Kiefer Sutherland: 24: Live Another Day “might be the best work we’ve done”

Kiefer Sutherland was interviewed by Entertainment Tonight Canada.

I said yes very quickly and then went through about six months of panic. “Oh my god, why have I opened this up again?” I was very nervous about starting again and would we be doing stuff that was at least on par, if not better, than things we had done before? And then very fortunately, within a few days and with a new crew here in England, I felt amazingly comfortable.

I think he’s colder and therefore in a very odd way, more frightening. You really do see it, he’s different. He’s someone that you might not be able to trust to do the right thing. And Jack Bauer’s been a character that you always trust to do the right thing. Oh gosh, there’s a line that I would love to be able to tell you, but I can’t!

Now halfway through the season, I can arguably say that this might be the best work we’ve done.

You have to always take these types of comments with a grain of salt, but that is a promising sign.

Source ET Canada

28 Comments

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Sorry Kiefer, but no matter what you do, you will never top season 5’s perfection.

Season 5 was the low point for me. It’s phenomenal, but that’s how much more highly I think of the other 7 seasons.

Wherever the current season ends up ranking within the show’s 9 years, it will still rate as better viewing over anything else on the airwaves now except for ‘Homeland’.

Homeland lost its step in season 3. I’m not sure it can recover from it. Mad Men is about to start its 7th season and is a better show than Homeland (and I loved Homeland’s first two seasons). True Detective just ended. There’s plenty of TV out there better than Homeland’s third season (Boardwalk Empire, for example) so 24 won’t have a heard time beating that. What I’m really curious about is if 24 can regain that “one of the best shows on tv” stamp that it held for its first 5 seasons. I’m hoping it does. 31 days to go!

I understand Kiefer’s obvious enthusiasm, and also understand some people might just think he’s blowing smoke as actors tend to do sometimes, but the last time he said something similar about a ’24’ season was just as Season 7 was starting to air… and that absolutely was one of the strongest seasons to date, at least I thought so!

Wouldn’t it be awesome if he was proved right though?

Sorry Kief, this won’t come anywhere near close to being the best work you’ve done. You can thank the creatively bankrupt fuckwits in the writers room for that – who deserve to be battered to death with bits of wood.

Repetitive nature of the plot aside, it’s the broken promises every season that piss me off, and LAD is the worst of the bunch for that.

“Jack will be on his own, having to save himself rather than stopping a big international threat… except he’s with Chloe… stopping a presidential assassination… and later drone attacks ”

“The 12 hour format will allow us to jump around and put Jack on a plane… fuck it, let’s just stay in London.”

and more recently “Jack and Chloe’s relationship is now ruined for good… but it’s going to be exciting (haha) to get it back to normal”

Time was, I thought the writers were just careless, but I think it’s worse than that… they actually think what they’re doing is still cutting edge, amazing stuff. Scary.

It looks like you’re taking this show a bit too seriously XAM – you’d need to grow up a bit too by the sound of it.

Seeing near 30 days on the counter to the right makes me pumped and these articles don’t help!!

Jack, you have a nasty habit of responding to my posts with petty little swipes at me without making a single dent in any of my arguments.

In future, feel free to address any points that I made – how I make them is irrelevant and whether or not I take the show seriously or should grow up is none of your business mate. I’m here to talk about 24, not engage in pointless bitching.

I’m not making any ‘swipes’ – I’m simply speaking on behalf of most of the visitor base to this site. You’ve ‘lowered the grade’ and standard of this site I’d say. Your arguments are kind of invalid due to the nature in which you’re making them. It seems that you can’t speak without getting into a rage and you swear very frequently… it creates an unpleasant atmosphere in my opinion.

Check this out: http://pastebin.com/cGzpCXAg

On topic: The 24 Spoilers admin stated that there was a number of press industry staff that went and visited the cast of the ‘CIA headquarters’ in London. Do you know if there was more than already released?

As if the standard and grade in these comment sections were so high here before XAM.

“Lowering the grade” you’d think we were at the Ritz or something, get over yourself.

What’s worse is that you actually went back… and made a compilation of my posts that upset you. That’s actually quite disturbing and pathetic. Have you tried ignoring them? Or are you just one of those people who actually enjoys being offended by small trivial things?

Anyway we’re done, reply to me again and you’ll be wasting your time. Get your fix of petty internet drama from someone else.

