Rewatching 24

[AntonyF]

I'm rewatching season one of 24. I remember being very into it back in the day, and I watched it all over the years through ups and downs.

It's amazing to think how revolutionary it was at the time. It is however showing its age quite a bit. I think their heavy use of technology probably helps the aging process compared to some shows that can be more timeless. It also looks surprisingly low budget for what feels like a big concept show. (I imagine it gets more money in later seasons.)

But something surprised me rewatching season one and I'm a third of the way through the season: I thought "This feels really post 9/11" and looked up the date and sure enough season one ran from July 2001 into 2002.

It became a favourite cliché of news organisations to describe everything as post 9/11, much like their current fixation is Gen Z. GEN Z WEAR HATS! GEN Z REFUSE TO EAT TURNIPS. GEN Z HATE BOATS. GEN Z HAVE SAVED CRUISE LINES. et al. Everything had to be tied back to 9/11 for a long time and it still crops up in articles.

It may be just coincidence, particularly as it started two months before the event.

But it just has that paranoid vibe. Danger. The enemy within. Anyone could be dangerous. Outside forces are working against US democracy. The cameraman looked a certain way, he must be up to trouble. Oh there's a mysterious bag someone has, what's in it and what danger is there? No actually it's someone in a position of power as part of a big conspiracy who's the danger.

I could just be conflating drama with real events and am no better than the editorials. But I do wonder how much the events of 9/11 fed into that 24 narrative as they were writing it.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I do remember Kiefer being interviewed around the time of S1’s release and saying that they changed quite a bit because of 9/11, though I don’t really remember the specifics. I think, however, in S2 and from then on, they really leaned into the war on terror- someone was sent to Guantanamo Bay in that season. And whereas Nina told Jack that one suspect would respond better to the threat of torture than actual torture in that season (and he took her advice) he enthusiastically embraced, er, enhanced interrogation from then on.

I think the show’s politics were interesting in that while it in many ways echoed the idea that America was surrounded by enemies and needed to take drastic steps to stop them, as often as not the bad guys were the military-industrial complex or neoconservatives. The second half of S2 was Jack trying to prevent a war based on false intelligence, for example. The “good guys” often did bad things - not just torture but things like killing Ryan Chappell or in one season where they were prepared to send a young girl to her groomer so as to get information from her.