If you're in the US, you can watch the '24' fourth season two hour finale tonight. Because there's two episodes tonight, it's starting an hour earlier at 8PM rather than the usual time of 9PM.
Here's hoping it's a good one.
UPDATE: Anyone who hasn't seen the finale episodes is STRONGLY advised not to read the comments to this post because other readers WILL and HAVE ALREADY posted spoilers there. Seriously. DO NOT READ THE COMMENTS if you haven't seen episode 24. Don't blame me if you go ahead and read them.
If you're in the US, the cast and crew of '24' - Kiefer Sutherland, Carlos Bernard, Kim Raver, Arnold Vosloo, Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran - appear on the Charlie Rose talk show tonight.
Thanks to TVSquad.com for that news.
Coolsmartphone.com alerts us to which make of smart phone / PDA Jack Bauer uses in one of the episodes of season four: the model is a Orange SPV M2000 / QTek 9090 / AudioVox 6600 / VPA III / Siemens SX66 is actually shown in the episode as a Sprint PPC 660, available here at the Sprint website. This Norwegian smart phone site has some screenshots from the episode, though you might not want to view them if you're not up to speed with the latest episodes shown in the US. Though if you can work out what happens from what's shown in those grabs, you're a better fan than I am.
The second season finale cliffhanger of '24' has been voted the fifth best TV cliffhanger of all time, according to Inside TV.
Predictably, the 'Who shot JR?' episode of Dallas takes the top spot.
'24' will continue to run on Fox for a minimum of two more seasons, it was announced today.
Season 5 will start on Fox in January 2006. Which, from the end of season four, is an eight month wait. The show will be in kept in its '9PM on Monday nights' slot, so it is possible that the fifth season premiere will be broadcast on Monday January 9th 2006. Unless - like season four - there's a special two hour episode broadcast on the previous Sunday night. Who knows, eh? It's too far in the future to worry about.
05.18 | If you're ever on the L.A. subway, look out for Kiefer
Kiefer Sutherland has a secret love in Los Angeles: the subway system. "No one knows about it," says the former Torontonian. "After 16 years, I started thinking, 'I can't take this city any more.' But if you can't find something interesting in a city that houses 16 million people, you've got a problem." And the star of TV's '24' finds other public transit users refreshingly laid-back. "I can park my car in a parking lot and have a bigger fuss made over me."
Kiefer Sutherland is a closet fan of public transport. Probably comes from having a socialist grandfather... still, makes it easier to do some star-spotting. If you're in LA, that is.
Warning: the links in this post contain spoilers for current episodes.
For example, this page on the Cisco website has a clip of Chloe and Bill Buchanan talking about how marvellous CTU's Cisco Security Response System is and it's displayed nicely on a nice wide-screen display for television viewers to see. Beware: it's one of the worst pieces of dialogue in the four years of the show. I hope they got paid handsomely for such a blatant piece of product placement.
I was so stunned I contacted Cisco about it. A Cisco representative acknowledged it as "a cool placement," but said the VP of corporate marketing chose "not to disclose lots of details around our product placements for competitive reasons." He also declined to mention that Cisco posted the clip on its site; I found that URL via the blogosphere.
Frederic Paul of TechWeb.com went so far as
to speak to Cisco themselves about it.
Meanwhile, the baddies use Alienware laptops.
UPDATE: This week's show had Chloe hawking the Cisco IP phone. Again, this clip has even more spoilers in it than the other clip Cisco posted which I linked to above.
05.17 | Kiefer Sutherland and producer Jude Cole form new record label
Actor Kiefer Sutherland and producer Jude Cole have formed their own record label, Ironworks, to promote musicians other studios are passing by.
Sutherland built the Los Angeles recording studio operated by Cole, his rock musician and producer friend.
Sutherland told the TV tabloid show "Extra," the idea for Ironworks came from seeing "fantastic artists who were not getting signed" by other recording companies.
"We started Ironworks to be about real artists," Cole said.
As reported on this site before, Kiefer Sutherland fancies himself as a bit of a Simon Cowell-type.
Carlos Bernard - agent Tony Almeida in '24' - will be appearing in NBC's disasterous disaster rip-off '10.5' next season.
I mean, why? The first one was bollocks. And shouldn't this one be called '10.6'?
Hints are being dropped that '24' may continue to run for a further two seasons:
Co-creator/co-showrunner Bob Cochran has inked a two-year, seven-figure overall deal with the show's producer 20th Century Fox Television. The pact, as you'd expect, covers his duties on '24' for the length of the deal as well as develop (along with fellow '24' co-creator/co-showrunner Joel Surnow) new projects for the studio.
You can read the story at
thefutoncritic.com.
05.14 | Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty is a big fan of '24'
Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas is such a huge fan of hit US TV drama '24', he has tapes mailed to him if he ever misses an episode.
The 33-year-old rocker admits he's obsessed with the Kiefer Sutherland show, and he refuses to let any of the series' installments pass him by.
And? So? He's only doing what everyone who watches the show should do. Although Rob Thomas is such a tit - I'm presuming; I don't actually know who he is, really - he's probably the type to watch a few episodes, miss a few over the few weeks and then expect to tune back in and understand what's going on.
05.06 | NBC Makes Play for '24'
NBC is reportedly angling to poach the drama series '24' from rival FOX.
FOX and 20th Century Fox TV, which produces '24', are currently negotiating a license fee for renewal of the thriller, which stars Kiefer Sutherland as counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer. The show's current license agreement expires after this season.
At the 11th (or 23rd, maybe, in this case) hour, though, NBC has made it known that it would love to bring a fifth season of the series of the show to its airwaves. "I can tell you that NBC has not been shy about expressing their interest in '24'," a source who requested anonymity tells the New York Post.
So how likely is this to happen? I'd guess that it probably won't, but, if there is some kind of contract with Fox which is up for renewal, rumours like this are a good thing as it probably means the show's producers can squeeze more cash out of Rupert Murdoch and his cronies.
UPDATE: "When a license term expires, the price goes up. Essentially, the price tag for a series generally goes up dramatically after being on the air for four years," says an anonymous source to the New York Post.
05.06 | Kiefer Sutherland finds love with Icelandic beauty Kristin Haraldsdottir
'24' star Kiefer Sutherland has found love again, with young Icelandic model Kristin Haraldsdottir.
Almost a year after filing for divorce from his wife of eight years, Kelly Winn, Sutherland, 38, has wooed 23-year-old Haraldsdottir, who has visited the actor twice in America since the beginning of the year.
She says, "Kiefer is a great guy. He's down to earth and fun to be with. There's a good feeling between us."
A 15 year age gap? Well played, sir.
Still. Ladies, please don't get too upset, OK?
05.04 | Kiefer Sutherland: You Ask The Questions
Out of the hundred or so suggestions I've made, maybe two or three have ever stuck. Most of my ideas reflect what we're doing at the time but the writers are working on episodes far ahead of what we're shooting and, besides, they have a clear idea of where they want to go with it. I don't get sick of it, though. When I started 24 I worried about how doing my first television show and playing the same character for years at a time, and how it would compare with my experience in film. But I have never found it boring. There's an incredible challenge in trying to create very subtle changes in character over a long period of time and it's been a great experience for me as an actor.
The Independent interviews Kiefer Sutherland all about Jack Bauer and '24', but completely fails to get any gossip at all on upcoming episodes.
