24

As the season opens we see that the United States is 11 weeks into a blitz of terrorists bombings. Over 900 have been killed and we see the live TV coverage of the latest bombing. The news reader tells us that it looks like Islamic militants, but no hard evidence exists.

This led me to think that we were going to get the first CAIR approved season of 24. My assumption was that we would see a series of terrorist incidents set up to look like they were Islamic in origin but in reality be the work of Christian fundamentalists. I should have had more faith.

We see a Middle Eastern man trying to get on an LA city bus and being refused entry. As the bus drives away we see the real suicide bomber, an Asian man, setting off his bomb.

Next in the White House Julie Myers (from last season, the head of Homeland Security) having an argument with the Director of the FBI (played by Peter McNichol the guy from Numbers whose character left the show to be a mission specialist on the International Space Station so we'll call him Major Mat Mason, or M3 for short) arguing about M3's plan to build concentration camps to inter the nation's Arab population. She is against it.

President Wayne Palmer (his brother is back in the US Army Special Forces) is trying to walk the tightrope between protecting the nation from terrorists while preserving as much of our civil liberties as possible.

It seems that a terrorist named Farouk will give up the location of the terrorist Assad who is supposed to be behind the current wave of terrorist attacks, but only for a buttload of cash and Jack Bauer, who he wants to torture to death for revenge. The president has paid a "high price" for Jack Bauer to be released from the Red Chinese, who have been holding him in a Gulag for the last 20 months.

Jack's plane lands in LA and Col. McQueen and Cola tell him that he has been brought back so that they can hand him over to the terrorists. Jack is OK with this because it means that he can die for something.

Jack is allowed to clean up and then handed over to the terrorists. He has no gun, no manbag and no cell phone.

While in the custody of the terrorist Farouk he is beaten and tortured with acid and something like a knitting needle which is jammed through his spine. Farouk tells him that Assad is not behind the terrorist attacks. That Farouk is attempting to end terrorism and that he, Farouk, is behind all the terrorist attacks. The whole thing is an evil plot to get CTU to kill Assad and end any hope of peace.

Jack escapes by chewing out the throat of one of his captors. Good scene, however we should have seen an arterial spray. Jack escapes with a gun and a cell phone.

Jack calls CTU and tells them to call off the attack. Assad wants everybody to join hands and sing Kumbaya and Farouk is the real bad guy. Julie Myers and M3 convince Palmer to go ahead with the attack. Palmer agrees.

Jack finds that the terrorist cell phone contains a small hyper space window generator which he is able to program to fold space allowing him to get to Assad's small house in Compton before the two Marine Cobra attack helicopters can get there and launch their Hellfire missiles.

Jack convinces Assad that one of his men is a traitor and they escape before the attack.

They get to a safe house and torture the traitor into telling them where the next suicide bombing will be. Well Assad tortures the guy, it seems that Jack has lost his taste for torture.

The next bombing is going to be on a subway train. Jack gets on the train and Assad follows the suicide bomber's handler.

Jack kicks the bomber out of the train so that the bomb blows up on the track and kills only the terrorist. CTU intercepts a cell phone call from the terrorist's handler to Farouk reporting on the failure. CTU tells the President and M3 and Julie Myers that Farouk is the real terrorist.

In a sub plot we see an Arab family living in a nice Middle Class neighborhood where the father is being arrested by the FBI. The White neighbors, whose son is a friend of the Arab family's teenage son, go and help the son when the redneck neighbor (who was on Tour of Duty) starts harassing him. Later it turns out that the Arab father was innocent, but the son was a terrorist. He winds up shooting the redneck neighbor and as the episode closes he is holding he is holding his white "friend" at gunpoint.

Another sub plot involves the President's sister who seems to be a civil rights lawyer (we'll call her Anita Hill) in the employ of CAIR. Well not really CAIR but an Islamic/American organization modeled on CAIR. Except this organization is headed by a patriot who loves America while the real CAIR is a terrorist front group with past leaders in jail for supporting terrorists.

In this case the FBI wants their personnel files. Anita Hill sends them packing because they don't have a warrant, but when they come back with one she erases the files. the FBI arrests her (for interfering with official business) and the head of the Islamic group.

This is all I can remember. First impression is that the producers are trying to walk a fine line between the realization that terrorism in the modern world is a product of the Islamic religion and the politically correct impulse in the entertainment industry to oppose what the left calls "racism". I don't think that the 24 producers are politically correct, but they live and work in a politically correct industry and for a TV network that wishes to minimise controversy.

Showing some "good Muslims" will help take the wind out of CAIR's sails (and give them more time to assist terrorists in murdering innocent people).

I'm giving this season my approval, for now. We'll see how the second half of the season premier goes at 8:00 PM tomorrow.

Jack killed 2 people tonight.