Customer Reviews

24: Season Four

5 star:		(152)
4 star:		(41)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

'24' Season Four is better than Day 3 (season three) and manages to be even more complex and compelling than the last two seasons. The technical work is better than ever, and the main storyline rivals season one's. Season Four brings a refreshing change to the show's formula with its many new cast members, and here are the highlights of this excellent season:

1) When we first see Jack Bauer, he's working for the Secretary of Defense James Heller (William Devane), all the while carrying on an affair with his daughter Audrey Raines (Kim Raver). Then a villian named Habib Marwan sets in motion a plan to bring down the US Government. Jack and Audrey's love for each other is affected by the day's events, and the emotional turmoils that develop are involving. Jack must risk his own life and the lives of others around him to save the US government and its people, which in turn complicates their relationship.

2) The twists are more predictable now that the formula has been played out several times prior to this season, but there are still some shocking events in the various storylines, and they are most prominent in the storyline involving the Araz family.

3) The acting by Keifer Sutherland is superb as he makes Jack Bauer a more poignant, grounded hero. Chloe O'Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub), the sarcastic worker of CTU from season three, also shows some maturity and brings some well-needed humor to the ever-growing tension that develops in the season. Many new characters are introduced, but no one is more captivating than Dina Araz (Shoreh Aghdashloo). Her character traits contradict each other and are put to the test over the season, making her this season's most interesting character. Aghdashloo plays Dina as a mother who has no options in the situation she is caught up in, and the show is revitalized due to her brilliant performance. It's a travesty that she wasn't nominated for an Emmy or Golden Globe for her great supporting role.

4) The production values are consistent and the camerawork nearly flawless.

'24' Season Four improves on nearly everything from the previous seasons and does deserve its acclaim from critics and fans as the show's best season, but I personally prefer season one because its conclusion was more epic, deep, and true. Still, '24' Season Four makes for riveting television as it reinvents the thrilling formula that has made first-time viewers and long-time fans sit up and take notice.

The thrilling series "24" has changed the face of action-adventure. Big-screen movies are dull, plodding and timid compared to this brilliant television series. Season four was the very best -- meaning it was perhaps the greatest single action series ever on television. The creators obviously learned from what worked during previous seasons and they kept the action ratcheted up, streamlined the story to avoid any extraneous subplots, and continually topped themselves. Just when you thought -- no, they can't do that -- they did it! More than top-notch, edge-of-the-seat suspense, "24" redefines the genre. Intelligent, surprising, beautifully produced and craftily imagined, this is the kind of show you can't wait to share with your friends. And I can't wait for season five. A must for anyone who cares about and quality in action, adventure and drama.

I will not bother you with spoilers, season 4 is the best day yet. I was getting sick of European terrorists, this is much more realistic. I miss Palmer, his wife and even Nina but the writing is so good this season. Time wise they still manage to get from one side of LA to the other during 4 minute commercial breaks. This was the first season I watched on TV, I much rather sitting down and blasting through all 24 episodes over a long weekend. Im a 24 junkie and thats the way to watch this show. Stop airing it on TV and just release DVDs straight every year :). Unfortunatly I cant wait so I will be wathing 5 on tv (bless DVR's) after buying 24 season 4 on DVD for me to watch again & then give to my folks. A++++

It's almost undeniable that Season 3 of "24" was harder to watch compared to the first two seasons. The events, graphic violence and cruelty of some of the characters were unprecedented. It was hard to find relief as horrendous actions were taken over and over again.

In season 4 the producers have decided to retreat from this extremely dark path. They have kept the creative surprises, action and suspense but have also paid more attention to pleasing the crowds. Contrary to the main stream of season 3, in season 4 positive things actually happen; there is a balance between good and evil and there's hope.

The events on screen do not fall from other events in prior seasons and some actually transcend the high points of the past. As always, one cannot be any more specific in details in fear of spoiling the experience, but rest assured that watching the first episode will definitely blow your mind in one of the best kick-start episodes ever.

