11.27 | 'Sanity time'

"Chalk it up to boredom, insanity, or a lack of a life, but I just now finished watching the entire first season of '24' in just under 48 hours."

11.24 | Better than appearing in 'Robocop 7: The TV Movie', anyway

'Line of Fire', an FBI drama that ABC has promoted heavily, will replace 'NYPD Blue' on 2nd December.

Central figures include David Paymer as a nasty mob boss, Leslie Hope (who played Kiefer Sutherland's wife during the first season of '24') as an FBI executive and Leslie Bibb ('Popular') as a determined, headstrong rookie agent.

11.22 | Elisha Cuthbert in 'Love, Actually'

Anyone making a trip to the cinema recently may have seen a trailer for the Richard Curtis film 'Love, Actually'. Although it stars typical English berk Hugh Grant, '24's Elisha Cuthbert does make a small cameo as an 'American Goddess'. Well, they got that bit right. And, even more strangely, Kris Marshall - who stars as the hilarious 'Nick' in BBC TV tosh 'My Family' - appears alongside Elisha. It's like someone read my most surreal TV dreams and made them real.

11.22 | New '24' fansites

Two more reasons for 24weblog.com to give up have appeared on the interweb:

inside-24.com is the sexiest-looking '24' fansite yet. Either Fox or the BBC (or whoever gets the UK rights) should employ these people to jazz up their offerings.

24addict.com is a weblog with plenty of spoilers for the third season, but has great 'essay' type discussions on each episode rather than straight recaps like most of the fansites out there.

11.14 | Lunch with the FT: Shortening Audience Attention Spans

Stephen Poliakoff is best known for his dark, leisurely paced television dramas, full of nuance and foreboding.

He is proud that his 1999 play on BBC2, 'Shooting the Past', about the threatened destruction of a photographic archive when the building that houses it is bought by an American property developer, achieved the same ratings as '24', the scarily fast-paced American series starring Kiefer Sutherland. "If you do something that is particular, and fairly unhurried, to put it mildly, you will get the audience, which likes to feel its intelligence is not being insulted."

Did he feel threatened by the way works such as '24' were shortening audience attention spans?

"No. As everything gets more and more homogenised, there is a strong appetite among a sizeable quantity of people for work that lasts in the mind. There are so many hit movies that people forget as soon as they cross the foyer. There is a hunger for things that register."

11.14 | To be continued… 'Alias' and '24' rediscover soapy cliffhanger tradition

Low blood pressure? Just try watching Kiefer Sutherland and company keep Los Angeles safe from baddies and not feel your heart jackhammer against your chest. In the same vein as 'Alias', viewers of this Fox show signed on for a wild ride, and the cliffhanger is part and parcel of the deal, complete with ticking clock and all the storylines converging — often literally all at once, in multiple boxes — at the exact same time. Cliffhangers on top of cliffhangers! '24's creators threw fans for an 'Alias'-style loop at the end of Season Two. After wrapping up much of the nuclear bomb storyline, a nearly forgotten character from the first season reappeared in the last few minutes of the show — and left in her wake President Palmer crumpled to the ground, infected with a biological virus. Good luck getting that startling image out of your head over the summer — and not tuning in the next year to see how it played out.

11.12 | Kiefer Sutherland attends celeb 'booze and awards' bash shocker

CBS' Dab Rather and the 'Friends' creative brain trust of Kevin Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane were feted during the ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hotel, hosted by NBC's Jay Leno, for their contributions to the medium.

Before Rather took the stage, '24' star Kiefer Sutherland introduced a lengthy clip package of some of Rather’s most famous moments on the air, including his now-legendary 'take your hands off me' protest as authorities tried to escort him from the floor of the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

11.11 | "She's busy a lot"

178 films from 31 countries. 125 events in 10 days at seven venues. The 12th Annual St. Louis International Film Festival, running Nov. 13-23, is a round-the-clock undertaking for Cinema St. Louis — and a once-a-year opportunity for St. Louis cinephiles.

Although no superstar exiles will be returning to the Gateway City, three young performers will receive Emerging Actor Awards: Evan Peters, the lead in the indie feature 'Clipping Adam'; Poonja Kuma, co-star of the film 'Flavors'; and Sarah Clarke, a recurring performer on the television series '24' and a supporting character in the film 'Thirteen'.

11.08 | [exclusive] '21' season two trailer

Now 24weblog.com is proud to present this exclusive '21' trailer. Speculation on what happens in the season premiere starts here.

11.07 | What's next?

Kim Bauer is now president of the USA. During a visit to a not particularly friendly African country, she's kidnapped by the natives, who want to boil her until her hairs turns a really ugly shade of brown. She manages to escape by kicking the pot, and runs a lot. Meanwhile, Almeida, who's managed to become vicepresident for no particular reason, assumes responsability, and calls Jack, who's now a derviche monk in Anatolia, to rescue her daughter, to whom he's paid no attention since last season's grand finale.

11.06 | "Part of getting a second chance is taking responsibility for the mess you made in the first place"

The new series of hit TV thriller '24' has suffered a ratings dip after its first instalment aired in the US. The opening episode of the show's third series, which stars Kiefer Sutherland, lost two million viewers compared with its second season debut.

Programme bosses are blaming the loss of interest on a change of "lead in" - the show which goes out immediately before '24's evening time slot.

The less popular 'Joe Millionaire' has replaced 'American Idol' before '24' airs.

11.06 | KDE on '24'

On 28th October 2003, Fox started boardcasting '24' series three. It seems that in the aim to improve security, CTU (the Counter Terrorist Unit) have switched operating system from MacOS. At the bottom, the KDE task bar can be seen clearly. It is a sign of the increasing use of GNU/Linux desktops that they are starting to appear in other mediums (KDE was apparantly also seen in Alias).

It doesn't give out much in the way of plot pointers, so UK viewers can feel free to click away.

11.06 | [spoiler] Episode review

Yes, I know, everyone will be watching Michelle all season long. After all the characters wear the same outfit for an entire 24-hour day.

11.04 | [spoilers if you click the link] Who do you love more? Kiefer or Penny?

Penny Johnson Jerald (Sherry on '24') goes up against her old show when she guest stars along with Sarah Silverman and Dan Castellaneta (the voice of Homer on 'The Simpsons') on 'Frasier' (Tuesday, NBC, 9:30PM). Also, the never-seen Maris returns.