Please Don't Bring Back Audrey Raines!

Before I became disillusioned with it for being a lazy and pretentious show, I was as big a "24" fan as there ever was.  Having been a fan of the 1980s prime time soaps, I eagerly welcomed another series into my life that completely embraced serialized storytelling, where the story and characters wouldn't be resolved by the end of the hour.  Throughout the many years "24" was on the air, I fooled myself into thinking it was one of the best TV shows ever made.  In so doing, I ignored the sloppy and lazy writing, where it became obvious after awhile that the writers and producers hadn't carefully thought through the characters and storylines.  You got the impression after awhile that they were making things up as they went along week-to-week, and were changing the characters 180 degrees on a whim--often merely as a cheap shock tactic--rather than allowing plot or character twists to develop and reveal themselves naturally and organically.  That being said, I am still intrigued by FOX's announcement that they plan to revive "24" next year as a limited-run miniseries entitled "24: Live Another Day."  However, I'm put off by the idea that this "24" is only going to run 12 episodes and will purportedly only focus on "the most dramatic moments" of Jack Bauer's (Kiefer Sutherland) latest day.  "24" just isn't "24" if it's only 12 hours long.

Moreover, I was concerned about one article which suggested that the producers were considering bringing back Kim Raver (a mediocre, uninspired actress not generally known for playing individuals with intelligence, strength and integrity and who bears a disconcerting resemblance to the equally mediocre and uninspired Michele Greene of "LA Law" fame) as Jack Bauer's love interest in Seasons 4, 5, and 6--the pitiful and pathetic Audrey Raines.  I always hated that character, and hated Raver's performance as that character, and sincerely hope they do not bring her back.  I admit that one reason I resisted welcoming the Audrey Raines character onto the show was due to the fact that I was a big fan of Season 2's love interest--Sarah Wynter as the brave civilian Kate Warner--who got short shrifted and phased out of the series with a quick cameo at the beginning of Season 3.  I was always hoping Kate would return to the show but, after having seen how the show had a tendency to ruin characters that I liked, I think it's just as well she didn't come back so that her Season 2 character and story arc weren't undermined by some sort of twist which would have contradicted everything that had already been established.  Even though I was biased towards Kate, however, the Audrey Raines character didn't help matters by turning out to be one of the most shallow, unsympathetic, narcissistic, whiny, wimpy, and useless TV characters of all time, which is ironic considering that the writers and producers evidently intended for Audrey to be a very sympathetic individual. 

Let's be upfront and make it clear that the characters on "24" were, by and large, mere plot devices to keep the story moving along.  The writers had no interest in creating consistent personalities who would engage us week-after-week, except for Sutherland's Jack Bauer and Mary Lynn Rajskub's computer tech geek Chloe O'Brien.  Aside from them, and a very small handful of other characters, most "24" characters existed merely to propel the storyline forward.  With that in-mind, Audrey Raines was a particularly useless character in that her storyline was mostly confined to scenes at CTU, where the writers awkwardly tried to give her duties and tasks to perform in order to try and make it appear that she was actually being useful to avert the latest crisis at-hand.  She never ended up being a character who was out in the field helping Jack, the way Kate Warner in Season 2--and FBI Agent Renee Walker (Annie Wersching) in Seasons 7 and 8--did.  It was never really clear what Audrey's talents and skill sets were that warranted having her character work for the DoD, much less being involved in assisting at CTU, and the only times she was ever out in the field was when she was kidnapped and held hostage in Seasons 4, 5 and 6.  Because her character was so poorly defined in terms of what her job and abilities were, any of the functions that she performed while at CTU could have easily been filled by any of the other characters on the show.

