20th Century Fox TV and Fox appear ready to end the long-running hit after this season, the show’s eighth.

Studio and network execs declined comment — but it’s believed that the final decision will be made in the next day or two. Move is not a huge surprise, but still reps the end of an era for Fox.

According to Variety, 24’s end has recently come a step closer, a ninth season is looking increasingly unlikely, but a Movie is still defintely a possibility.

I’m a happy man again. Steveb

There were some great moments in this story. Jack and Renee’s tender exchange. Steveb

President Hassan’s descent into madness is a nice angle, and the havoc it may wreak on the peace treaty. hardy24

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The good old 24 pitfall of it taking too long for nothing to happen was very much in play. And I don’t really understand why. SteveB

It was all about Renee, and actually her story was quite interesting- and thanks to the excellent casting of Callum Keith Rennie it was worth watching. SteveB

I find myself very much liking individual element, individual characters and individual moments, and the amount I liked in these episodes was much more than in previous episodes, hardy24

it feels like a proper slow burn story, and not simply stalling. hardy24

aside from renee & jack’s story, which is really good and interesting, all of the other stuff just feels like fillers to me. stalling J_A

Renee Walker that chick’s insane – right? no, she’s totally bauer. not only did we have the “I’m gonna need a hacksaw” moment there in ep 4 (“I’m not gonna cut the bracelet”), J_A

talk about a deathwish… what she’ll need in order to snap out of it is a purpose, J_A

Episode Four was by far the best episode we’ve seen. We finally have a plot. The Jack/Renee dynamic is sizzling. Kapoor is acting everyone else off the screen. hardy24

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Reports in Variety.com and and Entertainment Weekly’s website have the same common details. Fox have recently heard a pitch by “scribe Billy Ray (“State of Play,” “Flightplan”) … which takes Jack Bauer to Europe”.

Both articles point out the circumstances under which the project would move forward. “Fox doesn’t have a deal for a ninth season of “24″ and hasn’t yet decided whether to order another season.”, Ratings in the coming weeks are apparently the key factor in the possible renewal for the ninth season. While not laid out explicitly in either article, it would appear that Fox as a corporate entity aren’t facing a straight choice between a ninth season and a Movie. Rather the Fox Television Network must decide if they wish to enter talks over a ninth season. If the network pass then it’s up to 20th Century Fox TV and Film Studios to decide if to move forward with the Movie.

There is however a third option, if the Fox Network pass, 20th Century Fox could offer a ninth season of the show to the other U.S. networks. With all these complex corporate dealings to be undertaken you do start to wonder exactly where and if the creative process of the show weighs in on the decision. As ew.com note… “A decision is needed soon; … the producers are preparing to write the 23rd and 24th episodes of the current season so they need to know whether to pen a series finale.”

Personally i’ve always thought a 24 Movie would be interesting, although if the decision is made because the number don’t add up on a ninth season and not because creatively the producers thought it was the way they want to go, then suddenly i’m less interested.

What strikes me most about the first 4 episodes is just how uneven it has been. One minute i’m very much in the story, i’m going with it, we may have seen it all before, but it’s interesting enough and the continuing stories of Jack, Chloe and Renee has enough pull that i’m very keen to know what happens next in there lives. However the next minute I find myself not caring about the character on screen.

To be clear this isn’t as simple as me caring about the old characters and not about the new characters. I find myself very much engaged with President Hassan played with understated perfection by Anil Kapoor, and Cole Ortiz shows a lot of promise and is closer to a Tony or a Jack than he is too a, hmm, you know those other CTU Action Hero’s whose names we’ve forgotten.  The same goes for many of the new characters. Except for the new head of CTU who I really can’t stand.

As for the returning characters President Taylor is boring me stiff and I don’t see Chloe’s character or story really progressing more than it has, in fact she looks like she’s heading for a heroic death as they run out of ideas for her.

Overall the dividing line of my interest is that when Jack and CTU are down on the ground actually investigating, trying to bring suspects in i’m with it. I’m there. Add to that just about every scene is in Pres. Hassan. (although some scenes are even he can’t save). President Taylor and CTU Director having me wincing with all the “explaining the stakes” dialogue they spew.

Modern CTU it’s an interesting idea which just isn’t working for me. It’s been given more dialogue and more attention than it’s earnt or needs. The office shouldn’t matter. Obviously the idea is to put Chloe and Jack in an alien environment, however it then feels alien and unrealistic to us, since Chloe and Jack are our eyes in this new environment.

