I am – Hercules!!
The Big Twists are back, and so are the impossible choices. After 2007's underwhelming family-fueled sixth season and last November’s mediocre “Redemption” TV-movie, “24” comes roaring back tonight and tomorrow with four exciting and engrossing hours that place Jack Bauer among a crew of D.C.-based FBI strangers wary (if sometimes admiring) of his by-any-means-necessary reputation. If you watched the “Redemption” DVD, which contains the first act Sunday’s first episode, you know it begins with some spectacular vehicular mayhem as top computer engineer Michael Latham (John Billingsley) finds his life turned upside down in the space of a minute.

In the season’s second minute we’re reintroduced to Bauer as he testifies before a congressional committee led by dour and judgmental U.S. Sen. Blaine Meyer (Kurtwood Smith), who doesn’t seem at all happy that Jack has employed torture to prevent nuclear weapons from being deployed on U.S. soil. Bauer does not deny torturing, nor does he apologize for it. “Am I above the law? No, sir,” Bauer tells the senator. “I am more than willing to be judged by the people you claim to represent. But please do not sit there with that smug look on your face and expect me to regret the decisions I have made. Because, sir, the truth is, I don't.” No one speaks in Bauer’s defense, and it looks like he’s headed to trial and perhaps another lengthy stint in prison.

Proceedings are interrupted by hot FBI girl Renee Walker (“General Hospital” redhead Annie Wersching), who enters the hearing room brandishing a subpoena and insisting to the lawmakers that Bauer must attend to an even more urgent matter.

In the next few minutes we meet the four main players in Walker’s FBI office, all of whom mirror types we’ve seen in the (now disbanded) Los Angeles Counter-Terrorism Unit: 1) Larry Moss (Jeffrey Nordling), the team’s George Mason-like by-the-book overseer; 2) Renee Walker herself, a field agent who most closely approximates Bauer; 3) Janis Gold (Janeane Garofalo, who supervised Mary Lynn Rajskub as head booker on “The Larry Sanders Show”), a Chloe O’Brien-like computer wiz; and 4) Sean Hillinger (Rhys Coiro, who played obnoxious film director Billy Walsh on “Entourage”), a snippy computer geek in the tradition of Milo Pressman, but with a personal stake in the events fast unfolding around him. At minute 10 we see sweaty, bloodied Latham, his fingernails all removed, now hard at work for his abductors. Then we see air crews preparing for a D.C.-to-New York flight. Will this be “Die Hard 2”? “United 93 II”? At minute 13 Jack is in Walker’s FBI office, being shown a recent surveillance photo of Tony Almeida, a former Bauer colleague we saw “murdered” in season five. Jack is told that DNA was extracted from the exhumed corpse buried in Tony’s grave; that DNA did not match Tony’s. (This is not much of a spoiler, by the way. Leaving aside all the publicity attending Tony’s return, Carlos Bernard’s name is in the opening credits, and Tony himself turns up before the first commercial break, supervising Latham’s tormenters.) We won’t learn until hour four how Tony isn’t dead, but we’ll learn soon enough that Tony is still plenty angry about the light sentence afforded President Charles Logan following the violent murder of Tony’s wife Michelle Dessler. And it turns out Dessler’s demise really did turn Tony into a Very Bad Man.

When we come back from the first set of commercials, we meet the three main players at the White House: 1) New U.S. president Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones), hours away from launching an invasion to designed to stop genocidal African dictator Juma from slaughtering another 100,000 Sengalans; 2) her Novick-like expository device, chief of staff Ethan Kanin (Bon Gunton); and 3) her Martha Loganesque husband, Henry Taylor (Colm Feore), who stubbornly refuses to believe his (and the president’s) stockbroker son took his own life. With his wife distracted by the Sengalese, he undertakes a covert investigation that leads him to his son’s fabulous girlfriend, Samantha Roth (Carly Pope). (Defeated former president Noah Daniels and presidential advisor Tom Lennox, who returned for “Redemption,” are not in the first four hours of the season proper.) At minute 24, an airliner lurches, knocking over a nervous stewardess’ cups and saucers. The biggest “24” fun is spring-loaded into its surprises, so we won’t get into what happens after minute 24. Just know that the show feels rejuvenated by its new supporting cast and venue, and a bit more sure-footed than it did at the start of season six. I’m not sure everything makes sense (do White House advisors really believe Americans would begin rioting if they had to make do without electricity for a few days?), but it does feel like the real “24” is back for the first time in more than two and a half years. Entertainment Weekly gives it an “B-plus” and says:

… you'll feel the warm glow of sadistic glee that signals a jolly good start for vintage 24 mayhem. …

TV Guide says:

… With CTU now disbanded, Jack "on trial" for his sins and Tony back in the mix, the new season starts off with much promise. … Adhering to the belief (irrefutable fact?) that no day can be as plodding as No. 6, I'm more than willing to see where 24's latest one takes us.