As such, on a show where most of the characters are deemed useless unless they help propel the story forward, it becomes clear that Audrey's sole and only purpose of existing within the "24" universe is as Jack Bauer's love interest.  Her character never became a metaphor for the resilience of civilian America after 9/11, the way Kate Warner was, nor proved to be Jack Bauer's equal as a Federal Agent experiencing the same challenges and personal conflicts the way Renee Walker was in Seasons 7 and 8.  Audrey only exists on the show to be Jack's girlfriend, which would have been fine if she were actually a likeable and sympathetic character.  I never really liked the presence of Audrey in Jack's life because, by making her character so important in the fabric of the series, the producers undercut the significance of Jack's late wife Teri (Leslie Hope), who was tragically killed at the end of Season 1 by turncoat agent Nina Myers (Sarah Clarke).  By constantly harping on the notion that Audrey was purportedly "Jack's true love," the show tarnishes the memory of Teri, whose death symbolizes the terrible moment in Jack Bauer's life when things turned irretrievably out of control.  It would be the same, in regards to the James Bond movie series, as suggesting that any of the leading ladies who followed Diana Rigg's tragic Tracy, who marries George Lazenby's James Bond at the end of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969), were more important to Bond than Tracy ever was.  (Eva Green's marvelous Vesper Lynd in 2006's "Casino Royale" doesn't undermine Tracy's legacy because her character appears in the rebooted Bond series timeline that presumes Tracy never existed.)

Audrey Raines proved to be pretty useless even as a love interest.  In Season 4, her introductory season, she was already off-putting from the moment she arrived because she was wavering between both Jack and her estranged husband Paul Raines (James Frain) who, as it turns out, is actually a good and decent man who genuinely loves Audrey.  As the season progresses, Audrey's loyalties continually bounce back and forth between Jack and Paul and it becomes clear that Audrey is a wishy-washy individual totally lacking in strength of character who can't make up her mind who she wants to be with.  It didn't help matters that, before the scenario of Season 4 even began, Audrey and Jack had already been deep in their affair, which meant that viewers never really had a chance to slowly acclimate to this romance and they had to accept her wholeheartedly from the moment she was introduced.  It was as if the producers were sternly telling us, "This is the woman Jack loves.  Get used to it."  This "in-your-face" introduction of the Audrey character contrasted with the way Kate Warner was introduced in Season 2, and also with the way Renee Walker was introduced in Season 7.  In both cases, Jack didn't know either Kate or Walker at the start of the day and the audience had an opportunity to see the trust, caring and rapport that eventually developed between Jack and each of these women throughout those seasons.

But what really turned me off to Audrey Raines was how whiny, weepy and wimpy Kim Raver played her throughout much of her tenure on the series.  When "24" came to Washington, DC in 2007 to film Season 7, I approached Executive Producer Jon Cassar when they were filming near the Navy Memorial and asked him why they wouldn't bring back Kate Warner, even for one episode.  Mr. Cassar was generous with his time and we chatted for awhile.  The conversation turned to the Audrey character and I mentioned how a lot of fans in DC hated her because of how weepy and shamelessly emotional she was in Season 4, and that that set the tone for our dislike of the character.  Cassar attempted to defend Kim Raver's performance by explaining how the writers make up the story week-to-week, rather than having a established game plan for the direction of the stories.  He explained that the writers had inadvertently written one scenario-after-another which required Audrey to react in an emotional manner so that, by the time they realized that they had written one crying fit too many for her, it was too late and that the character had already been established as weak and self-indulgent in the minds of many fans of the show.  I never bought that explanation because, as an actress, Kim Raver could've chosen to play those scenes in a calmer, more collected manner if she was inspired and talented enough to think outside the box.

My opinion on this is influenced by the anecdote Lauren Bacall shared in her memoirs where she related how director Howard Hawks instructed her to train her voice to speak in a low, deep manner so that, if he ever gave her a scene that was very emotional, she could still play it with a deep voice.  Hawks' logic was that a whiny voice often reflects how a character has lost control of a situation.  If Bacall could play an emotional scene with a deeper voice, then it would show how her character was still calm and collected, despite the turmoil she is experiencing, and that that would demonstrate the strength of the character.  The purpose of this example is to illustrate how actors can approach how they perform a scene from a wide variety of perspectives.  It was obvious while watching Season 4 that Kim Raver never read Bacall's memoir.  If she did, she apparently learned nothing about the direction Hawks gave to Bacall in terms of how to modulate her speaking voice.  Raver could have chosen not to play Audrey in such a sniveling, weepy manner and she simply did not do that.  As such, Kim Raver must ultimately take the blame for the negative first impression she made as Audrey by choosing to play her from a such conventional perspective and for not finding ways to give the character more gravitas and authority by having her react to the crisis around her in a more mature manner.

