November 6, 2024, 24 hours flat will celebrate its 23rd birthday. A series that has become cult and has especially marked the history of television, with its very innovative concept at the time. In 24 episodes, this spy thriller tells how the anti-terrorist cell (CAT) attempts to thwart the most complex attacks, in real time over a day, each episode representing an hour. A real race against time for Jack Bauer and his team, the hero also facing, at the same time, personal problems. At the time, 24 hours flat made a lot of noise, for its concept and its effectiveness. The fiction has been rewarded several times, notably winning the Golden Globe for best drama series in 2004 and the Emmy Award two years later. Actor Kiefer Sutherland also won an award for his interpretation of this very American hero, Jack Bauer. But, 23 years later, what does the first episode of 24 hours flat ? To answer this question, go to Disney+, where the series is available in full.
24 hours flat : Jack Bauer, the anti-terrorist cell, and his annoying daughter…
As I start the first episode, I realize that I had completely forgotten this beginning. I expected to find Jack Bauer hard at work at CAT or running around saving the world. But, at the very beginning, it is at his home that we discover him, chatting with his daughter Kim (Elisha Cuthbert). I kept the memory of her as a capricious kid, who did everything wrong to find herself in the worst situations, so I have a big preconception when meeting her again 23 years later. In this first episode, Kim appears more like an outdated teenager, less rebellious than I remembered, and who is unaware of the danger. On the other hand, she is at war with her mother, holding her responsible for her parents’ marital problems, her father having just, from what we understand in this first scene, returned to the home. After this family scene, which serves to introduce a large part of the plot of this first season, Jack quickly receives a phone call, asking him to come to CAT for a briefing. Well, in general, when the hero tells his wife that he will come back quickly, we know how it will end…
Jack Bauer, a hero on all fronts in 24 hours flat
A few seconds later, hop, we finally discover the famous CAT offices, where a very large part of the action of 24 hours flat over the course of its nine seasons. So this is also the majority of my memories of this series, the very first American action series that I followed, as a teenager, week after week at the time. With my brother, we loved the misadventures of Jack Bauer, this hero who had to save the future president or his country in just one day, facing the worst terrorists and also the worst personal troubles. Every cliffhanger was accentuated by the sound of that relentless digital clock. And then, there is all the decorum that goes with it, the legendary CAT ringtone that we all wanted to have on our first cell phones, Jack’s famous “copy that”, which could be translated as “well received”, that he said during each telephone conversation… Foiling the assassination attempt on the presidential candidate, while finding his kidnapped daughter, all in 24 hours… we understand that he had a few cold sweats. Or that he resorts to a few short circuits to achieve his ends. And this, from the first minutes of this first episode, when he physically attacks a colleague, then blackmails him to extract information from him. Hierarchy and traditional methods are not things Jack Bauer has time to bother with.
24 hours flat may not be that modern anymore, but…
In parallel with the CAT offices and Jack’s wife who sets out to find their daughter, we also discover Senator David Palmer, on the evening of the presidential election. A historical character in TV series and in popular culture, seven years before Barack Obama’s accession to the White House. The first president of 24 hours flat would he have opened the way for him? Although we will never really know, the question has been asked. Today, the pace seems less hectic than I remember. The clock and split-screen process are also less innovative. Since the end of the series in 2010, we have seen so many fictions of the same register, necessarily more modern. Rewatching this first episode after all these years, 24 hours flat no longer appears visionary, but there still remains a certain nostalgia and the effectiveness is still there. 24 hours flat is the one who inspired many others and we found many of its actors in other fictions (Kim Raver in Grey’s Anatomy, DB Woodside in LuciferPenny Johnson Jerald in Castle, Xander Berkeley in Mentalist or his wife Sarah Clarke in Twilight).
