Last season, Jack Bauer managed to save the world (again) but couldn’t save 24 from a critical panning. Unfortunately, the outlook for the seventh season of the Emmy-nominated series isn’t much better. Despite positive signs such as casting Tony-Award winning Cherry Jones as the Fox drama’s first female president, the writers have had to go back to the drawing board after an entire storyline set in Africa had to be scrapped due to production costs.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, production on the new season, which had already been moved back from late July to August 27, has been pushed back yet again to September 10. Ongoing production delays are not a good sign for any show, but for a series as intricately scripted and shot as 24, too many setbacks can be disastrous.
Then again, maybe the extra time spent writing will mean that we’ll only hear Jack’s tired, “But this is our only lead” excuse for torturing a guy who may or may not be a terrorist, fifty times this season instead of seventy-five. Regardless, Day 7 promises to be a departure from the 24 with which fans have become familiar.
At the 24 panel at Comic-Con in San Diego last month, the producers said that the biggest change is that there will be no CTU. In addition, Bauer has a lot of splainin’ to do about the body count he’s racked up—he’ll be facing Senate hearings in D.C.
While 24’s writers are still hammering out the storyline, I think it’s pretty safe to say that Bauer will be able to navigate D.C.’s streets as deftly as he navigated LA’s, where it never took him more than ten minutes to get to any location in the city, and any ol’ place was a fine location for a helicopter landing pad. Let’s just hope the new season ends up going as smoothly.
24 Day 7 premieres on Fox January 13.