There are people who felt her character had been "improved" when she returned in Season 5, but I felt that those were shallow and cosmetic changes.  Even if she wasn't crying as much as she was the previous season, she still rarely demonstrated any genuine sense of character or depth.  This was reflected in the scene in Season 5 where Audrey interrogates the working class woman Diane Huxley (Connie Britton), who Jack had been living with for months while incognito after having staged his death at the end of Season 4.  I recall how Audrey was unable to set aside her emotions about Jack and ended up asking Diane intrusive and personal questions--not necessarily to understand what had happened to Jack while he was in hiding--but to find out whether Diane was having an affair with Jack.  For someone who was supposed to be a DoD official, she demonstrated an utter lack of professionalism with the way she conducted that debriefing.  Moreover, as Season 5 progressed, as in the previous season, there really wasn't a strong raison d'etre for Audrey to even be around CTU, much less the show, anymore.  This is reflected in the fact that Audrey had dwindling amounts of screen time in the concluding episodes of both Seasons 4 and 5.  If she was truly an important character, she wouldn't have been relegated to the sidelines in the climactic hours of both of those seasons, left with only a handful of lines of dialogue in each segment.

I guess what I really don't like about the Audrey Raines character was the manner in which she and Jack turned out to be bad news together.  They may have been passionately in love, but they brought out the worst qualities in each others' personalities.  While Audrey was a mass of simpering, narcissistic self-indulgence in the context of her relationship with Jack, Jack turned into an illogical, emotional, sentimental mess where she was concerned.  Rather than inspiring Jack to rise to the occasion and be the best that he could be, her presence on the show made Jack selfish and self-involved at key moments, forgetting about the larger crisis at-hand and only concerned about whether he and Audrey would find happiness together.  This was exemplified by the subplot in Season 5 where it was suggested that Audrey might be a treasonous turncoat agent.  Rather than remaining objective about the situation, Jack's character went into a total meltdown in order to defend his lover against all suggestions she might be evil.  His own interrogation of her was not so much to learn about her alleged treachery, but to find out whether she was having an affair with someone else during the year he was in hiding.  I always applaud stories where characters are able to show their vulnerabilities and weaknesses despite their overwhelming strength, but these moments merely demonstrated the level of blind co-dependency that characterized this relationship.  Teri, Kate, and Agent Walker never distracted Jack in such a destructive manner.

The careless narcissism of the Audrey character is exemplified by her mercifully brief Season 6 story arc where she has become a catatonic mess after being captured and held hostage by the Chinese.  This occurred after she foolishly went over to China, without any assistance or backup, to try and negotiate Jack's release after he was captured by the Chinese at the end of Season 5.  So self-involved is her character that she never considers the dangers she has put herself, and those around her, in by embarking on such a dangerous mission alone.  Kim Raver's scenes in Season 6 demonstrate the extent to which both the show, and the Audrey character, had veered into camp territory.  Her frightened, childlike mannerisms and reactions to everything around her seemed to be an exaggerated metaphor for the character as a whole.  For the first time, I found myself amused by the character because of the bad writing and the absolutely terrible, dreadful acting on the part of Kim Raver that was involved in demonstrating Audrey's catatonia.  It's amazing how as useless a character as Audrey continued to survive when more sympathetic and/or compelling characters such as Agent Walker, Michelle Dessler, President Palmer and even the turncoat Nina Meyers all met their maker.  I still hoped that her character would be killed off that season--the last one to feature her so far--in order to rule out any risk of her ever returning to the "24" universe, but I guess Kim Raver has built up enough strong allies on that show that Audrey was allowed to survive at the end of that day. 

Which brings us to the upcoming "24: Live Another Day."  I really hope they resist their worst impulses and keep the Audrey character off of this miniseries.  There are plenty of other characters in the history of "24," other than Audrey, who would make valuable contributions to the new storyline.  (Carlos Bernard's Tony Almeida being one of them.)  While I hesitate to even hope that they would ever bring Kate Warner back, I would welcome them bringing Renee Walker back from the dead so that the underrated Annie Wersching can reprise that wonderful character and Jack's life can be redeemed by finally pairing him off with a woman who is his true equal.  The Audrey Raines character--and Kim Raver's uninspired, unsympathetic, and mediocre performance--demonstrate the worst aspects of "24" as a series, especially with regards to creating a weak, emotional, unprofessional, shallow, self-centered and narcissistic individual who simply reinforced negative and harmful stereotypes of the portrayal of women in the media.  Kim Raver's dreadful and pathetic Audrey Raines ranks with Kristian Alfonso's Pilar Ortega in Seasons 8 and 9 of "Falcon Crest" as my least favorite TV characters of all time.  Please, don't bring back Audrey Raines. 

