24: The Final Season: DVD Review

24: The Final Season: DVD Review

24 - The Final Season
Released by Roadshow Ent
Rating: R13
Jack Bauer's back in the final season of the show which reinvented the thrilling world of serialized television.
In this final year, Jack's eighth, Bauer is racing against the clock to prevent the assassination of a Middle Eastern leader (played by Slumdog Millionaire's Anil Kapoor) - as his death could change a peace accord for the worse.
But at the same time as Bauer's pulled into this plot, an audacious terrorist plot against New York City is nearing completion&.
24 The Final Season epitomizes the good and the bad of this show. Kiefer Sutherland is once again mightily impressive as the world weary Bauer (a man who's on the go for days at a time it appears) and the rest of the impressive ensemble cast work well around him.
But creatively the show was clearly nearing its end as midway through the run, the writing team just can't sustain it any longer. As it's the final year, it was perhaps inevitable some of the show's previous villains may return and while you could argue creatively this was an arc begun a long time ago, it somehow feels like the return is shoe horned in. It's a shame because the start is so electrifying and thrilling that by the end, you just begin to understand why it's ending.
Still Bauer will live on in a series of movies and I for one, can't wait to see those - although I will miss the ticking clock motif and clever way this show changed the nature of weekly drama.
Extras: A series of featurettes and deleted scenes as well as a look at a virtual New York. A Little disappointing there's nothing major on the retrospective front given this is the series' final year.

Rating: 6/10