I have to admit, I initially was not a fan of this show. While I thought the first season was entertaining it required SEVERE suspension of disbelief, especially with regards to the real-time premise of the show's format. I mean, come on... just how can Jack really get across L.A. traffic in like 5 minutes anyway? Just ONCE I would like to see an entire episode devoted to Jack stuck in rush hour traffic having to rely solely on cellular communications with CTU but then again, that does not make for suspenseful television now does it? ;) Or how about devoting one episode with Jack on his lunch hour? Nope. This guy never eats nor sleeps nor requires a restroom break of any kind because he is JACK F---ING BAUER!

I made a pact with my friend. I agreed to watch Season 4 if he would agree to watch Lost. It only took me a week to burn through Season 4 and I have had so much fun that any doubts I had about 24 as an enjoyable series have been completely erased. Jack Bauer is the real deal. He makes Jason Bourne look like an amateur. Kiefer Sutherland is so intense and so focused every minute he is on screen that you believe that the peril he is facing, no matter how ridiculously contrived, is real.

What makes season 4 the best day yet is due mostly to its perfect chemistry of suspenseful plot twists, frenetic pacing and editing, interactive character development and explosive action. The writers seemed more concerned this season with creating jaw-dropping "I can't believe they just did that!" action than focusing on the soap opera-ish melodrama that watered down previous seasons. While Elisha Cuthbert's Kim Bauer is pleasing to the eye to look at, thankfully she is out of the picture here so Jack can stay focused on his most intense day ever without the juvenile distractions. Still, there are a few breaks in the action where our characters get caught up in their personal feelings and rivalries getting in the way of their professional judgments that make for a few brief groaners but are quickly subdued by the more immediate threats at hand.

Arnold Vosloo from The Mummy is this season's main baddy and he is the perfect intellectual foil for Jack Bauer. He is always one step ahead of Jack who struggles desperately to keep up with Habib Marwan's diabolical acts of terrorism. The most surprising thing is that Marwan, more often than not, succeeds and leaves the viewer with their jaw hanging wide open in disbelief.

This season features the return of familiar characters from earlier seasons including Tony Almeida, Michelle Dessler, Mike Novick, and CTU nerds Chloe O'Brien and newbie Edgar Stiles. We are also introduced to several new faces at CTU including Curtis Manning, Erin Driscoll and Bill Buchanan. Kim Raver is Jack's love interest Audrey Raines and her father, Secretary of Defense James Heller, is played by Rolling Thunder himself... William Devane. After spending a real-time day in crisis with these characters you'll feel like they are all members of the immediate family.

Sean Callery's rousing and adrenaline pumping electronic score is the perfect compliment to the onscreen action and elevates the level of suspense faster than mercury rising in a thermometer. Not since Mark Snow's electronic cues for X-Files has there been a more perfect accompaniment of incidental music to parallel the onscreen action.

24 Season 4 is more entertaining and suspenseful than most blockbuster action films and has cast the die for other series and films to follow in its aftermath. Bruce Willis' John McClane may have inaugurated the age of the everyman action hero, but Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer has taken heroism beyond the call of duty and has redefined, by very definition, the ideal Action Star. At a time of political unrest and uncertainty in this country and the threat of terrorism abroad, one cannot help but feel a sense of restored patriotism by Jack's heroic deeds. Indeed, Jack Bauer has become a Real American Hero.

After an attack on a train and incrypted chatter on the internet is discovered, agents of the Las Angelos Counter Terrorist Unit are left baffled. Jack Bauer however, knows there is some sort of connection. A connection that leads to an even bigger threat. Taking matters into his own hands, Jack peforms intensive interogation tactics on a suspect. Once the prisoner breaks, Bauer learns that the U.S. Secretary of Defense has been targeted. And Jack has only a few minutes to counter-act the abduction....