Annie Wersching deserved the Emmy more than Cherry Jones for Season 7 of "24"

I've never taken the Emmy Awards seriously because they nominate the same people year-after-year and always reward the sort of socially relevant or redeeming programming that doesn't really reflect the best television has to offer.  I think this has something to do with the fact that Emmy voters, in a weird way, still appear to feel that their awards aren't as significant as the Tonys or the Oscars and, as such, feel that they must vote for do-gooder type of programming that they believe will help raise the prestige of their awards.  That's why, throughout the 1980s for instance, issue-oriented shows like "Hill Street Blues" or "L.A. Law" kept being nominated for, and winning, Emmys, while shows like "Dallas" were never in the running because it was considered a lowly prime time soap, even though "Dallas" in the long run proved its relevance with the way it still has a huge mainstream following decades later, reflected in healthy DVD sales, that warranted TNT reviving the show.  (You don't see "Hill Street Blues" or "L.A. Law" being widely discussed anymore, much less rerun anywhere, because I believe people don't care about them at all.)  As such, Emmy often gets it wrong in terms of who was deserving of being nominated and/or winning.

A good example of this occurred a few years ago during the 7th Season of the overrated "24" television series.  I used to be a big fan of "24" when it was on the air.  But, now that it is gone, I find that I have no interest in revisiting the series on DVD (except for the sublime Season 2 with the controversial Kate Warner character) because I realize the extent it was a purely plot-driven show, with no sense of consistency, logic, or respect for its characters.  When "24" began, it was an ensemble show with a fascinating core cast of characters.  However, over time, as the series began killing off its cast members, the only major character that remained throughout it all was Kiefer Sutherland's increasingly tiresome Jack Bauer character.  His "the-weight-of-the-world-is-on-my-shoulders" act grew really old, as did his extended 3-season relationship with the bland Kim Raver as the narcissistic and pathetic Audrey Raines.  "24" got pretty pretentious after awhile and took itself way too seriously.  But what really bothered me was the sense that the producers made the show up week-to-week without any real game plan in place as to the direction the stories were going.  This was reflected in the fact that characters would change on a dime from being good-to-bad, or vice versa, just to shock the viewers in a cheap way, and without any logic behind it.

However, in Season 7, after they got rid of Kim Raver's Audrey Raines once and for all, the show introduced a fascinating new leading lady to the series, the underrated Annie Wersching as FBI Agent Renee Walker.  The character starts out as a no-nonsense, by-the-book kind of individual who slowly, over the course of spending the day working with Jack Bauer to avert a terrorist threat upon Washington, DC, finds herself resorting to the sort of unorthodox tactics and interrogation methods that Bauer employs to get the information she needs.  Walker's moral dilemma made for compelling and exciting television.  Throughout the course of Season 7, she tortures a suspect recuperating in the hospital; holds a villain's wife and child hostage and appears to threaten to kill the child in order to make the villain reveal information; allows an innocent female civilian to undertake a dangerous mission so that Jack and Walker can pinpoint the location of one of the villains, which results in the death of that civilian; and ends the season torturing the mastermind behind the day's events in an effort to get to the bottom of who else is also involved.

 
For the first time since Sarah Wynter's Kate Warner in Season 2, Jack Bauer was paired with a leading lady who was out in the field with him risking her life to solve the day's crisis.  Wersching and Kiefer Sutherland had effortless chemistry that season which made you wonder why the producers kept harping on Kim Raver as being the only worthwhile love interest for Jack throughout Seasons 4 thru 6.  Walker was an interesting character because, throughout the season, Annie Wersching allowed you to see the emotional conflict and turmoil the character was experiencing between following proper procedures and protocol, and thinking outside the box in order to help save lives.  It was exciting to see how Walker wrestled with her evolving ruthless determination to do everything within her means, even to the extent of sacrificing her morality and viewing innocent individuals as expendable collateral damage, to avert the threat facing Washington, DC.  If Walker made any mistake, it was that she chose to torture arch villain Alan Wilson (Will Patton) at the end of the season after the crisis had been resolved when there was no impending threat to be averted.  There was no way for Walker to justify her torture of Wilson under those circumstances and her actions at the end of the season led to the character's gradual downfall leading into her grim fate in Season 8.  It was an unusually well-written and well thought-out character for "24" and Wersching was magnificent in it because she brought a subtle, low-key quality to Walker that continually underscored the character's intelligence and humanity.