Whats frustrated me most about the first four episodes is that absolutely everything wrong with them was avoidable, and has been brought about by the shows adherence to “the forumla”, and if you rearrange a few pieces there would an interesting and exciting premiere.

Go with me for a minute, as I present my alternate reality premiere. It’s just gone midnight. There is no “New CTU”,  just the local FBI, who are about to sign off on Jack moving back west in the morning. Quarter past midnight and Jack gets a thundering knock at the door which wakes him up. A FBI agent who Jack is passingly acquainted with needs a favour. Jack doesn’t want to hear it, but he has news of Renee who hasn’t returned Jack’s calls. Renee has been undercover with the Russian Mob for the past month, but she’d gone dark a few days after going under. A few hours ago Renee called a FBI number and left a message for “Frank Flynn”, the bogus name Jack lived under for a year. The FBI don’t know what is gone wrong, but Renee’s call has set up a cover for Jack and a meeting time and place. The FBI need Jack to go in. Meanwhile in a suite of hotel rooms a heated debate is going on between President Hassan and his staff, as they put together the speech he will give in front of the UN General Assembly in 12 hours. Hassan wants it to be the first step towards talks with President Taylor, but it must be a speech all of the fragile coalition which elected him can agree on. In the local FBI field office, Agent Ortiz is the ranking officer in charge of the midnight to 6 shift as the monitor intelligence and chatter for any sign of a threat to Hassan’s speech.

Okay, so some of it is a bit wolly, but it gets it very quickly to the point in them middle of episode 4 where the show really started to spark my interest, Renee and Jack undercover, together. Hopefully now that the show has established it’s route it can move on from here, if it does it could be a good season.

The opening episodes were good certainly, but didn’t have the same dramatic punch that last season’s premiere did. Steveb

I can see this series being very slow, but having a very good pay off- particularly if this is the last season. Steveb

The futuristic CTU is an interesting idea, but they need to establish some rules fast about exactly how advanced they’ve gotten, or it will get old fast, if almost everything is solved quickly. hardy24

When i watched it i just thought, cool, he took out 2 guys with an Axe, awesome. 24nut

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So the two-night four-hour premiere has come and gone for the edge-of-you-seat, nail biting, adrenaline fuelled thrill ride of 24’s Eighth Season, leaving in its wake a body count, some new characters, some not so new plot concepts and what will undoubtedly be another very bad day for Jack Bauer.

Hailed as potentially being the last season of 24, Day Eight doesn’t begin with a bang. It does, however, get back down to the basics (aside from the super sleek looking CTU). The first two hours have been a nice and slow, character driven start. It may not have the break neck pace that some of the earlier seasons started with, but it works well as a piece of extremely cohesive and well done writing.

Part one of the premiere, 4:00PM – 6:00PM, kicks off with us meeting some new faces and having our screens graced with some old familiars. So I might do a little character exposé on some of the main players and leave plot details for another time.

As far as fresh faces go we have Cole Ortiz, the new Head of Field ops. Being dubbed as mini Jack, Cole doesn’t have an extremely Bauerish feel to him as of yet. He reminds me of an aspiring student who looks up to their teacher, only their teacher is a terrorist killing machine. He’s young but that’s not to say he’s inexperienced. He proves his expertise at field ops early on. Cole seems to see the world as very black and white, like the early Jack, except that foundation is rocked relatively early on. He meets his hero, who, refuses to help. And then an hour later sees said hero going head to head with the new CTU director. It’s at this point you can see the cog’s in his head grinding along and beginning to understand that maybe things aren’t so clear cut. It’ll be interesting to see what side his allegiances fall to throughout the day, but my money’s on Jack.

Dana Walsh, played by the exceptionally talent Katee Sackhoff, comes off as, in the first two hours, easily rattled and carrying some pretty heavy and potentially damaging (who am I kidding? this is 24! Of course it’s potentially damaging!) baggage. The role definitely shows that the Battlestar Galactica Alumni has got more talent then just the action stuff. She showcases a vast multitude of emotions from weak and vulnerable, to compassionate, to reserved. She hasn’t got a massive amount of depth at this point, but Dana is being positioned in a way such that she could emerge as a truly great character.