Yeah, Jack’s behavior is definitely indicative of certain…issues.

Guys, everyone take a breather, not to mention a chill pill, it’s all getting very heated in here!

If I may make a small suggestion, 24Spoilers, maybe you should amend the Comments Policy from prohibiting “excessive language (profanity)” to NO strong profanity… it might soften the discourse considerably and take the venom out of future conversations here!

This is a really exciting time for ’24’ fans, let’s not blow this occasion with invectives, vitriol, and/or excessive negativity… everyone has a point of view and sees things differently, let’s both remember and respect that, because if things continue as they are, I’m tempted to give the comments section here a wide berth and I don’t want to do that, alas, I fear I may not be alone in that thinking.

Over to you, 24Spoilers, time to lay down the law methinks…

Seriously now everyone, too many comment threads have been derailed by this type of nonsense. This is the last time I ever want to repeat this – please be polite to each other and remain on topic.

The constant bickering and hostility absolutely has to stop right now. I don’t want to see any personal feuds in future comment threads.

It’s already extremely time consuming trying to stay on top of the (literally) hundreds of spam comments each day. I do not wish to spend even more time censoring and/or deleting comments from legitimate users who aren’t following the rules. If things continue down this path I’m just going to disable commenting entirely.

I want this to be a fun and respectful community that can have interesting discussions and debates. Everyone please take just a few seconds to read the comment policy (located above the comment form) and make sure to follow those rules.

You’ll get no more trouble from me gaffer.

Dude wow obviously Kiefer doesn’t have a problem with the writers or anything they’re doing or he wouldn’t have agreed to be Jack again, I mean outside of 24 he seems to be very good friends with them. & that goes the same for the writers & there director Jon.

“Oh gosh, there’s a line that I would love to be able to tell you, but I can’t!”

This looks very promising…

Nothing will top the first 5 seasons for me, especially not the first.

It’s physically painful watching season 1 now. It’s like watching The Beatles in their prime, knowing all you have to look forward to now is a nostalgia whoring, vocally challenged Paul McCartney singing “Hey Jude” out of tune for the millionth time.

I know. And I’m not going to argue against that.

Just my respective favorite season because I like how the threats were targeted right towards Jack and his family, making it more personal and exhaustive for him in my view.

If this season is along the level of seasons 1-3 and 5, I will be very happy!

Your omission of 4 is interesting. I’m of the opinion 1-3 and 5 are the best as well.

Challenge: Summarise the plots for days 4, 6 and 7 in one sentence.

In my opinion the whole chinese thing and then releated to Paul’s death was a great thing to add (season 4). They could not do that with the russians since season 6 and their consulate, but I’m pretty sure that they have now some sort of “new country” thing in London.

Season 4 in one sentence: Marwan Escapes

If the villain dies eleven minutes after the last episode begins, then he did’t escape. So I disagree.

My one sentence would be Palmer’s to Jack: “You threaded the eye of the needle.”
With all the mess, the difficulties and the threat to his life, he overcame.

However everyone thinks LAD will turn out, it strikes me that they would not have bothered resurrecting 24 if they didn’t have something really new and original by way of a storyline to tell. Why spoil the reputation of such a brilliant TV gem with a half-baked rehash of past 24 plots? Kiefer claimed Howard Gordon had such a good idea for this series, that it was this that tempted him back. If you look back through the writing credits, Gordon has, in my opinion, provided some of the very best plots. Together with other great writers who had previously written for 24, I see no reason to think it will all be a disappointment.

For those who are already thinking the worst, what story unfolds has to be within the context of who Jack is, and what has gone before in his life. The information we have so far about what will happen isn’t enough to be able to tell what the finished series will be like. As with earlier seasons, so much depends on the quality of the characterisation, best exemplified I think in arguably the best season, No. 5, not just in the storyline.

I’ve been watching previous seasons on DVD for some time now, in the run up to LAD, and, however that turns out, it will still be something that’s really worth watching, just for the Jack Bauer character alone, and will doubtless be head and shoulders above the vast amount of meaningless drivel that passes itself off as drama these days.

Roll on May!

He says this about every single season before it comes out. However on twitter he once said he thinks Season 1 remains the best. I’m presuming this is him exaggerating for marketing purposes again.

That’s nothing unusual in the world of Hollywood.