:00 – 9:00 am) Jack mentioned that he had already been awake for 24 hours. In most subsequent seasons the story starts in the morning. Seasons two and seven began at 8:00 am, Seasons four and five began at 7:00 am, and season six began at 6:00 am. This was a more realistic period of time for the characters to have been continuously awake.
Season three began and ended at 1:00 pm. Season eight began and ended at 4:00 pm because filming began in the summer when there were more daylight hours available.[citation needed]
The action switches between different locations tracing parallel adventures of different characters involved in the same overarching plot. A secondary story will often take place outside of this plot, which is necessarily implemented because of the real-time constraint. As a result, there are long sections of unseen narrative for each character; any one character is only seen for a portion of an episode's overall running time.