Brian Hastings the new CTU Director sounds a little bit like he’s trying to exist in an Aaron Sorkin script. He comes into the scene bristling with prettily dressed up insults that he uses to hastily dress down much loved characters. He’s not quirky or witty as a Sorkin character, but he’s definitely got parts of the vocabulary down. Hastings comes off as a real asshole in the first two hours, trampling on our much loved old characters, and shouting down some of the newer ones. Plain and simple, he’s a Bureaucrat and is established as being quick to cover up his own mistakes with a little coercion here and there. He’s reminiscent of Brad Hammond, at least to me, and I can see him hanging some of his people out to dry as the day progresses. Though unlike Brad, the character has made a good impact on me. I have him picked as the character you’re going to love to hate for the season, or for however long his run lasts anyway.

Islamic Republic President Omar Hassan is excellent. He’s portrayed with conviction which has been a casting problem at times with some of the leads (Marwan in season 4 being the best example). He comes off as being a very strong leader, a reformist and someone who seems like he genuinely wants to bring peace and stability to a war torn region. As the first two episodes progress we also get to see him as flawed, imperfect and weak, a trait that brings his character a lot of humanity and makes him all the more three dimensional. We see snippets of his family life, and it’s clearly illustrated that all is not well on the home front. His wife is resentful of him and is displeased with his presences at certain times. He goes to touch her at one point and she gives him one of those harshly worded one liners that scorned politicians wives so often do. His daughter on the other hand has a softer, kinder feel to her. It could be 24 subterfuge though to have us think that the mother is bad and the daughter is good, when really it’s the other way around. All in all, Hassan is a well rounded addition to the show, and the casting apartment couldn’t have done better then Anil Kapoor.

As for the returning old characters we’ve got Jack of course.

This Jack is very different. He’s someone who’s at peace with everything he’s done in his life, someone who has put his life back together and is starting a fresh and rebuilding with his family. He is extremely reluctant to dive back into his old terrorist threat defusing ways, and I’m glad it wasn’t handled with Jack just going “Okay I’m back in!” straight away this season. It was well done and served to establish his character as s much changed man, actually trying to distance himself from everything as opposed to him being out for a maximum of five minutes in earlier seasons. Point blank asked by CTU he refuses, he compromises, he does whatever he can to stay out. New and old faces are shocked by his words, leading to some amazingly emotional and well written scenes, especially with Chloe.

The main highlight from the first two hours definitely drew itself from that conversation, the lines “I can’t, not me, not this time.” Echoing how changed he was as opposed to seeming hollow and meaningless. I was believing the emotions behind the words this time and actually see him as a man who wanted out.

On a side note, we get to see an awesome kill by Jack in the first episode, as we all know the man can’t go for more then an hour without killing someone!

We’ve got Chloe, and boy has she been shaken up. Her character’s matured a bit, and she’s been downgraded this season. Nobody has confidence in her at the work place and you can see that’s hit her to the core. Chloe’s afraid for her job, she lacks the belief in her abilities that she once had, and she hasn’t got anyone at CTU that she can turn to. It’s a nice dynamic to see her character in a new position such as this. Chloe’s really been taken out of her comfort zone and thus far it’s worked a treat.

President Taylor’s back. We get a few little details dropped about what ended up happening with her daughter and husband, which was nice. She’s still a woman of integrity and strength, and actor Cherry Jones still plays her like a charm. Early on she’s put in a predicament and compromises the integirty that she has otherwise shown until now. If this gets built upon both as a character point and a plot point it could pan out to be incredibly interesting. Nothing like a flawed commander and chief paving the way throughout the season.

Kim’s back, much the same as she was in Season 7. Mature and not incredibly annoying as per usual. Along side her is her husband, who by doing simple memory mathematics from my head, gets about four minutes of screen time in two hours. There’s really not much more to say, other then she shares a very heartfelt conversation with Jack and it leads to one of those precious 24 character moments that we all know and love.

This is in no way covers all the new and old characters, having been excluded are Rob Weiss, Taylor’s new Chief of Staff, and old Chief of Staff Ethan Kanin, hopefully I’ll have a chance to go over them later. As for the moment I’ll leave it there.

All in all the first two hours were well done. They weren’t the best two hours of 24 ever, nor were they the best two hours of a premiere, but they were definitely up there. Things are being taken nice and slow, and the plot and motivations are coming into focus bit by bit, as opposed to being rushed into head long and plot being burnt through like no one’s business. Here’s hoping mistakes from earlier seasons aren’t repeated and we don’t end up with a good start and a bad middle. I’m confident however that this won’t happen since the writers are taking there time with things and focusing on characters.

So what are my predications so far for the new season?

