Sarah Clarke

It's been three years since CTU agent Jack Bauer thwarted a terrorist attempt to plunge the United States into war. Now he's back in L.A. after working undercover for six months bringing down drug lord Ramon Salzaar. But then the FBI receives a phone call threatening the release of a deadly virus in Los Angeles if Salzaar isn't released from prison within six hours. As CTU races to locate the virus, Jack realizes that the only way to prevent additional terrorist demands is to find the source of the virus - by breaking Salzaar out of prison himself.

Such a simple idea--yet so fiendishly complex in the execution. 24, as surely everyone knows by now, is a thriller that takes places over 24 hours, midnight to midnight, in 24 one-hour episodes (well, 45-minute episodes if you subtract the commercials). Everything takes place in real time, which means no flashbacks, no flash-forwards, no handy time-dissolves. Every strand of the plot has to be dovetailed and interlocked so things happen just when they should, in the right amount of time. Not that easy.

Jack Bauer is having another one of his "very bad days" in the second season of the groundbreaking real-time thriller 24. Once again the hours are ticking by with more guaranteed cliffhangers than a convention of mountain climbers.