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24
Season Seven
SERIES: Fox, Sunday 8:00p (60 minutes)

24
Critic Score
Metascore: 72 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.6 out of 10
based on 21 reviews
read critic reviews
how did we calculate this?
based on 30 votes
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Starring Kiefer Sutherland, Mary Lynn Rajskub, James Morrison, Jeffrey Nordling, Annie Wersching, Janeane Garofalo, Cherry Jones, and Carlos Bernard

Jack Bauer returns from Africa (24: Redemption) to find himself defending his actions before Congress.

GENRE(S): Drama
CREATED BY: Joel Surnow
FIRST AIR DATE: January 11, 2009

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Newsday Verne Gay
Tonally, this often feels more like a psychological thriller than an action one, which is a very good sign. 24 is thinking, not just doing, and that bodes well for the later hours when our friend has tended to jump the tracks. All in all, a terrific start.
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100
USA Today Robert Bianco
Even when 24 went off the rails, Sutherland somehow kept Jack in balance. And now that his show seems back on track, he's rolling at top form.
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100
New York Post Linda Stasi
All the new characters are wonderfully drawn, including FBI agent Walker (Annie Wersching); bad, bad guy Jonas Hodges (Jon Voight); a new Chloe-type nerd (Janeane Garofalo). Especially good are Jones and her husband (Colm Feore), who is more consumed with solving his son's death than in being First Man. Whew! Thank God there is Jack Bauer--unchanging, unflinching.
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83
Entertainment Weekly Ken Tucker
Let's just say that after the two-night, four-hour season premiere, Jack will have threatened to jab a Bic pen into a bad guy's eardrum, and you'll feel the warm glow of sadistic glee that signals a jolly good start for vintage 24 mayhem.
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80
Hollywood Reporter Ray Richmond
Fortunately for the audience, the show on which he struggles to save the republic is back on track after a season of misdirection followed by a year away.
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80
Los Angeles Times Mary McNamara
Jack is the glue that holds the show together, and Sutherland, with his pained, superhuman skill set, makes him a physical statement about the toll violence takes, even violence committed in an attempt to save the world.
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80
Variety Brian Lowry
Whatever its flaws, this edition of 24 features smart, crisp and densely woven storytelling whose subplots look to be on a well-orchestrated collision course.
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80
Wall Street Journal Dorothy Rabinowitz
Ms. Jones's president is compelling--a force to contend with. Much the same can be said of the new 24 itself--a force now returned in strength and, once again, highly addictive.
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80
LA Weekly Robert Abele
Treachery and action still abound on 24--its brand is crisis, after all--but the nail-biting, espionage-like first four hours erect a scenario that promises a recharged season built on smarter suspense gambits than the tiresome 24 (and, by extension, Bushian) tropes of outlandish risk, torture and Armageddon-mongering.
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80
New York Daily News David Hinckley
The show's long break seems to have rejuvenated its story lines, in which intense, rapid-fire action plays out against the backdrop of a complex, methodical geopolitical chess game.
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70
Philadelphia Daily News Ellen Gray
Yes, CTU's still dead, but the market for its most out-there operative's very special interrogation methods hasn't dried up altogether, it seems.
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70
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Rob Owen
This season doesn't really kick into gear until night two, when Bill Buchanan (James Morrison) and Chloe (Marylynn Rajskub) return, operating outside the bounds of the government.
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70
Kansas City Star Aaron Barnhart
There is a distinctly 2002 feel to this season of 24....But you know what? It all manages to hold together.
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70
PopMatters Cynthia Fuchs
It is returning to its own past, that most effective masculine melodrama. Two, it is making that return meta, arranging plot points to emphasize official repetitions and narrative redundancies. And three, it is yet again making torture its most salient focus.
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67
Time James Poniewozik
There are, maybe, some hopeful signs. The series seems to have given up on trying to create a bigger WMD for every season, which it needed to do. The political subplot—new president Cherry Jones wants a humanitarian invasion of a Darfur-like African country but is being undermined—is intriguing and a bit different for the show.
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60
Orlando Sentinel Hal Boedeker
The seventh season of the Fox thriller starts with four hours and some compelling plots....Then the plot twists pile up, and the action scenes can turn preposterous.
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50
Boston Globe Matthew Gilbert
24 makes a feint toward change, before getting back on the same old mechanical cowboy ride.
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50
San Francisco Chronicle Tim Goodman
After watching the first four episodes, it's clear that despite the familiar adrenaline rush and a (temporarily) tighter rein on the ridiculous, 24 hasn't changed much at all.
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50
The New York Times Alessandra Stanley
The novelty of the hour-by-hour conceit wore off long ago, and the various plot devices and characters are all familiar. The fun, at least at the beginning of a new season, is in seeing how the creators will rejigger the pieces this time around.
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50
Chicago Tribune Maureen Ryan
The biggest problem is that by now some elements of 24 are distressingly predictable.
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40
Newark Star-Ledger Alan Sepinwall
The new season has a few moments, mostly involving the return from the dead of Jack's old CTU colleague Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard), who now seems to be working for the bad guys. But all the attempts by Jack and his writers to justify every past decision often brings the action to a crawl.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this tv show is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 30 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Martin S gave it a10:
Excellent start to the season, most promising start to a series I've seen in a while. Jacks back, are you ready for the ride?

Bill N gave it a9:
Wow! I wasn't sure that 24 could come back and be as compelling as I had remembered. Maybe all dramas shoudl take a year off so the writers can work on new ideas. The premise of this year's challenge to Jack is believable and the way they have put a new president into the situation with the need to keep her idealized campaign promises while facing the realities of some of the sick leaders the world faces is really current. Welcome back Jack.

Stephen A gave it a10:
I think this season is the best yet. Well done!

leo a gave it a10:
Superman wears Jack Bauer underoos!

bill b gave it a0:
I cannot believe how dumb this plot has gotten! It's a national securety emergency, and the fbi take steam boats to the to the site of the kiddnapping.

Adrian M gave it a9:
I think its a refreshing start to a new day, however a bit slow within the first 2 hours except for a few moments, it looks promising to actually have the potential to be the best season yet, so long as they do not repeat story lines bring in more sudden unexsected deaths etc,etc. but i still love it

Chris C gave it a7:
The premises in 24 get more and more preposterous every season. But at least in season seven, although you don't buy a single bit of what's going on, there's enough of a focus on interesting characters to draw you in. Not as good as the best seasons (1, 2, 5), but way better than the trainwreck of season 6.

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