If it’s the last season, Jack is going to give his final curtain call on this day. I see some serious elusions to this. His dialogue to Chloe in hour two when he refuses to come back in, the conversation with Kim that follows. Never before have we seen Jack so adamantly refuse to help. It’s like he knows that if he takes one last dive into the world of counter terrorism, that this forray will be his last. Also the scene on the rooftop in the first episode between him and Cole, when Jack looks at him and the helicopter, it’s like he knows that he’s not getting out. That he’s stuck.

I feel like we might also be seeing the last of Chloe. Jack’s attitude towards her seems as if he’s taken her for granted, which I think will be a nice time to off her and really show a very vulnerable angle of Jack. Though this may also not be the case, I’ve got a feeling that she’ll go, and that the prior mentioned conversation between her and Jack in hour two was foreshadowing this in some way. That being said I’m not calling for her death, I like Chloe, she’s my tech girl.

The female news anchor from the start of hour one when Jack is watching T.V with Teri coming to play some prominent or important role. I picked up on this vibe because Jack perked up at her name and did his little frown thing that is key for “all is not well in the world”. Though he could have just been interested in the news segment more so then the reporter, I think it could be an interesting angle to work if done right later on down the track.

Cole taking the Jack Bauer route, pretty much a given.

Renee coming back kicking lots and lots of ass. I am totally psyched for Renee’s return. She has quickly become my favourite character and was fleshed out exceptionally well for season 7. She had an extremely diverse and well plotted character arc last season, and I’m hoping they’ll give her another one this time round. (If she can beat nailing a terrorist in the face with a shovel in season 7 I will be immensely happy.)

What do I want most from this season of 24?

Closure.

The only reason I can see for doing another season is to give some closure, as, from a story telling perspective, season 7 was the perfect place to end it. Jack had been redeemed, Renee was left hanging in the balance of moral ambiguity (not so much hanging in the balance as jumping off a cliff), the conspiracy plot from way back in season 5 had been brought to some semblance of a close, and Tony Almeida had (at least in my eyes) been given some valid reasoning for his actions throughout the course of the day. Jack’s fate was also left up in the air.

A nice ending point.

There were enough answered and unanswered questions for the season seven finale to also serve as the series finale.

So the only reason for an additional season is to tie up some loose threads, what happened with Renee and Alan Wilson? Even though that was very explicitly implied it’d be nice to get an idea of what the repercussions were and what information he gave up about the group. Where Tony is at, if Jack has seen him? Those sorts of things would be the kind of questions you’d want to answer in an additional season.

And if it is the last, we gotta have some Tony, especially at the end of the day. One last Jack and Tony scene, something honest, heartfelt, and truly emotional. I’m not going to denounce the show for not bringing him back this season, though I am going to say that I think it’s a mistake, as a dynamic that has always work well for the show is Tony and Jack playing off one another, especially evident in seasons 3 and 7.

And if it were me, I’d spend it focusing on the group, who have now been around since season 5 to form the mother of all conspiracies. It’d be nice to explore them, their motives, who they all are, and just how deeply they’ve imbedded themselves into American society and politics.

That would be something interesting to explore, especially as it’s become a pinnacle of intrigue in the 24 world.

But we are yet to see if it will be explored in the new season, only the next 18 hours of Jack Bauer’s, potentially last, very bad day will tell.

Unfortunately both myself and J_A reside outside of America, meaning we can’t post along with the U.S. schedule. Myself I will be posting my thoughts on the new episodes as they air in the U.K. roughly a week after the U.S., and if you wish hard enough I’m sure J_A will share her thoughts on a Tony-less Eighth Day.

We’re also always on the look out for new contributors, so if you fancy posting your thoughts on the latest episodes where a lot of fellow fans can read and disagree with you, get in contact with me at webmaster@24fans.com with a little bit about your self, along with a sample piece about the new season of atleast 200 words.

If we think back to Redemption, we remember – Jack had spent one or two years travelling around the world, trying to stay one step ahead of the people who wanted to subpoena him back to the US, but that wasn’t the only reason. He was looking for something, and as he so nicely stated when asked by David Emerson (R.I.P. David, I wish we could have seen more of you) what it was that he was looking for, “It doesn’t really matter. Whatever it was, I didn’t find it.”

I think that in the moment quoted by Dan, where Jack tells Renée about the 15 people on the bus, Jack did find it: the understanding of why he’s done the things he’s done the way that he did: his heart. And there you have it: Bauer isn’t above the law, he’s just between laws, the laws of the country and his mind, and those of his heart. In that moment, like Dan said, Jack made sense.

