24 Update: Fox Eyes Legal-Themed Franchise Tweak With Female Lead
7. 24 (2001-10, 2014)
Debuting two months after the September 11th attacks, 24 tapped into a strong vein of newfound patriotism, with Jack Bauer living out our fantasies of kicking terrorist ass and taking names. The real-time concept, with every episode representing an hour in one very long day, was effectively tense, and Kiefer Sutherland's steel-jawed resolve made Jack Bauer an all-time great TV hero — dammit.
Fox is looking to restart the clock on 24, albeit with a few significant tweaks.
The network is developing a new incarnation of the iconic franchise that would shift the focus from terrorism to criminal justice. What’s more, the potential series would feature a female lead.
According to Deadline, the new 24 “centers on a female prosecutor who uncovers a legal conspiracy and has to work against the clock to save a death row inmate facing imminent execution whom she had helped prosecute but may be innocent.” Each season would feature a new case and a new set of characters.
24 vets Howard Gordon and Imagine’s Brian Grazer are shepherding the redo, with Jeremy Doner (The Killing) on board to write.
Then-Fox entertainment president David Madden foreshadowed the franchise refresh at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in August. “[We’d take] the same kind of ticking-clock format and apply it to something else,” he said. “It will have the same urgency but may not be set in the CTU, it will have same style and urgency but in a different venue.”
Fox attempted to revive the 24 franchise with last winter’s 24: Legacy starring Corey Hawkins, but the series underperformed and was cancelled after one season.
Meh, wash, rinse, repeat…. haven’t we seen this 100 times before, seems to me Bones had an ep with exactly the same narrative including the female prosecutor.
Sounds good.
They missed the opportunity with Legacy and Miranda Otto, if you ask me.
I’m all for developing a new drama with a female lead.
But I think that 24 fans want Jack Bauer and regulars from the original run, like Chloe and Tony.
That was a plot line used on Bones( and probably many others). Please FOX stop trying to make this work without Jack. because it isnt
You totally nailed it! Bravo!
The killing season 3?
it sounds like a John Grisham novel
“Hey, I wasn’t able to file that brief in time.”
“DAMN IT!”
*YAWN* Been done before. Besides FOX needs to deal with Jack’s fate before they do ANYTHING else with 24! And Jack rotting away in a Russian gulag DOESN’T cut it!!!!
Right? I hated that ending. I’d rather he be killed off than just out there in tv limbo. The whole Russian prison thing was an insult to viewers and to the excellent, Emmy-winning job that Kiefer did.
From 2-3 AM, all the lawyers are asleep, so the action follows the courthouse security guard who hears suspicious noises. But it just turns out to be a cat.
Well, now my interest is piqued! LOL
Let me know when Jack Bauer’s back and then I’ll care.
(Or at least Yvonne Strahovsky!)
Stop. For the love of all things holy, stop!! There was only one Jack Bauer. (These days I like to pretend he’s running the White House over on ABC on Wednesday nights. )
Whatever they do, they need to drop the cliché’s and make it a properly thought-out series.
I turned Legacy off as soon as the fella was strung up and basically kidnapped and the tech girl talking about how she used her own code within a system that just wouldn’t happen.
There is creative licence and there is just so unrealistic its unwatchable.
That might have worked on early series but its been done to death now and folks aren’t interested in that BS
Didn’t they learn their lesson that last time? Now they are joining the bandwagon of let’s make it a female lead and they are repeating the same storyline done by dozens of shows/movies. I’m all for a female lead, but they missed the boat with Kate. Now they are just beating a dead horse. And this new character, new case thing? Yeah, because new characters worked so well last time. Pfffft.
Meh x 24 :-(
So… 24, except nothing like 24 in any way that matters.
Sounds like a winner.
It sounds like it might be an interesting show but without Jack Bauer it is NOT 24. Name it something else.
Uh, no!
Now you’re just trying to hard to beat a dead horse (it’s dead without Kiefer Sutherland). The last series didn’t work so you just keep trying with something different? No, stop torturing us already!
Oh, they finally did what they should have done with Legacy in the first place: have a female protagonist! They even had Kate from Live Another Day and they wasted that opportunity. Anyway, I might check it out whenever they air it.
24 without Jack Bauer isn’t 24. If they are going to use a female agent, we all know who should really reprise her past role and actually fight terrorists with CTU, not an attorney fighting a death penalty execution. That’s Law and Order, not 24!
Just no. Pay Yvonne whatever it takes and give us Chloe back and maybe the “search for Jack”
I second everything you said!
I third it!!!!
This is dumb. They were wrong to scrap Kate in favor of a new guy when she was introduced through Jack and was liked by original fans. They soured the milk with ‘Legacy’ and I won’t give ’24’ another chance even with a female lead.
Female lead? I wonder if this has anything to do with the contract Sophia Bush signed with Fox.
Ah, I see. The race swap didn’t work, so now we’ll try a gender swap? Sigh. I guess we’ll have put up with a few more years of this silliness until the industry figures out that it should be “story first”.
and the best actor for the job/part etc regardless of gender /color etc
They had four perfectly capable female leads and killed 3 of them – Season 3 Michelle, Renee, and Miranda Otto’s character. I never found Yvonne’s agent to be that compelling but if they want to keep trying to do 24 then she should at least be given the shot since she’s established.
Or bring back Henry Ian Cusick’s character who was the foreign agent Theo Stoller that Jack worked with in Day 5. He’s the brawn in trying to recover Jack from the Russian’s along with a searching for redemption Tony and Chloe. As someone else pointed out, the search for Jack is the hook for the season with the team stumbling upon an international crisis where they have to choose between saving Jack or the world. If they must have a young teen/adult then make it Jack’s nephew is somehow involved. 24 closing out for good with Jack being the one saved by those who worked with him is pretty poetic.
SOUNDS BORING!!!!