Get ready for another day. FOX recently announced that the network would move forward with a reboot of the hit action series 24, but with a few tweaks and changes. One of the major revelations that have recently come forward is the upcoming reboot's apparent willingness to ditch numerous elements of the show’s continuity. One major element that won’t be returning when 24 comes back to the airwaves is CIA agent Kate Morgan, portrayed by actress Yvonne Strahovski.
FOX CEO Dana Walden recently made a statement during a recent Television Critics Association panel (hat tip to TVLine) asserting that, while Kate Morgan was set up to carry on the torch left by Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), this simply wasn’t the story that the network wanted to tell:
[That’s] just not the story that the executive producers came in to pitch us… We didn’t go them to say, ‘We want a reboot.’ They came in to us to say, ‘We have a fantastic idea.'
The decision to leave Strahovski and her character behind doesn’t seem to be anything personal; Dana Walden generally had nothing but praise to heap upon the actress and the work she did during the events of 24: Live Another Day. Zap2it also reports that during the very same panel Walden stated that FOX’s overall mission statement with this 24 reboot is to branch off in a new direction, as opposed to adhering to story structures and characters that have fans of the series have become accustomed to:
So seeing the 12 episodes they came in to say, OK we see that it lived successfully in that type of arc, now we want to start from scratch. We really didn’t want to revisit characters we’d already explored. But she did a fantastic job.
It would appear that the overall intention of FOX is to turn the entire formula of 24 on its head. Reports indicate that the newly rebooted series will center upon a military hero who has just returned home to the states, and has to turn to CTU when he learns of a major, imminent terrorist attack on U.S. soil. The upcoming season will only feature 12 episodes – as opposed o the previous 24 in past seasons – and feature a somewhat less linear timeline, which will mark a deviation from the real-time adventures of seasons past. Although Jack Bauer and Kate Morgan won’t actually appear on the upcoming season, Dana Walden assures that there will be ambiguous references to past CTU agents that longtime fans of the series will surely pick up on.
So while 24 isn’t picking up where Live Another Day left off, it appears that the folks at FOX have something else in mind that they’re equally passionate about. We will bring you more information on the rebooted series as it becomes available.
