Fox officially announce 24: LEGACY

It's 2006, right? No, it's 2016. I've checked my watch. But that hasn't stopped Fox turning back the clock today. They've announced the return of two defunct shows from their recent past, which we've been expecting to hear official confirmation of for many months now...

Fox favourites 24, PRISON BREAK and THE X FILES to return! Uh, maybe.

Do you ever get the impression U.S network television wish they could turn the clock back a decade or two? Speaking at the Television Critic's Association winter press tour, Fox Television chairmen and CEOs Dana Walden and Gary Newman announced the network was in a rebuilding mode, and have been discussing the return of some old hits...

Digital Spy: Life After Cancellation

Over at Digital Spy today, you can read my article about some of television's greatest stories of revival. I look at why each show was axed, what happened while it was off-air, how long each show was gone for, and the circumstances of their unlikely returns. (If you have any others to mention, of which there are many, please leave a comment over there!)

Digital Spy: 12 Fantasy Television Crossovers

Over at Digital Spy today, it's my latest article. This one fantasises about 12 "crossover" episodes of past and present TV shows, that would be extremely unlikely but incredibly fun to watch. Dexter meets Hannibal? Sherlock travels to Fargo? Justified visits True Blood? Click through to read more, and remember to share if you enjoy it!

SDCC 2014's Thursday panels: 24, COMMUNITY, HANNIBAL & PENNY DREADFUL

This year's San Diego Comic-Con is in full flow until Sunday, but chances are you're not there to enjoy it. But hey, the internet is your salvation! A lot of fans upload 'shaky-cam' videos of entire hour-long panels, so below are my pick of Thursday's events. (If you notice any of these embedded videos have been removed, or a better quality one becomes available, please let me know in the comments section below).

24: Will Jack Be Back Another Day?

Fox cancelled 24 in summer 2010, but it was revived this year for twelve-part "event series" 24: Live Another Day. It was set in London (for real) and halved the episode order, which kept the storyline much tighter. They even included a twelve-hour "time jump" in the finale, to end the season with the kind of denouement usually denied to the show because of real-time constraints.

24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY, episode 12 – '10:00PM – 11:00AM'

written by Manny Coto & Evan Katz | directed by Jon Cassar

Around this time in any prior season of 24, the show would be scrambling to keep the plot going by introducing fresh villains and a twist in the narrative, but 24: Live Another Day's wrapping up its shorter run. This story compression has been a boon for the show, preventing it making too many ridiculous decisions, and he finale delivered everything you could hope for. The best thing was how it managed to off-set the predictable nature of one-man army Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) saving the day, with unexpected and surprisingly poignant character moments.

24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY, episode 11 – '9:00PM – 10:00PM'

written by Robert Cochran & David Fury | directed by Jon Cassar

Owing to the 50% reduction of episodes for 24: Live Another Day, the storyline's benefited from giving us a concentrated blast of Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland) chaos, and I'm enjoying this climactic batch of hours more than the opening nine, in some ways. Until last week, 24LAD was telling a straightforward tale about a terrorist's widow with a vendetta against the President of the U.S, but now the narrative's fractured to involve the Russians, the Chinese, and Chief of Staff Mark Boudreau's (Tate Donovan) well-meaning treachery. It's great fun! I only wish Kate Morgan (Yvonna Strahovski) felt more central to the plot, as she's devolved into "Jack's buddy" since episode 5, now indistinguishable from previous action-girls like Renee Walker.

24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY, episode 10 – '8:00PM – 9:00PM'

written by Adam DaSilva (story by Robert Cochran, Manny Coto & Evan Katz) | directed by Milan Cheylov

Whenever 24 resolves its main threat earlier than expected, you usually end up with an entertaining but meandering batch of tail-end episodes before the finale. Does anyone remember what happened after that nuke was safely detonated in a desert mid-season 2? You just tend to lose interest when the driving force of the narrative vanishes, but keep watching because of momentum and, at best, to see how a few dangling plot-threads are tied up. Colour me impressed with 24LAD, then, which brought the hijacked drones situation to a close with Margot's last week, but appears to have evolved into an equally compelling threat that's tightening other sub-plots...

24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY, episode 9 – '7:00PM – 8:00PM'

written by Tony Basgallop & Sang Kyu Kim (story by Evan Katz & Manny Coto) | directed by Milan Cheylov

Bravo, 24. Perhaps because Agent Navarro (Benjamin Bratt) already escaped a seemingly inevitable death, and knowing 24's long history of doing unimaginable things, I went into this episode completely believing President Heller (William Devane) had been obliterated in a drone attack on Wembley Stadium. I should have know the writers had cleverly withheld information, as Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) actually had a plan to infiltrate the drone's HUD and send it a looped feed of Heller contemplating his demise on the centre spot. Was it remiss of 24's real-time format to have Jack presumably scheme while the audience was elsewhere? Maybe. But for the sake of delivering two jaw-dropping moments (Heller's death and "resurrection"), it was worth the underhandedness.

24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY, episode 8 – '6:00PM – 7:00PM'

written by Robert Cochran | directed by Jon Cassar

24 built its reputation on doing unimaginable things on television; either in terms of movie-standard stunts, but also plot-twists that proved genuinely shocking to audiences. I'm sure you have some favourite moments from the show's original run, and 24: Live Another Day delivered another in this excellent eighth episode.

