When Jack Bauer blasts back to television May 5 with the recharged “24: Live Another Day,” it will have been four years since he was last seen — a fugitive on the run.
Producers of the Fox series joined Keifer Sutherland and MaryLynn Rajskub before reporters at the TV Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena Monday to outline what’s coming
Bauer has relocated to London and being pursued by a CIA agent played by Yvonne Strahovski, who last played a spy in “Chuck.”
“The first the show will open with that dynamic: a CIA agent hunting Jack, who in their minds, Jack is not quite Osama bin Laden but he’s a fugitive of high order, someone to be captured,” producer Manny Coto says.
Bauer gets a mission, Coto says. But, he adds, “whether it’s a good mission or a dark mission or he’s fighting on the side of good, we don’t know.
“And as the story progresses, as she comes closer and closer to him, Chloe O’Brian will enter the picture and we will learn that she has also been damaged over these four years and is not the same person who we saw.”
She’s no longer a techie, Coto says. “She does not work for CTU. She has turned against the government and, for want of a better term, is almost a more radical, a Snowden type character.”
And as the series begins, he and Chloe are not friends, Sutherland says. “They’re actually pitted against each other,” he says, adding that he’s excited by the prospect. “Any time an actor gets to play something as complex as a past loyalty that is potentially going to be betrayed — that’s a lot of meat.”
“Jack and Chloe will be forced into some kind of circumstance to stop for what Jack is after, which is a secret,” Coto says. “But that dynamic will play out in will launch the series into into what will become a large tableau set in London for some pretty crazy events.”
For her part, Rajskub says, “I never thought that ’24’ would come back and I never thought it would come back in this format.”
She said, “I had just started getting away from Chloe and I’m ready for it to start back up again.”
Rajskub isn’t the only cast member returning. William Devane, who played Secretary of Defense James Heller, is now back as President. So is his daughter, Audrey, played by Kim Raver.
As for other characters, producer Howard Gordon says names comes up, but “we keep on looking at each other and go, ‘Are they dead?’ We don’t remember at all.”
“Sometimes we have to check Wikipedia,” says producer Evan Katz.
“It’s true,” Coto says. “I mean, for a while we dismissed the idea of President Heller because we all thought he was dead, and then we remembered he crawled up over a rock after the car accident.
“We did,” Evan Katz says. “We were, like, wouldn’t it be great if this president character could be Heller and he was alive?”
For all the time he spent playing Jack Bauer, Sutherland says it’s still scary going back to the role.
“I’m very nervous,” he says. “I feel we made eight very strong years. We worked very hard at them, and there was always something in every year that all of us wished had been better, but I was very proud of those eight years. And so to open that up again and make 12 episodes and not make them the best 12 episodes that we’ve ever made is frightening.
“I won’t lie to you. I’m very nervous, and I think the audience that we’ve had that has stayed with us over the years has been so spectacular and supportive and loyal, and to not give them the best that we’ve got to offer would be very disappointing. And until we start shooting, everything is kind of intangible, and it’s in the air. So I’m about as anxious and wound up as I’ve been in a long time. I’m nervous, yeah.”
One thing changing is the show’s famous format — with action unfolding in real time over the 24 hours of each day. Doing it that way, Gordon says, “was really, really punishing. So this felt like a real like we could catch our breath a little bit and felt like we could craft this. And actually, you could see the horizon.”
“It also opens up interesting storytelling possibilities in the sense that we might be able to jump forward a couple hours, if possible, into another environment,” Coto says. “So it’s also a fantastic opportunity, because the show does take place over a 24 hour day even though it’s 12 episodes.”
“24: Live Another Day” begins with a two hour premiere May 5 on Fox.