This season is by far from being the best out of the series. Kiefer Sutherland gives an outstanding performance, but the story is just not as well put together as previous ones have been. Once again, the writers tried to out-do the previous year by having tons of incidents for the characters to go through. These are interesting, but there are so many of them; that the show really looses its once film feel. This season is really episodic in its storylines. Even more characters are added and perform really needless actions. They are really there to just take up time. The sad part to this season are the conflicts Jack and his colleges go through. They are basicilly recycled material from the past three years with slight differences in the cause and effect aspects. The highlight to this season is the heart pounding return of the assassin Mandy. Except this does not occur until the last few episodes of the year. 24 SEASON FOUR is action packed, but its main story just does not connect with the individual hours as well as in previous years.

This is an astonishing accomplishment. Great entertainment and an enormously creative work. Talking about the plot or saying it's suspense won't do it justice.

Like many of the other readers, I bought Season 1 got hooked, and have now watched the 4 seasons in little more than a month and am now ready for season 5. Without commericals and the ability to move from week to week without waiting, the Season is incredibly intense and addictive. I read much more than watch tv --but this is like great literature. Here's why --
1] the main character, Jack Bauer, is multi dimensional and complex; yes, he's an action hero --resourceful and ruthless, but he has a human side which is embedded in his character that makes you think about him as a person not just a stick figure;
2] the plotting is extremely intricate; it is amazing how well conceived each season is and how what happened first the prior week and then the prior year all ties together;
3] the acting is first rate --the situations at times stretch credulity but the quality of the acting makes the plot twists as believable as possible;
4] the level of suspense is unrelenting and unpredictable.
--all in all watching 24 is by analogy what it must have been like to read Dickens' when his novels were first published as periodic installments. And I think this series will endure though I am not predicting it will be watched as broadly as Dickens is read!

24 has to be the most thrilling show on TV. If you're tired of shows like Lost or Desperate Housewives, which while good, seem to take perverse pleasure in beating around the bush to the point where you want to put a brick through the screen, take a look at 24. This is how TV should be made. Sharp dialogue. Sharp Characters. Sharp action. But that's not the best of it! What's the most riveting and yet satisfying aspect of 24? The fact that something happens week in week out and, at the end of the series, instead of EVERYTHING building to a cliff-hanger with which to tease you till the start of the next season, 24 delivers the goods and resolves the entire season's storyline. What could be more satisfying? Season 4 is superb. Once you slap a disk in your DVD player, it's so difficult to turn the thing off and stop watching - you just want to keep going and going and... What greater compliment to everyone concerned in its production.

No doubt-they have been able to squeeze the lemon once again, the outcome: sustain thriller with a sprinkle of romance.
I have found myself anxiously pressing the play button for the next episodes BUT there are limits for the eye&mind of the "reasonable viewer" that had been crossed repeatedly.

Don't get me wrong in here. 24 hours of the 4th season (technically it's less, each episode is less than 1 hour in real-time) would get you at least 20 hours of action, explosions, walking on the edge etc, but the remaining 4 hours got me to come to the conclusion that the writing team of 24 should get into the conference room and get a grip of themselves...


If you didn't watch it yet, don't read the following:

Another spy inside the CTU??? (boy, is it the CTU or central park?) A tiny hospital in the basement of the CTU in which Audrey's husband is being operated/the daughter of the CTU director suffering from schizophrenia is hospitalized? Michelle asking Almeida to watch out while stepping into the field and you know for 100% something bad would happen to him? There's a lot (really a lot more) but I have given them 4 stars after all...
BTW-24 hours without eating???

Ridiculous plot-lines, unbelievable situations, cliched or overdrawn characters ... 24 has never shied away from being the trashiest action-flick on TV and season 4 is no better than the other three.

And you know what - I LOVE IT! What the 24 crew do, they do right, from the end of episode cliff-hangers, to Sutherland's brilliant hardboiled portrayal of Jack Bauer. While the plots might not always be the most original or well-conceived, they are well fleshed out and impossible to resist.

The DVDs are popular because it's torture to have to wait till the next week to find out what happens. 24 is a brilliant piece of escapism, out-Bonding any recent James Bond effort or Jason Bourne. I know fans that range from kids in the U.S. to grandmothers in Scottish Highland villages. The themes of danger and love are always universal, and 24 hits the note pitch-perfect.

If you think you've had a bad day, slip into one of the seasons of 24 and see what a bad day is!