I am – Hercules!!
As the folks who follow my twitters know, Fox forwarded the first four hours of “24’s” eighth season yesterday and, while it’s way too early to file a review of the episodes, I can offer some not-too-spoilery hints of what’s in store:
* 8.1 Opening titles: Kiefer Sutherland. Mary Lynn Rajskub. Anil Kapoor. Mykelti Williamson. Katee Sackhoff. Chris Diamantopoulos. John Boyd. With Freddie Prinze Jr. And Cherry Jones. Special Guest Star Elisha Cuthbert. Guest starring Bob Gunton. Nazeen Contractor. Doug Hutchison. Akbar Kurtha. Benito Martinez. Paul Wesley. Jennifer Westfeldt. Necar Zadegan. Jaime Gomez. Stefan Kapicic. Cliff M. Simon.
* Writers:
8.1 Howard Gordon & Evan Katz.
8.2 Manny Coto & Brannon Braga; story by Howard Gordon.
8.3 David Fury & Alex Gansa.
8.4 Chip Johannessen & Patrick Harbinson.
* Kapoor (the Regis Philbin of “Slumdog Millionaire”) plays Omar Hassan, the Arab Jed Bartlet, the greatest Middle East leader one could hope for.
* While Ethan Kanin (Gunton) is still around, he’s no longer President Taylor’s chief of staff.
* Jack Sack? Back!
* Jack Bauer, now in Manhattan (and just down the street from the big Hassan-Taylor disarmament negotiations), is not only not dead, his doctor “signed off” on him two weeks earlier.
* While Jack’s in perhaps better shape than we’ve ever seen, things have not gone well for Chloe O’Brien.
* After so many years of “Battlestar Galactica” it’s strange to see Sackhoff playing the Chloe role this season. She's not the girl with the gun anymore!
* CTU NY is not dissimilar to CTU LA. Still lots of glass and a prominent staircase leading to the director’s office. The biggest additions noticed in the first four hours are a jumbotron-like HD screen looming over everything and a sci-fi interrogation room.
* A piece of dialogue I loved: "Oh!! Oh!! What's the matter with you??"
* Doug Hutchison, who plays Horace Goodspeed on "Lost," stars on "24" this season. Did not recognize him without the hippie hair.
* Domenick Lombardozzi (Herc from “The Wire”) plays another Herc-like role as an NYPD patrolman.
* Very exciting opening credits for 8.4! Jurgen Prochnow and ... someone else!
Look for lots more just before the first four hours of “24’s” eighth season hits Fox Jan. 17 and 18.
Follow Herc on Twitter!!