24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY, episode 7 – '5:00PM – 6:00PM'

written by Tony Basgallop | directed by Jon Cassar

I'm going to stop assuming characters are dead when they're caught up in explosions or hit by buses, because there's too much wriggle room for survival! On that note, following her incident with London traffic at the tail-end of last week's episode, terrorist Simone (Emily Berrington) was rushed to the nearby St Edwards Hospital with life-threatening injuries. And this set the scene for another hour of 24: Live Another Day focusing primarily on one location, that managed to squeeze a lot of fun and excitement from a situation that, if we're honest, the show's done variations of many times before.

24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY, episode 6 – '4:00PM – 5:00PM'

written by David Fury | directed by Omar Madha

Well, I was wrong. Agent Navarro (Benjamin Bratt) didn't die in the blast that destroyed half a mansion in last week's explosive climax, but managed to walk away with cuts and bruises. And his survival enabled one of 24's most enduring clichés to return, because he becomes Live Another Day's first 'mole'. I had to giggle at the last-minute reveal that Navarro's a tarnished figure, as the shock-value of these things wore off years ago, but I can't deny it's a reliable way to stoke a dramatic fire. The fact Navarro helped frame Kate Morgan's (Yvonne Strahovski) husband for treason was actually a nice reveal, as his character's kindness towards her now rings completely false.

24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY, episode 5 – '3:00PM – 4:00PM'

written by Sang Kyu Kim & Patrick Somerville | directed by Omar Madha

A good litmus test for 24 is how the show fares when Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) only has limited screen time during an episode, and 24: Live Another Day pulled off its best episode so far, despite Jack literally sitting this hour out. It makes sense Jack's not going to be "active" every week, and it was great to see the rest of 24LAD's cast take up the slack so confidently.

24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY, episode 4 – '2:00PM – 3:00PM'

written by Patrick Harbinson | directed by Adam Kane

24: Live Another Day (hereafter 24LAD) swapped the inner-city for indoors this week, as another of 24's famous stand-offs came into play. Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) spent the hour evading capture inside a US Embassy swarming with trespassing British protesters, while trying to upload US pilot Tanner's (John Boyega) Flight Key to prove his story about terrorists plotting to hijack drones to assassinate President Heller (William Devane) and assault London.

24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY, episode 3 – '1:00PM – 2:00PM'

written by Sang Kyu Kim & Patrick Somerville | directed by Adam Kane

While I enjoyed last week's double dose premiere of 24: Live Another Day (hereafter 24LAD), it wasn't anything revolutionary nd probably won't enter the pantheon of great 24 openers. It actually felt like a throwback to the workmanlike early seasons, which is probably for the best in the long-run. 24LAD will only last a dozen hours, so it makes sense for the narrative and thrills to build exponentially as we progress through the story. The writers don't need to hook viewers as vigorously as before, because their investment of time is going to be much shorter. Unfortunately, that may partly explain why overnight ratings for this third episode dipped by 22% in the US...

Review: Fox's 24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY

written by Evan Katz & Manny Coto (9.1) & Robert Cochran & David Fury (9.2) | directed by Jon Cassar

You may want a refund on your Complete Series box-set, because four years after the clock ran out on tenacious CTU agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), 24's been revived for the Wikileaks era. 24: Live Another Day (hereafter 24LAD) is a "limited event series" consisting of just 12 episodes, thus allowing the storyline to leapfrog the dead time that littered its usual 24-episode run. But the opportunity for the characters to have a meal and use the toilet isn't the only innovation 24LAD brings to the table; as the crew are shooting on the actual streets of London (marking the first time production's left Los Angeles, ignoring the Africa-set Redemption TVM).

Is Fox's action thriller 24 the most influential TV drama of the past 15 years?

24 returns to airwaves on 5 May, when Fox's action thriller begins a new twelve-part story set in London, England. 24: Live Another Day finds Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) on the run in the UK, chased by the CIA, and fans are already salivating at the prospect of another real-time adventure with twists, shocks, moles, torture, betrayals, and large explosions... only with added shots of Big Ben, red telephone boxes, and Double Decker buses. But is this excitement warranted for a show that arguably ran its course, and was perhaps deservedly axed in 2010? Well yes, because there's a very real chance 24 is actually the most influential television show of the past 15 years, dammit...

Trailer: 24 - LIVE ANOTHER DAY (Full)

Fox have released a full trailer for the return of 24 in the "event series" Live Another Day, which gives us a much clearer look at the storyline and some of the new characters. They're not reinventing the wheel here, as it involved an assassination attempt on the US President (only in London), but I like the idea Jack Bauer's now a Jason Bourne-like thorn in the CIA's side, on James Bond's home turf. Tate Donovan also looks promising as the Chief of Staff, while the lovely Yvonne Strahovski's going to putting some of her Chuck training into overdrive. Oh, and Chloe appears to have been watching a little too much Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. No sign of Stephen Fry as the UK Prime Minister yet, which hopefully isn't a concern.

24: Live Another Day premieres 5 May on Fox.

Trailer: 24 - LIVE ANOTHER DAY

Fox have released the first trailer for 24: Live Another Day (the miniseries "event series" revival of their popular action thriller), which sees Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) defeating terrorists in London during a diplomatic visit from the President of the USA (William Devane). This is only a 34-second glimpse at the new show, but it looks comfortably familiar. I don't expect them to reinvent the wheel with 24:LAD, but perhaps they'll manage to grease some gears: thanks to the halved number of episodes (less filler, the opportunity to jump dull periods) and the location shooting in the real-life UK capital (the show has always filmed in Los Angeles, even when events were supposedly set in Washington D.C and New York).

What do you make of this trailer? 24: LAD returns 5 May on Fox, and soon after on Sky1 in the UK.