A character and performance like this deserved Emmy consideration, but Wersching was strangely short-shrifted later that year when the nominations came out.  What was odd about it is that her co-star, Broadway actress Cherry Jones playing President Allison Taylor, was nominated for an Emmy in the Best Supporting Actress category, and won.  Throughout Season 7, I found the President Taylor character, and Cherry Jones' portrayal of her, largely flat and uninvolving.  The character often came off as a sanctimonious school marm, perpetually scolding all the other characters that they needed to behave nicely, and she just didn't seem credible as someone who is supposed to be the leader of the free world.  I thought Jones was really bland in the role.  I now recognize that this had more to do with the writers not giving Cherry Jones interesting enough material that season, because it was during the following season 8 when President Taylor suddenly turns ruthless in her determination to cover up Russian involvement with assassinating a Middle East leader (which would prevent the signing of a treaty that she has worked hard to negotiate) that I realized just how great an actress Jones truly is.  President Taylor suddenly had weaknesses and interesting nuances as an individual for Jones to explore, as opposed to playing an idealized archetype as she did in Season 7.  I had short-sightedly short-shrifted Jones during Season 7 as a stage actress whose talent didn't translate well on television, but during Season 8 I realized that Jones' Broadway credentials had genuine merit.

However, Cherry Jones wasn't nominated and didn't win for her superior work in Season 8, because she asked not to be considered since she apparently felt it was wrong to be in the running for a role she had already won for the year before.  I thought that showed a lot of professional integrity on her part, in order to open up the field of candidates who could be considered, but it seemed unfortunate that she won for the season she didn't deserve to win, and didn't win for the season that she should have.  I still believe Cherry Jones won for Season 7 because Emmy voters are always dazzled by actors with a Broadway, or feature film, pedigree.  Having hung around a few television actors in my lifetime, I always get the impression that they feel they are somehow "slumming" by working in the medium, and that only in "thee-uh-tah" can you do any sort of "real acting."  (I'm always saddened that these people can't recognize and appreciate the wonderful work they do in television.)  As such, because of what I perceive to be this sense of professional envy for Broadway actors, whenever someone from the stage does something on television, it seems like they are nominated for Emmys up the wazoo even if the actual performance wasn't all that interesting or notable.  A good example of this was the time when Ellen Burstyn was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Emmy for a 14 second performance in the HBO TV movie "Mrs. Harris" (2005), a controversial incident which led people to assume that Emmy voters didn't actually see her performance, and only nominated her by virtue of her name value as an acclaimed actress of stage and screen.

 
No disrespect intended to Cherry Jones (because she is a superb actress who deserved to win for Season 8) but I sincerely believe that her Emmy for "24" was due more to her Broadway pedigree than anything she actually did in Season 7 playing President Taylor.  Ms. Jones' work that season was competent and professional, but she was continually eclipsed each week by the subtle, superb work of Annie Wersching as morally conflicted FBI Agent Renee Walker.  Week-after-week, Wersching created a character who I was curious to see what was going to happen with next.  The places that the writers, and Wersching, took Walker throughout Season 7 was nothing less than breathtaking.  I have no doubt that, if Wersching had come to "24" with extensive Broadway credentials (rather than a year-long stint on "General Hospital"), she would have been rewarded with the Emmy nomination she richly deserved.  Since then, Wersching has had a prolific career guest-starring on "NCIS," "CSI," "Hawaii Five-0," and "Dallas," as well as the Lifetime TV movie "The Surrogate" (2013).  She continues to do good work on these shows, but deserves better roles.  One reason I wish Wersching had been nominated for an Emmy that season is because I feel it would have brought more luster to her career and given her even better career opportunities once her tenure on "24" ended.  Annie Wersching remains an underrated actress who deserves another shot at a good regular role on a hit weekly series that hopefully will be as interesting and challenging as when she played FBI Agent Renee Walker on "24." 

