Jack Bauer, America’s favorite counterterrorism agent with the violent code of honor and the weird sadomasochistic bent, is squaring off against a stealthy and unforgiving new enemy.
His fans.
After peaking in the ratings last year, Fox’s thriller “24” has been getting dumped on by seemingly everyone in this, its sixth season. Critics and fans alike are aiming tomatoes at the stage, carping about the soapy and repetitive plot lines that unspool Jack’s unlikely familial past, tiresome romantic triangles in the security bureaucracy, and endless bickering among Oval Office advisers.
Last week, with a fresh episode designed to lay the groundwork for what the creators promise will be a typically suspenseful finale next month, “24’s” ratings in the key young-adult category swooned to their lowest level in more than three years, with a total audience of just 10.4 million, according to figures from Nielsen Media Research.
Changes on the way
The “vox populi” protests have not escaped the attention of the show’s producers, who promise that some big changes are on the way for Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) and other regulars next season.
“It hurts to hear the criticism,” said executive producer and writer Howard Gordon, who was working on the season’s final episode, set to air May 21. “I don’t dispute it’s been a challenging season to write for us. But it’s reinvigorated our determination to reinvent the show. This year could be seen to be the last iteration of it in its current state.”
Reinvention? That sounds ominous. But Gordon says not to worry, as Jack, he says, “won’t be flipping burgers.”
So “24” – the TV institution, to say nothing of the show’s ongoing narrative – has at last arrived at a crossroads, and what an odd trip it has been.
Premiering less than two months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, “24” initially amounted to barely a blip on the pop-culture radar. The premise – each episode unfolding in real time over the course of a single day as Jack races to foil some dastardly conspiracy – sounded gimmicky.
Blossomed into a hit
And given recent American history, Jack’s missions against Middle Eastern bad guys easily could have struck too close to home. (As it is, the show has prompted plenty of complaints for propagating noxious ethnic and religious stereotypes; witness this season’s major plot involving a diabolical terrorist overlord named Abu Fayed.)
But Fox stuck by the show, and, thanks in large part to the about-to-explode television DVD market, it steadily grew a fan base that finally made it blossom into true hit-level status sometime during the critically acclaimed and Emmy- winning fifth season.
Longtime devotees are struggling to keep the faith during this trying season.
“The writers have recycled some plots this season that are glaringly obvious: a recording, an almost removed president, an assassination attempt on that president, an attack on a Middle Eastern country, an impending nuclear strike, a person close to Jack kidnapped, etc.,” Victor Lana, a novelist who follows “24” for BlogCritics Magazine, wrote in an e-mail. But, “The bottom line is that we still care about Jack Bauer.”
And “24’s” audience is getting noticeably grayer, typically a sign that a show is losing its purchase on the windy crags of pop culture. According to Brad Adgate, senior vice president at the New York advertising company Horizon Media, the median age is 47.4 so far this season, compared with 45.1 last year and 42 in the 2003-04 season.
But Gordon said he and his writing staff were wondering if something else was afoot besides the normal cycles of storytelling and network scheduling.
