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I completely missed the initial airing of 24 during it’s first season. It sounded slightly interesting, but more of a gimmick than anything else. Boy, was I wrong.

I had heard good things about the series through word of mouth. So as I was shopping around, I found 24, season 1 on DVD. I rarely buy DVDs of video I haven’t seen before, but considering the recommendations I had heard, I decided to take a chance. I am very, very happy with my decision.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with the series, it’s about a government agent named Jack Bauer. You’re given no background on anything— the show just picks up at 12:00 A.M. on the day of the presidential primary. You soon learn that there is a group that is trying to assassinate one of the candidates, David Palmer. Jack’s wife and daugher are also put in jeopardy in the process.

The ‘gimmick’ I referred to earlier is actually the most intriguing aspect of the show. Everything happens in real time. The first hour of the show is what happens between 12:00 A.M. and 1:00 A.M. that day. The second show is from 1 to 2 and so forth, with 24 episodes in all. Now you might think that showing every minute of a day would become boring and tedious, but they way this show is done, it isn’t at all— there are so many things going on at once, you’ll have to pay close attention to keep up with it all.

I’m very impressed with this series, having only seen the first 11 episodes (so far). The production is top-notch. The story is believable, but not predictable. The suspense makes you want to keep watching. It’s the kind of show that you keep thinking about after you’ve turned off the TV.

The second series premieres on October 29th (2002). So I’m going to finish watching season 1 by the time it airs. Apparently, season 2 is also a 24 hour day, but it’s not the day after the 1st season— it takes place a while later since I’ve seen Jack with a beard in the previews.

I must also say it’s a brilliant move on the part of Fox to release season 1 prior to the start of season 2. I’m guessing they’re going to pick up a lot of new fans of the show for this fall. And watching it on DVD has been so nice— no commercials, and you don’t have to wait a week to watch the next episode! I’ll miss that with season 2. My only complaint about the DVD set is that since they rushed it, there aren’t any chapter dividers within the individual shows (you have to scan forward and backward). But the show itself is what’s important— great stuff all around.