Why I'd rather hang out with Bryan Mills from "Taken" than Jack Bauer of "24" any day

While going through my DVD collection, I noticed the seasons of “24” that I owned.  I realized that, even though I loved, and was obsessed with, the show while it was in first-run airings on Fox, I had no desire to relive the series in reruns, except for maybe Season 2.  After you know all the plot twists and surprises, there actually is very little left to go back and enjoy because you never get emotionally invested or engaged by any of the people on-screen.  The characters are all plot devices that, with some rare exceptions, were never carefully thought out or consistently written since they were all malleable to the whims of the writers.  There was never a clear vision to them because they were susceptible to doing 180-degree turns if the lazy writers dictated it.  (Season 2 was an exception because it was the only one where the plot and characters had a clear and natural progression, and you were as engaged by the personalities and the relationships on-screen as much as you were by the skillful plotting.)

The one character who seemed to have a clear vision, Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), eventually became a pretentious bore and a drag to watch.  At first, it was appealing to watch a hero who was willing to make personal sacrifices for the greater good, who was ruthless in doing what he felt was right, blah, blah.  But, after awhile, he became a character who wallowed in self-pity due to the failures of the relationships in his life that were the consequences of his ruthless and short-sighted actions.  He was estranged from his daughter for much of the series, and spent way too much time obsessed with his “one true wuv,” drippy Audrey Raines (the mealy-mouthed Kim Raver).  He became an incredibly negative and heavy-handed character, and his “I-feel-the-weight-of-the-world-on-my-shoulders” act grew tiresome.  This was more damaging to the character and the show than the charges of fascism and brutality that were lodged against it by harsh critics.  It was a mistake to continually kill off main characters just for shock value and to narrow the focus of the series to Jack.  This meant that the emotions and tenor of the entire series rested on the unstable psyche of a character who was even moodier than Kay Hamilton (Andrea Leeds) in "Stage Door" (1937).  The show’s vision of Jack as a perpetually tragic figure makes it difficult to revisit it on DVD or reruns.  After awhile, it’s just not FUN to watch anymore.  I say this with great reluctance because I used to be such a devoted fan of the series. 

Despite some similarities, the Liam Neeson character in the thriller “Taken” is everything that Jack Bauer is not.  When I watched “Taken” for the first time in the theatres, I found myself comparing these two characters.  Bryan Mills, like Jack Bauer, is a ruthless agent who has participated in dangerous missions while serving his country and, as a result of focusing much of his attention on his career in the CIA, has an awkward relationship with his own teenage daughter.  (Interestingly, both men’s daughters are named Kim.)  But Bryan Mills has retained one quality that Jack Bauer has lost: hope.  Even with all he has experienced in the course of his dangerous career, he still finds things to enjoy in his life and is determined to repair his relationship with his daughter.  When the movie opens, we see Mills driving a cheap compact car and living in a dingy Los Angeles apartment.  Neeson does a wonderful job portraying Mills as an ordinary guy.  He works security at rock concerts for extra cash, and his attempt to impress his daughter with a karaoke player on her birthday is upstaged when his ex-wife’s wealthy husband gives her a horse.  But Mills hasn’t given up on himself and remains grounded and positive.  When his other former CIA colleagues show up for an impromptu BBQ, he still has the ability to relax and have a good time.  When the rock singer, whose life he has saved, offers to give his daughter singing lessons to repay him, he is clearly excited at the opportunity to give her something her rich stepfather cannot.  When his daughter is kidnapped while on vacation in Paris by Russian mobsters determined to sell her into white slavery, Mills is determined to get her back not merely because he loves her, and does not want to see harm come to her, but because he knows the potential still exists for good in his life as long as he can rescue her. 

Despite his brutality and ruthlessness, Liam Neeson infuses warmth, unexpected optimism, and a refreshing lack of pretense into Mills.  Neeson’s unconventional interpretation of the character helps to ensure that Mills never degenerates into sanctimonious self-importance the way Jack Bauer did.  At the end of “Taken,” when Mills rescues his daughter, he is finally able to give her something that her wealthy stepfather was unable to: her freedom.  Because the filmmakers of “Taken” paid as much attention to the logic and motivations of the characters as they did the action, this scene has more emotional impact than anything “24” or Jack Bauer were able to muster in 8 seasons.