Got Jack? Season 6 Premiere Has Been Compromised

Are you ready for the 2 night season premiere of 24 on January 14th? Season 6 of 24 is supposed to be even more action packed than last season, if that is even possible. As a recap of last season, President Logan was escorted from the funeral of ex-President Palmer by the Marshall and the Secret Service. Silly President Logan blabbed everything to his loving wife, unknowing that the pen in his pocket was a wire. Meanwhile Jack is reunited with Audrey, but they get interrupted. Supposedly Jack has a call from his daughter Kim from inside the warehouse. Audrey waits for Jack outside while Jack gets kidnapped by some guys in masks. When Jack seems to be taking forever, Audrey goes in to look for him, only to find him missing. She immediately runs outside to get help. Finally the captives are revealed as Chinese henchmen for Cheng, the head of the Chinese Consulate. He had been told Jack was "taken care of" but did not believe it and tracked Jack down, expecting pay back for Jack's raid on the Consulate building in the previous season. Jack is beaten badly and asks them to just kill him when Cheng says that he is too valuable to kill. The season ends with Jack being placed on a Chinese shipping boat, sailing away.

So what could possibly top the beginning of season 5? If you remember, President Palmer was assassinated out of nowhere at the beginning of the season. So how can the writers of 24 top last year's season premiere? Well, if you have seen any of the trailers for season 6 then you can see it will definitely be action packed. Kiefer Sutherland was quoted by a British newspaper as saying that "This one's much more about him saving his own [expletive deleted]. He'll go from being the one who hunts people down to the one
who's being hunted, so that in itself turns the show around."

If you do the math as to what supposedly took place at the end of season 5, you may be able to get nay idea of what may happen at the beginning of season 6. It is speculated that Jack may not have even been on board the ship headed for China since they would not be able to show Jack in China and have him make a 16 hour trip back to the US during a show based on 24 hours. Others are speculating that he is in fact on the ship, but may be either rescued somehow or escapes. Of course, just because season 5 ended like it did, doesn't mean that season 6 has to begin with the same period of time. Word on the internet is that Season 6 will take place around 2 years after the end of season 5. Jack is shown with a full grown beard and long shaggy hair, which you cannot grow overnight, and the new President is Wayne Palmer. So if you do the math, it looks like this season will begin around 2 years later.

Apparently this season seems to have something to do with "bomb belts" too, according to one of the trailers. Another thing they highlight is how the "bombings" have to do with Jack somehow and they will only stop if he is sacrificed. So apparently there is someone from his past, yet again, wanting revenge. Also, according to Joel Surnow, we may be seeing "President Logan" yet again, but not in the role he left with Martha and the Presidency. So what other characters will be showing up in this season and how have their roles changes? Bill Buchanan is head of CTU L.A and married to Karen Hayees (ex head of CTU season 5). Karen is now the national security advisor for President Palmer. Of course Chloe is back as is her ex-husband Morris. Milo (Chloe's ex-boyfriend) will also return and actually fill the position of Edgar from season 5. Among other recurring characters we also shall see Nadia Yassir, 2nd in command at CTU, and Sandra Palmer, the President's sister. You can also keep an eye out for various guest stars Audrey Raines (Jack's love or ex-love?), James Heller (Audrey's father), Ex-President Logan and Mrs. Logan, Curtis (CTU agent, possibly EX-CTU agent?), Graham (the guy that helped orchestrate Palmer's death in season 5), Aaron (he was the Secret Service Agent in season 5 that helps Mrs. Logan), and Cheng Zhi (who kidnapped Jack at the end of season 5). There is also a huge list of new additions, one of which will be Rick Schroder (from Silver Spoons and now he's a CTU Op). There have been some mixed reviews on the decision to ad him to the cast.

Now for the juicy details, if you have ever taken a second to Google information about season 6, you know very well that the first 6 episodes have been leaked. One glance at You Tube and you can get quite the eye full of premiere footage. From one clip they show Karen battling with Thomas Lennox - the weasel from season 5 (now an advisor to the President) about how they are building "concentration camps" for the Muslims in the country; very very controversial. Another clip shows the 2nd in command of CTU, Nadia Yassir (played by Marisol Nichols), in a bit of a bind with a terrorist because Chloe and her ex-husband Morris has pinpointed his location via satellite.

So far, one of the best clips I have found shows a fight taking place in a warehouse with various terrorists and agents, when one man flips a switch on a device and causes a nuclear explosion in L.A. They break away to show Jack's face, the member in the White House, the CTU, and the mushroom cloud from different angles. This clip was almost tied with another clip that showed Jack's first kill of season 6. He was detained in a chair (I'm supposing he was being held hostage) when he tricks the guard by playing dead and then literally bites the guy on the neck and kills him. He then spits out the chunk of flesh form his mouth and unlocks his handcuffs.

Apparently Fox had a brilliant idea to put out a DVD of the season 6 premiere on January 16th, but it looks like some tech savvy Asian fans beat them to it. It should have been known by Fox broadcasting that someone would be able to get the season premiere ahead of time and plaster it on the internet. Even though Fox was able to get the longer clips off of You Tube, they have not been able to remove them from all of the spots online. I won't post the links to the site where you can find some of the actual episodes, but I will give the link below to some of the blogs that may or may not point you in the right direction.

So, even though episodes have been leaked and we have had a virtual buffet of spoilers and trailers showing lots of explosions, pain, shoot-outs, and yelling, all which is typical of 24, I doubt anything that we will see during the premier on January 14th will be close to typical. Please set your Tivo or make a note to be free to watch the season premiere of 24 on Fox on January 14th at 8PM eastern time. Then be prepared for 2 whole nights of excitement and suspense. Just try to get some rest afterwards; it takes a lot of energy to talk about what happened the next day around the "water cooler". Hmmm, maybe companies should just consider it a "holiday" with pay so they won't have to worry about declining productivity. We shall call it "Premiere Day". Go ahead, mark your calendar.