But as for peace, is it absolutely necessary for Jack to be at peace? Isn’t Jack the tragic hero who never quite gets there? I frankly don’t believe that it is possible for Jack to leave his demons behind and finally live a happily-ever-after life; it is not possible for Jack to live in peace, not until one of two things is erased from this Earth: evil or Jack himself.

There were times when Jack seemed at peace. And those were the moments when he’d made his peace with the thought of dying. When he felt that he had the choice, a chance to choose whether he lived or died, a chance to die in his own way.

We saw him go quietly and peacefully into his planned death in season 6, as he’d been taken home from China and asked to lay down his life for the Greater Good. He agreed without a second thought, without hesitation, and explained to us that…

“The only reason I fought so hard to stay alive in China was because I didn’t want to die for nothing. … Today I can die for something. My ­rules, my way.”

And we’ve seen him lie on his deathbed peacefully in Season 7, having made peace with the thought of dying once more, knowing that in his last 24 hours on Earth he’d helped avoid yet another big terrorist attack, after knowing that he’s done one final big deed, and taken down yet another terrorist, that his daughter was doing well, and wasn’t going to watch him die, that he had a choice to end things and finally escape his demons for good… That’s when Jack decided that he could leave this world. And finally, rest in peace.

To me, this could have been the perfect ending for a tragic hero like Jack. Completely anti-climatic of course, since, hey, wouldn’t we all rather have him run into that huge, bomb-rigged, burning building, rescue 100 hostages and then get back inside to hunt down that one last bad guy, run out of bullets during that final shootout, but instead of letting the guy escape, Jack cuffs himself to the terrorist and a pole in the middle of the room and they both get blown into pieces…? To go out with a bang, that’s the other possibility, and seeing as Jack’s survived Season 7, it just might be what the writers are ultimately aiming for, whenever his countdown ends. Otherwise, they would have made the bold call and let him draw his last breath in Season 7.

However, Kim wasn’t ready to let go and so, Jack lives to see another day. I can’t imagine the anger and disappointment in his mind when he woke up one day and realized that Kim had overruled him. And what would have been his feelings when, the day after the stem cell treatment had been completed and pronounced successful, the doctors told him that he would survive?

“You’re cursed, Jack. Everything you touch, one way or another, winds up dead.”

Has Jack ever forgotten Heller’s words? How long did it take him to dare get close to Kim’s new family? How long until he stopped looking over his shoulder, wondering when the other shoe would drop? Has he ever?

My guess is that by Season 8, Jack’s seemingly at peace with life in general. He’s a granpa, he’s reunited with the only family he has left, he’s probably retired and trying to stay one step ahead of his past every day, trying to make the peace last, trying to keep the world he’s left behind as far away from the family as possible. But I don’t think that he’s completely detached from his demons, from nightmares. He just might wake up every day wondering if today would be the day that his new-found idyll gets crudely smashed and put into jeopardy.

Over the years, Jack had come to an understanding that,…

“You cannot have a normal life and do this job at the same time.”

…And then he’s seen that even choosing the normal life over the job does not offer any guarantees (a.k.a. Michelle’s death and Tony’s downfall). He himself had tried it more than once, getting out of counter-terrorist work and being pulled back in. The difference: it had been more by necessity than by choice back then – this time it’s personal, and it’s his choice. He dares live with a family again, he dares make real emotional connections, and that means that if things go wrong again, someone will miss him. There are people he cares about again, family he’ll do anything to protect. When shit hits the fan, Jack will be vulnerable. Actually, that’s a good starting point.

The burning question is: Will he be any different when it does happen? Will we get yet another instance of the uncompromising, hard, no-nonsense Jack? Or will it be a vulnerable kind of Jack, the season 1- kind?

I know that it isn’t possible for Jack to emotionally or in any way return to the way things were back all those years ago, not with everything that he’s been through. But people who’ve survived a potentially fatal illness and literally come back from the dead (no pun intended), tend to have a different view of the world, a different view on life.

And it might be interesting to explore this kind of thing with someone whom we’ve come to know as someone who…

“will let you bleed to death on this landing”

…if you don’t start talking, but also as someone who….

“will do whatever it takes to save [the 15 people on the bus], and I mean whatever it takes, because maybe I thought if I could save them, I could save myself.”

I wish he could. I hope he can. Someday. In life or death.