Again, obviously that isn’t what you are doing but it’s a practice that really annoys me when I see it so I tend to try balance out comments I disagree with, just to level out the opinions.

I should point out, I’m from the UK myself so I’m also more used to series being run all the year round, rather than in the US style “seasons” and I don’t entirely agree with the networks that people wouldn’t start watching their favourite shows during the summer, if that was when they were broadcast. The problem they have is that the season system has been in place for so long that they obviously fear changing what they see as a workable practice. That said, there does seem to be some change going on regarding this very subject at the moment, so perhaps we aren’t far away from seeing the possibility of a 24 summer run.

True enough, everyone has their favourite and least favourite seasons of any given show they watch, regardless of the overall quality. That said, I don’t remember a previous season of 24 being quite as disliked as season 6 by as large a part of the fanbase. I think it’s fair to say that it has received a hell of a lot more criticism than any year before.

Hardy24 - “On your example of Lost, that some people thought the second season wasn’t that great, I know a lot of people who thought the second was good, and that most of the third was poor.

It’s all a matter of judgement.”

Again, very true. For me, I consider the second season to be essential to the growth of the characters that we see in the current episodes in so many ways that maybe weren’t obvious as the second season first played out. The common complaints that it dragged out and was full of filler episodes don’t really work for me. The only part of the show that has ever truly dragged was the mini-season at the start of season 3, and even that had it’s highlights.

So, yep, all a matter of judgement and individual opinion, which was kinda my point that circle should at least wait to see season seven of 24 before he starts to judge it, because truly good shows have a habit of coming back to brilliance just as the masses start to assume the worst.

On your example of Lost, that some people thought the second season wasn’t that great, I know a lot of people who thought the second was good, and that most of the third was poor.

It’s all a matter of judgement.

If what you say is true that the show has more than enough loyal fans around the world, and I totally agree with that, then they will be loyal enough to wait this out. What really matters is that the season 7 we get when it returns lives up to the wait and blows us away, and I believe that it will.

Ironically, your statement above, that “we have all seen the best of 24″ is probably a lot more harmful than any year long wait could be. I have to disagree that we have seen the best of the show because for five seasons the show continued to improve and even though the sixth season did lack something of the usual 24 brilliance I certainly don’t see that as a sign that the best has already been seen. Every show has a season that doesn’t quite work. People condemned Lost’s second year (although I have to say that I loved it) but the third and current fourth seasons have been pure brilliance. 24 is no different.

My opinion? Show some of that loyalty you speak of and show Fox that you are looking forward to the new season, rather than doubting it’s quality before you have had a chance to judge.

Hardy24 - “I think either way we may notice a few characters and actors written out after episode 8.”

Yeah, I’m a little concerned about that as well. I’d hate to see good characters wasted because the guest actors involved were not able to return to the roles when production resumes due to other commitments. For me, that is the only real downside to the delay.

Y’know, that and no new 24 for a whole year!

I tend to think that 24 has a fairly loyal following by now and the plan to dely the season by a year won’t have a negative effect. A lot depends on how Fox promote the return next year and I have no doubt that they still have a lot of faith in the show to do the business.

Season 9 though? Definite doubts but you never know. Probably way too soon to be worrying about that, given that we would be talking the 2010/11 television season.

Also, there is the fact that many of the cast and crew are only contracted to a show for certain times of the year. I’ve no idea if this is the case for 24 but it is quite possible that Kiefer and the other actors may be contracted to other projects after a certain point, making them unavailable for involvement in the show should it run later than planned.

Finally, and this is a purely speculative point that occured to me and may or may not be the case, given the nature of 24’s format, should the “night” hours of the show run through the middle or late into the season (which appears to be the case from the litle I have seen of the early episodes) then filming the outside locations during the months of the year when it is dark for only a short time of the night would probably require a hell of a lot of late nights and difficult shoots. Not something they would want to have to worry about given all the other issues of getting back into production.

That is VERY true i agree with you 100%.