Newsweek says:

… This was supposed to be the season when the writers shook things up, and they have, at least cosmetically. … But the show is still loaded with the same clichés—they've just been moved 3,000 miles east. …

The New York Times says:

… The novelty of the hour-by-hour conceit wore off long ago, and the various plot devices and characters are all familiar. The fun, at least at the beginning of a new season, is in seeing how the creators will rejigger the pieces this time around. The premiere has a promising car crash but not many surprises. …

The New York Daily News says:

… Best of all, the show's long break seems to have rejuvenated its story lines, in which intense, rapid-fire action plays out against the backdrop of a complex, methodical geopolitical chess game. If it doesn't aspire to be "The West Wing," "24" understands the dramatic value of injecting "West Wing"-style political challenges. …

The Los Angeles Times says:

… Mercifully, the action soon pulls (mostly) away from sticky moralizing into a classic bullet-riddled "24" plot. … Sutherland, bless his soul, plays Jack absolutely and brilliantly straight. All super-spies have broken hearts, which they camouflage with martinis or dames or icy blue eyes, but Jack Bauer wears his right on his sleeve, even as he picks up that pen and heads for the first available eardrum. …

The Chicago Tribune says:

… Whether or not you agree with Jack’s position on extreme interrogation, you’ll likely agree that the show’s reliance on the ticking-bomb scenario has grown tiresome. …

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

… After watching the first four episodes, it's clear that despite the familiar adrenaline rush and a (temporarily) tighter rein on the ridiculous, "24" hasn't changed much at all. …

The Denver Post says:

Judging by the first four hours, "24" has successfully kick-started Season 7 with an invigorating change of location, new faces and multiple layers of conspiracies and coverups suited to its venue: Washington, D.C. …

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:

… Making Tony a villain seems like a betrayal of the character viewers knew. This season doesn't really kick into gear until night two …

The Sacramento Bee says:

… If there was anything good that came out of the writers strike, it's that it gave producers of Fox's "24" time to get their act together. When the new season premieres Sunday night with two new hours, the electricity, the adrenaline rushes and the fun will be back. …

The Newark Star-Ledger says:

… Of course, the First Gentleman is going to try to leave the White House without his Secret Service detail once you see all the people trying to keep tabs on him. Of course, Jack's FBI handler will have no choice but to take Jack off his leash once it becomes clear there's a traitor in the office and nobody can be trusted. Of course, Jack has to try to strangle someone if it means stopping an impending gas attack. Of course, Kim Bauer is going to go with the crazy mountain man if he'll get her away from the cougar. Under the circumstances created by the "24" writers, it makes perfect sense for the characters to make the same mistakes, over and over and over again, because the story never leaves them another option. But it's still stupid behavior, and the more the characters argue the logic behind their decisions, the more obvious the stupidity - and the plot mechanics that led to it - becomes. …

The Cleveland Plain Dealer says:

… the obvious question is, "Was it worth the wait?" Well, yes …

The Rocky Mountain News says:

… We suspend disbelief because that's what this series calls for, and because the urgency of the performances is compelling. Sutherland's Jack Bauer remains the surliest of lost souls; he's on no one's side but his own. Annie Wersching excels as an FBI agent who takes Jack into her confidence. And Jones continues to astonish as President Taylor, pivoting between motherly angst and steely conviction. Factor in shootouts, car chases, an assassination and a kidnapping (not to mention the requisite double-crosses) and these four hours have a little something for everyone.…

The Boston Herald says:

… feels like a mash-up of all the boring parts of seasons past, minus, of course, that nuclear bomb that hit California. Viewers will be checking their own clocks, waiting for this slog to end.

The Boston Globe says:

… With two action-packed hours tomorrow night and two more on Monday, the series starts off with its usual mind-blowing gusto intact. …

Variety says:

After a subpar "day" followed by a strike-fueled hiatus, "24" gets solidly back to basics … the hero born coincidentally in Sept. 11's wake will improbably survive the Bush administration -- and if this level of quality can persist, perhaps well beyond. … Whatever its flaws, this edition of "24" features smart, crisp and densely woven storytelling whose subplots look to be on a well-orchestrated collision course. Now let's just hope they can keep that up.

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… the now customary two-night, four-hour kickoff finds the series returning to its heart-in-your-throat best, replete with old villains, intricate conspiracies, moral quandaries and political intrigue. What easily could have devolved into self-parody has again become a riveting thriller that hits the ground sprinting. Of course, that also was the case at the beginning of the sixth season, and it didn't last, so we'll have to see if "24" can avoid the dreaded March and April qualitative blues this time around. …

8 p.m. Sunday & Monday. Fox.

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