11 Years After Its Finale, One of the Greatest Spy Thrillers of the 21st Century Is Becoming a Streaming Favorite All Over Again

In the early 2000s, 24 revolutionized the idea of must-see television. Airing on Fox in 2001, the spy thriller was successful by implementing the idea that fans could not miss an episode. 24 follows Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), an intense and uncompromising agent for America’s Counter Terrorism Unit. What set this story apart from others of its kind was the structure. Each episode takes place in real time, with only an hour elapsing. With 24 episodes to a season, each one tells its story over the course of one full day. Modern television could never get away with this model, which is perhaps why the show has become popular on Apple TV’s video-on-demand.

This format discouraged fans from missing an episode because time flies on the series. It was also helped by Jack’s endurance as he scrambles from one catastrophe to the next. The first season is a classic as Jack gets called into work because of a threat to the life of a presidential candidate, David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert), while simultaneously, his teenage daughter, Kim (Elisha Cuthbert), goes missing. These two events ultimately dovetail at the end of a breakneck-paced Season 1, where Jack loses practically everything. The show earned acclaim upon its release with a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. This momentum continued in a series that would be the start of the golden age of television.

‘24’ Defined Television of the 2000s

Immersive series of the aughts, such as Lost, would define the decade as far as television programming was concerned. These series had long seasons that compelled fan discourse. 24 maintained its unique structure throughout the series by establishing time jumps between seasons. Jack Bauer didn’t have a terrible day every day, just once every couple of years. Season 2 follows Jack 18 months after the gripping season finale, covering the threat of a nuclear bomb set to detonate in Los Angeles.

As the seasons progressed, some concepts would get more outrageous, such as Jack’s dependency on heroin, but the series was a hallmark of network television. It was so popular that it was the rare actor who did not make some sort of appearance during the life of the series. Many notable guest stars include Sean Astin, Annie Wersching, and Shohreh Aghdashloo. The series ran an impressive eight seasons before it concluded. It remained such a crowning achievement of television that Kiefer Sutherland returned to the role of Jack Bauer some years later. 24: Live Another Day was marketed as a limited series and ran for 12 episodes, and worked around this by only showcasing the most significant hours of Jack’s day. Mary Lynn Rajskub reprised her role as the fan-favorite Chloe in the series that aired in 2015.

24 is a relic of another time and a joy to revisit for fans. This innovative series encouraged others to take risks when it came to storytelling. Television had long been considered the budget version of film, but this was the time when attitudes were starting to change. Viewers keep coming back to these dramatic stories time and time again, which are available to stream or purchase.