24: Day Eight
FOX
THE NATIONAL POST

The last time Jack Bauer enjoyed a happy moment with his family was way back in prehistory. We saw him, at the start of the first season, playing chess with his teenage daughter, Kim. Next thing we knew, Kim was out the door, then abducted, and Jack's descent into hell began. Many traumas later, Kim has a daughter of her own, who looks to be about four. The eighth season of 24 starts tomorrow with Jack, all gentle and crinkly, babysitting her; they're watching cartoons together and apparently having a great time. This cannot bode well. All I can say is, they better not kidnap that kid.

I don't think anyone will. But you never know to what depths people will descend on this show. This season, the bad guys are trying to derail a historic nuclear-inspection agreement between the U.S. and a Middle Eastern country (unnamed, but identifiable as Iran-in-your-dreams) by assassinating that country's President. There's something almost comforting about this. 24 began with an attempt on the life of a presidential candidate and it's good to see the show getting back to first principles after years and years of trying to top itself in the mass-destruction stakes.

24 is endearingly shameless about recycling its familiar tropes, but this time it's making them seem tolerably fresh. As always since Season 2, we have a weary, disillusioned Jack determined to stay away from his old counterterrorist existence; he wants to be with his family - with Kim, with her daughter (named after Jack's wife, Teri, still mourned) and with Kim's latest and rather amorphous partner, Stephen. Once again, trouble comes knocking at his door (literally, this time); but, for once, it's Kim who persuades her dad to fight the good, or at least less compromised, fight. ( "You couldn't live with yourself if you didn't.")

This time around, Kiefer Sutherland looks older. A lot older. It becomes him, though. He still gets to use the patented Jack Bauer interrogation technique - asking a question and immediately repeating it as a shout - and to say "stay with me" to a guy who's bleeding to death on him. And that's just in the first two episodes.

The faux-Iranian head of state is played by Anil Kapoor, from Slumdog Millionaire, on the well-established principle that one exotic ethnicity is as good as another; actually, it's good to see him. He has a smooth brother and aide (as statesmen on this show so often do) and the two of them converse in Fluent Exposition.

I've carped before at 24' s habit of assuming a complexity in Jack Bauer that has never actually been demonstrated. This time there may be hope; Sutherland conveys a believable world-weariness even in the action scenes. One actually roots for him to find peace and go join Kim and the family back in L.A. - though why he should want to live there, considering the memories the place must hold for him, Jack only knows. Maybe he'll get through this time without torturing anybody. In the meantime, the suspense stays tense. Maybe I relax my standards for this show, but it can still have me on the edge of my seat.